Facilitator
Description
CEOs, Managing Directors, and General Managers must lead their organisations through disruption and an ever-changing world that demands adaptability, resilience, and energy on unprecedented levels. In this context, it is essential to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of your Executive Team to thrive and find opportunities in this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment.
The Executive Team Bootcamp is not a leadership course or training, but rather a focused review of the effectiveness of your Executive Team, identifying what is enabling it to perform and what is inhibiting it, and doing something about it.
Every executive leader has three sets of responsibilities they must fulfil concurrently:
Independent Responsibilities – functional roles
These are the things that are exclusively within each leader’s functional area of responsibility.
Dependent Responsibilities – targeted collaborations
These are the areas where Executive Team members must work in close collaboration with one or more of their colleagues, but do not require the input of all members.
Interdependent Responsibilities – the remit of the Executive Team
These are the collective responsibilities of the Executive Team which require high degrees of interdependence. This is the business of an Executive Team, for which they must take collective responsibility.
The most effective Executive Teams devote almost all of their meeting time and agenda to this.
Most Executive Teams get bogged down in functional independent and dependent priorities and so never make the leap to strategic effectiveness.
Over three sessions, team members will use robust feedback from the Lifestyles Inventory 360° feedback tool (LSI 1 & 2) plus a 1:on:1 professional coaching debrief to redefine what vulnerability and trust means around the Executive table. Team members will examine and coach each other on the leadership styles they use when things are going well and also those that emerge when they’re under the pump.
Then together you will identify and implement your answer to the great executive question - What is it, that requires us to come together interdependently and for which we are collectively responsible as a team?
Learning Outcomes
From your participation in this programme, you and your Executive Team will:
- improve individual self-awareness
- create a shared vision and language of what great leadership looks like at the Executive Team level and for the rest of the organisation
- use individual 360° feedback to understand what is currently enabling and/or inhibiting team effectiveness
- develop personal behaviour change plans that will be reviewed monthly to check progress
- build deeper trust and practise calling each other to account on constructive and defensive behaviours in the team
- clearly describe the three types of responsibilities (independent, dependent and interdependent) each Executive is responsible for
- articulate an Executive Team Charter that clearly defines:
- the Interdependent accountabilities for which the team is collectively responsible – the focus of the Executive Team
- how the values of the organisation play out in behaviour at the Executive table
- a schedule of Executive Team meetings (weekly, monthly, quarterly), each with clear purpose and focus, to support the strategic effectiveness of the Executive Team
- create a more cohesive and effective team with a clear remit, ready to bring your A-game to the table.
Content
The Executive Team Bootcamp is rolled out in three sessions over a six-week period, working through the following stages:
Session One (1 day)
- Establishing a shared vision and language of leadership for the Executive Team and wider organisation – what does great look like?
- Processing the individual 360° feedback from the Lifestyles Inventory (LSI 1 & 2) together and setting in place the mechanisms required to shift from good to great
Session Two (1-2 days depending on team size)
- Individual one-hour debriefs on the Lifestyles Inventory 360° feedback report for each Executive Team member
- Creating an individual behaviour change plan to address the feedback
- Team Fishbowl coaching – each leader sharing their individual plans and being coached by their peers
- Setting up a process for monthly peer coaching to create momentum and accountability
Session Three (1 day)
- Identifying the remit and focus of the team
- Defining those crucial few accountabilities that require the team to come together interdependently and for which the team is collectively responsible
- Articulation of an Executive Team Charter, identifying in behaviour, how the team will uphold the agreed values of the organisation, the interdependent accountabilities of the team and how this is reflected in the cadence (frequency, duration and focus) of Executive Team meeting.