Introduction

It is understood that successful businesses rest on successful teams, and that stable and creative teams depend on people.  Considerable resources are thrown at these areas – strategy consultants advise on business strategies; a plethora of consultants offer team building processes; HR functions and external resources offer personal development courses.

But much of this expensive effort is less productive than it should be.  This is because these areas are seen as (and generally managed as) posing separate sets of problems.

Solutions in each area, like a course of antibiotics, tend to be taken as medicine to relieve acute symptoms and then forgotten when the symptoms pass.

The heart of my service is a programme which works at all three levels – strategy, team and the individual – to achieve a lasting and dynamic improvement in corporate health.  The programme is customised to meet the needs of each case.  It is non-confrontational and supportive.  It delivers improved performance.

The service is particularly effective at times of rapid change in a competitive environment when the pressures on an executive team are greatest; when senior teams have changed eg. due to M&A activity; when new individuals join the top team eg. through recruitment or promotion; or when a team has been together for some years and needs to be re-energised.  In certain circumstances, a service is offered to one individual in a team who faces particular challenges or issues in his or her career.

The full process rarely takes less than 12 months but the effects are long lasting.

Characteristics of Successful Businesses

This is not a business school textbook.  However, what most of them say in one way or another is that  businesses succeed because they get all (not just four or five) of the following things right:

1. An understanding of core competencies and skills.  Understanding does not mean listing attributes.  It means clarity, precision and realism about the human, physical, technical, financial, cultural and other assets of a company at a point in time, and its ability to utilise them.
2. A strategy which uniquely leverages these skills relative to what competitors are doing.  Competitive differentiation, which is usually only wafer thin and is the difference between making a living and creating wealth, is a highly creative art, generally requiring the synthesis of input from many sources, external as well as internal.
3. Leadership which, despite natural tendencies to compete internally, inspires and motivates people to work as a team, to outperform, to add value even in the areas inaccessible to those supervising them.
4. Implementation of the strategy which is clear, bold, undeflected by the distractions of the world yet flexible where necessary.  Courageous and single-minded without being fool-hardy and bloody minded.
5. Management of growth, often rapid growth, which comes with success.  The most successful companies of all have the ability to re-invent themselves, to start the cycle over again and again, to grow through many generations of managers.

Businesses and Teams

At the top of every successful business is a successful team.  At any point in time the team is the business.  Chairmen and CEOs know that the key is to get the team right.  And if the characteristics of a successful team are examined, they are strikingly similar to those of a successful business set out above.

This is not a coincidence.  Healthy, functioning teams understand their core skills with realism and clarity.  They are able to debate openly, constructively and productively with each other to develop their ideas and initiatives.  They understand that they achieve more as a team than as a group of individuals.  They support each other in bad times, being most supportive when mistakes are made, and celebrate the success of others.  They are tough but flexible, hard to divert but creative and responsive to change, stable and committed to each other.

Teams and Individuals

Just as successful teams underpin successful businesses, so the best teams are made up of individuals who are aware of their gifts, limitations and skills; who are courageous and single-minded without being foolhardy and bloody minded; who can contribute to debate but not dominate it; who can motivate others by their example; who respect their colleagues but are not afraid of them; who want to succeed but understand something of what it means to succeed and grow.

The same pattern can be seen. The qualities of successful businesses, powerful teams and productive individuals resonate one to another.

Working with Businesses, Teams and Individuals
It is not easy to improve the extent to which a group of individuals pulls together as a team, a team functions as a business unit and a business grows faster.  It is particularly difficult unless the issues are tackled with an understanding of their relationship to one another.  The best strategies may fail for lack of teamwork – politics and turf wars break out or a key player leaves.  The best teams may fail because of individuals – inappropriate behaviour disrupts the group.  Individual blindspots prevent progress.

Significant improvements in individual, team and business performance can however be secured by an approach that addresses these areas simultaneously in a sustained process working both at individual and team level.  The outcomes are senior executives who are more aware and committed as individuals; teams which are more productive and stable; and businesses that benefit accordingly from more of the characteristics which drive success.

What is the Process?

The process is designed primarily for senior executive teams (ie main Board level or the Board of an operating division).  It is important the whole team participate in the process and commit to see it through.  In certain cases, a separate service can be offered in respect of key individuals where specific issues are causing concern in an otherwise well functioning team.

The details of the process are customised in the light of each case and refined throughout.  In outline, the key elements are:

• A review with the Chairman or CEO (whoever is going to oversee the process) of current business and management issues and concerns.  As a result of this meeting, broad objectives for the process will be agreed and an outline timetable produced.
• One to one meetings with each member of the team to assess their perspective on themselves, the team of which they are part and the business.
• A preliminary report to the chairman or CEO covering the issues arising from this preliminary round of discussions and suggesting any refinement thought appropriate to the objectives and timetable of the process.
• A series of group sessions with the team, beginning with a three day intensive group meeting (for which all accommodation is provided) followed by a number of shorter (36 hour) off-site group sessions interspersed with continuing one to ones with each individual member of the team.
• Assessment of the extent to which initial objectives have been met and the definition of follow-up action as necessary (at this stage sometimes involving other consultants to deal with specific issues).

Timetable and Costs

This process rarely takes less than 12 months in all although it is common for significant progress to made in the early stages.

Costs are agreed on a case by case basis and always incorporate some element of performance payment (ie some amount is left to the discretion of the client depending on his assessment of how far agreed objectives have been met).

Outputs

A senior team in which individuals are fulfilling more of their potential, are more committed to the team and a business benefiting from the conditions necessary for commercial success.