Executive Team Building and Culture DevelopmentWould you like to:

  • Leverage team and organizational strengths for peak performance
  • Integrate major change efforts and development initiatives
  • Build a foundation for significant and sustained culture change
  • Re-energize and refocus the executive team
  • Build cascading change coalitions and robust implementation infrastructure

Last week I delivered a 60 minute webinar on Executive Team Building and Culture Development. I gave a high-level overview of:

  1. Culture Ripples Out From the Executive Team
  2. Common Failure Factors
  3. Retreat Configuration Options
  4. Typical Retreat Foundation
  5. The Payoffs of an Executive Retreat
  6. Next Steps/Options

In their study, “Cracking the Code of Change” published in Harvard Business Review, Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria reported “Most of their initiatives — installing new technology, downsizing, restructuring, or trying to change corporate culture — have had low success rates. The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.”

Like a gnarled root system, common causes of failure are intertwined with personal, team, and organizational behaviors and conditions. BUT… the executive team models behavior patterns that set the tone and example for the entire organization.

When executive teams are less than extraordinary their lower effectiveness can often be traced back to a few of these dysfunctional behaviors:

  • Opposing views unsaid at meetings cause disagreements to go underground
  • Complaining, criticizing, and talking about each behind member’s back
  • Difficult feedback not given directly to that person
  • Healthy debates avoided because of disrespectful undertones and “humorous” pot-shots
  • A few  vocal executives hog airtime and dominate discussions
  • Lack of response or silence mistaken as agreement

Click on Executive Team Building and Culture Development to view the webinar. Here are links to other topics covered in the webinar: