When people are asked to define culture, they often think of it as soft, fuzzy people stuff. But it’s so much more than this. It’s both how things work and how your business or organisation functions. It affects every aspect, and is grounded in patterns of thinking and relating that tell people how to behave.
Productive and constructive patterns provide a positive force that can help propel your organisation to success through honest and open communication, creative collaboration, trust, care and respect.
On the flip side, destructive patterns create a toxic environment of self-interest, exclusion, secretiveness, mistrust and defensiveness. And with people unwilling to accept accountability for mistakes, a culture of blaming and shaming can ensue.
With these patterns starting at the top, and the clear impact they have on the health of an organisation, it’s imperative that the Senior Leadership Team face potential dysfunction to focus on teamwork and set the tone for how all employees work with one another.
But when leaders have conflicting priorities, agendas and personalities, how can you bring them into a space where they operate cohesively?
While there are many aspects to building team cohesion, the key to all of it is building trust among team members and a trusting and psychologically safe environment where they feel safe to admit weakness, to ask each other for help, to share ideas and opinions, and to offer feedback without the fear of being judged or rejected by their peers.
The Centre for Creative Leadership recently conducted a survey with senior executives to explore the struggle many senior leaders feel in balancing the need to run their individual business areas with the need to work together as a team to focus on the success of the organisation.
They found that 65% experienced this clash of responsibilities and only 18% rated their team as “very effective” regarding their senior executive team responsibilities.
Further, 97% agreed that increased effectiveness of that team would have a positive impact on organisational results, and many could see the benefit of having a highly functioning team that intentionally acted together.
According to Harvard Business Review, study after study have shown that teams are more productive and creative when they achieve high levels of participation, cooperation, and collaboration among members.
Achieving this, especially in a senior leadership team with competing priorities and agendas, however, is no easy feat.
Grant Fuller, Health & Safety Manager, McConnell Dowell | Mordialloc Freeway Project, reflected on the immense growth that has occurred within his team throughout the program, which has seen them evolve into a highly cohesive team characterised by mutual trust and a central purpose.
After working with Lysander, the Health and Safety team assembled to look at their roles and responsibilities, and used the Team Cohesion Pyramid to examine trust and conflict. They then used this knowledge and discussion to create a WHY statement, which was ‘to promote a cohesive and supportive environment that enables a positive culture through mentoring and support’.
This statement summarises their unified purpose and beliefs, and is now referred to at the start of every meeting in order to guide decision making. Grant further reflected that following these efforts trust became extremely rich within the team and they are now ‘ten times stronger’.
In their Integrated Approach, Lysander worked with an industry which was heavily male dominated and relied on autocratic, traditional styles of leadership. Lysander helped the Senior Leaders have conversations and robust debate in a constructive way to arrive at a cohesive group of people who ultimately established trust-based vulnerability and found a way to work together where they could talk openly about important issues and create a shift towards productive leadership styles.
Review The Integrated Approach and Lysander’s website to see how they achieved this and consider what support you might need to start having the real and robust conversations that affect true change to your organisational health.
Just because you’re a team, it doesn’t mean that you’re a cohesive team. Hard work needs to be done to learn how to trust each other, to learn how to have robust discussions, and to create an environment where everyone is on the same page, working towards the same results.
This means having a senior leadership team who:
Trust each other and feel psychologically safe
Have robust conversations and participate in deep dialogue rather than surface level
Leave their ego at the door and allow everyone to have a voice
Remain aware of the impact of their behaviour and the shadow they cast on others
Awaken possibility in others to deliver extraordinary results
Make un-selfish decisions aligned to the organisational vision rather than decisions based on self-interest or politics
Assume best intentions in one another rather than assuming motives when they disagree
Consistently behave in a way that is aligned with the organisational values and vision
Reflect, review and learn effectively, listening to feedback with positive intent
Feel safe to say what they think and openly discuss issues
Willingly share knowledge and expertise
Work together on real strategic problems and opportunities to create solutions rather than just being operationally focused
Own the decisions made
Call To Action
Leadership teams with strong cohesiveness show these traits:
Resolve conflict quickly
Develop ‘rules of engagement’ to help your leadership team avoid conflict and allow quick conflict resolution when it does occur. Increase communication amongst the group, and make feedback mandatory to encourage collaboration and help to resolve conflict immediately.
Develop a strong sense of ‘we’
Encourage leadership team members to share their perspectives and be receptive of others’ ideas. Allow everyone to play an active role so no-one feels left out, or like they’re contributing more than others. Learn each other’s’ stories.
Get to know each other, as you work to develop a common vision of the group’s goals. When everyone is committed to working on behalf of the team rather than themselves, the team will work better together.
Encourage personal accountability
Empower leaders to take personal accountability for the work they are responsible for, and value everyone’s contribution. Encourage leaders to be honest about their efforts and progress, and to speak up when they are unable to meet deadlines or achieve goals. Help leaders to identify potential gaps in skills and offer development where needed.
Prioritise organisational goals
Define the leadership team’s goals and values, to avoid getting distracted by competition or diverse points of view and help your leaders maintain their focus on your organisation’s objectives. Celebrate successes and evaluate failures to determine how to avoid repeating those mistakes.
Build a high level of trust
Emphasise inclusion and model showing trust first. While there is no ‘quick fix’ to building trust within a team, addressing the previous points will contribute to this aim.
Teach safety instead – the first step toward trust is feeling safe in the environment to trust. Encourage leaders to adopt behaviours that provide a safe environment for others to develop their trust.
Taking it Further
If your Senior Leadership team is already working as a cohesive unit, look at how they are aligned around building a healthy organisation.
We know that a single, visionary leader can’t achieve culture change on their own. They need the support of a committed leadership group, working together on a transformation agenda.
Review their shared strategy in line with the page Build Clarity Around Desired Culture.