The Chemistry of Strategy. John W Myrna

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than the plan itself. It’s likely that any of the members of the executive leadership team could create a reasonable plan. But, for a plan to be implemented, each member of the executive team has to understand, agree, and internalize not only what the plan is but why they’re taking this particular course (and not the many possible alternatives). The process is the catalyst that activates the plan.

       CHAPTER SUMMARY

       The Chemistry of an Executive Leadership Team

       What are the major concepts in this chapter?

      

Each team member must develop trust in each other’s character, competence, and caring.

      

Each team member must provide strategic leadership, effectively communicating what the strategy is, why that is the strategy, and coaching people on how to implement it.

      

Each team member must understand, support and defend each other within the team and outside it.

      

The executive leadership team is also characterized by their balance of competing passions. There must be advocates pushing the strategic themes of growth, risk, sustainability, and productivity.

      

The executive leadership team needs to be a balanced group of five to twelve members with sufficient strategic and tactical understanding of the business to shape strategy.

       Why are these major concepts important?

      

Everybody in the company contributes to success.

      

Failure is the exclusive responsibility of leadership. (Doing the right things adequately will always let you outperform those who are doing the wrong things well.)

       How can you apply these major concepts?

      

Commit to a formal strategic planning process that fosters team development and chemistry. For example, “we will utilize a formal strategic planning process with regular follow-up.”

      

Identify key new strategic executive positions that need to be filled over the next five years as the company evolves. For example, “we will recruit/develop senior executives in Finance – CFO, Marketing – CMO, and International Sales.”

      

Practice what you preach by insisting on following the roles in strategic meetings.

       Participants’ Role

      1.Look at the organization through the eyes of the CEO.

      2.Represent the organization, not yourself, not your people, not your department, not your function.

       CEO’s Role

      1.Act as a participant, not as the “omniscient individual.”

      2.Suspend your usual problem-solving and “time-saving” operating mode.

      

Practice what you preach by insisting on following rules that develop trust, consensus, and commitment in strategic meetings.

      

Abide by the ten rules for productive meetings

      1.Listen actively.

      2.Speak up and say what needs to be said – there are no sacred cows.

      3.Focus on solving problems rather than placing blame or being defensive.

      4.Respect differences of opinion.

      5.Avoid cheap shots.

      6.Stay focused.

      7.Add only new information to the discussion. Don’t flog a dead horse.

      8.Permit only one discussion at a time.

      9.Silence implies understanding and agreement.

      10.Finish with consensus and commit to action.

      1A note about lists. Too often people ascribe unintended meaning to lists. For example, most people will assume that the first name in a distribution list is more “important” than the last name. I use a simple convention. If the order isn’t important, I sort the list alphabetically – as is the case for this list.

       Chapter 3

       Team Planning: The Catalyst for Successful Strategy

       “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

       Peter Drucker

       “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

       Yogi Berra

      “Where do you want to be five years in the future?” I was facilitating a firsttime strategic planning meeting for a high tech company that had hit a wall.

      “That’s a question we’ve never been asked before,” Lee, the CEO remarked. The executive team members, being mostly technical people, started calculating. “If we continue to grow at the same rate we have every year, then…”

      “No!” I exclaimed. “Where do you want to be in the future? I’m not asking for a forecast, projection, or fantasy number.” As I went around the table, asking each person in turn to answer the question, we discovered the solution to the mystery of the company’s dysfunction. Casey, the director of development, envisioned a small, private, craftsman-like company based in one location. Mark, the director of sales, saw their future as a large, public company with multiple products. Mitchell, the operations manager, visualized multiple manufacturing locations around the world. Jaime, the controller, just wanted the company to be profitable. Every day the executive leadership team was making decisions shaped by their individual visualization of the future, a future where the company was simultaneously big and small, private and public, physically concentrated and spread across the globe. Was it any wonder that as each of these executives drove toward what they thought was a shared vision of

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