Professional Documents
Culture Documents
- THE CONSEQUENCE OF
GOVERNANCE AND THE
TEAM AT THE TOP
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CULTURE - THE CONSEQUENCE OF GOVERNANCE
AND THE TEAM AT THE TOP
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has the overall responsibility for the
administrative and operational activities of an enterprise, and is
accountable to the board of directors, which in turn is accountable to the
shareholder investors. Collectively, the CEO and the board comprise the
Governance function, from which all constituencies expect leadership, and
to which the investors look for results. Top management consists of
executives with major areas of authority and responsibility for functional
or business units, supported by other managers, supervisors, and staff.
If the CEO is an effective leader, the enterprise will follow, and the
appointed leaders will be respected. If not, emergent leaders will develop
from within the organizational units based upon needs.
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The CEO must strive to ensure that the organizational units and the
individuals within them are aligned with the values, mission, vision, and
value proposition of the enterprise, and with each other. Alignment is a
function of leadership - the ability of the CEO to:
Ideally, the enterprise is one team with shared values and vision. In reality,
the notion of an enterprise as a team is hard to achieve, especially in large
institutional enterprises. Teamwork is harder to establish at the top of an
enterprise than at the bottom because of competition between
organizational units. Even though the leaders may preach teamwork, it
will be hard to achieve if the performance evaluation and compensation
policies reward individuals over teams and the enterprise itself.
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For individual contributors, the weightings skew towards personal
contribution. For salespeople who are operating truly autonomously, the
variable component should be high to stimulate continued performance -
periodically raising the bar for expected performance helps too. Incentive-
based competition should always be encouraged among salespeople,
provided such programs are not detrimental to the enterprise and other
individuals within it.
For those that influence the ability of the enterprise to achieve its
objectives and goals, the weightings should be blended. Compensation for
executive management should be heavily incentive-based, reflecting both
the performance of their organizational units and the enterprise as a whole.
Unless the enterprise attribute has a significant weighting, it is difficult to
encourage teamwork at the top. Almost all of the CEO's compensation
should be incentive-based, solely reflecting the performance of the
enterprise.
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The CEO can take several actions to build teamwork within the
management and throughout the enterprise:
The CEO must encourage the executive team to take the same actions and
cascade the process throughout the enterprise. When the team at the top
"lives the values" and "walks the talk," role models will emerge from
which a positive culture will form.
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For more information...
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About Nigel A.L Brooks...
www.nigelalbrooks.com
www.bldsolutions.com
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THE BUSINESS LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
13835 NORTH TATUM BOULEVARD 9-102
PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85032 USA
www.bldsolutions.com
(602) 291-4595