The Role of a True Executive Team

One of the most critical distinctions that differentiate effective leadership between a senior
management and executive team level, is how they address the crucial Executive team
question:

What is it, that requires us to come together interdependently and for which we are
collectively responsible?

Navigating the transition from individual or functionally based accountability to organisation

wide accountability is a defining characteristic of effective Executives. Clarity on exactly
what is the business of the Executive team, is a hallmark of high performing executive
teams1.

Interdependent Responsibilities
Every Executive leader has three sets of responsibilities they must fulfil concurrently:

Independent Responsibilities
Those things that are exclusively within their functional area of responsibility

Dependant Responsibilities
Those areas where Executive team members must work in close collaboration with
one or more of their colleagues, but do not require the input of all members

Interdependent Responsibilities
The collective responsibilities of the Executive which require high degrees of
interdependence

Hackman, J. Richard (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press

High performing Executive teams are clear on what they are collectively responsible for that
requires a high degree of interdependence amongst its members. Importantly, these
responsibilities are limited and do not represent all things in fact a high performance team
distinguishes between the issues that need everybodys involvement from those that need
some members involvement; and where an individual expert is trusted to get on with it
and be personally accountable.

But most important of all, Executive teams organise themselves, schedule their time and
structure their meetings, such that they allocate the lions share of the time they spend
together, exclusively addressing the issues for which they are collectively responsible.

To be sure there is some review and reporting back on the dependant or independent
activities of members. At times Executives might also ask for input from their colleagues on
wholly independent matters, in the interest of generating new insights or solutions to
particularly challenging problems. But these functions are ancillary, incidental and occupy a
small proportion of the time of a high performing Executive (in low performing executive
teams, they often consumes all of it).

The focus of the Executive team

So what are these high level, interdependent tasks that are grist for the mill of the best
Executive teams? The answer of course is that its a function of many factors i.e. there is no
definitive list. Internal culture, external environment, the organisations strategy all
influence where the Executive should spend its time.

That said, some of the most effective teams weve worked with give a disproportionate
amount of time and energy to issues such as:
Clarity on why for what we do (purpose)
Creating a context and vision through a clear description of a desired future state for
the organisation

The Role of a True Executive Team Dattner Grant

 Defining, articulating, promoting and repeating the strategic direction of the

organisation
Regularly reviewing progress on strategic goals
Role modelling and leading through values
Defining structure, roles and accountability to support the strategy (eliminating
ambiguity)
Working across boundaries, integrating the operations of different parts of the
organisation
Representing the organisation to the outside world, linking it to the communities,
stakeholders, sector and world within which it operates
Being the antenna to the outside world, collecting information and scanning the
horizon for change
Encouraging spontaneity, flexibility and creativity
Accessing discretionary effort through effective motivation
Ensuring staff have the resources and information to get the job done
Influencing a whole of organisation approach to talent development

Standards of behaviour
As well as defining their purview as a team, high performing Executive teams adhere to a
number of key behavioural expectations, ways of being and working together that
differentiate functional from true Executive leadership. In essence these involve putting the
collective goals of the team, ahead of their individual functional goals2.

1. Check Your Hat at the Door

The role of the executive team is to manage the strategic and operational operation of
the organisation. When you're acting as a member of an executive team, your role is
exactly the same: to manage the strategic and operational activity of the organisation.
The organisation. Not your department.

Source: Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization on the Growth Track--and Keeping It There. Les McKeown,
Greenleaf Book Group Press (2014)

The Role of a True Executive Team Dattner Grant

When youre in an Executive meeting, you're not there to manage your department,
you're there to manage the organisation. You run your department the rest of the time.
The simplest way to look at it is this - when you come into Executive team meetings, you
check your functional hat at the door. Of course, you may have to put it on again if there
are specific decisions which require your subject matter expertise, or special insights
that you can give because of your functional knowledge but you'll find that this is less
frequent than you might expect.

The consequences of this is that you can expect to see the following in Executive team
meetings.

Everyone is expected to contribute to everything discussed, not just those matters

that fall into their functional ambit;

Everyone is required to help reach decisions that are for the better good of the
organisation as a whole, not just 'good for you'

2. Think Laterally, Not Vertically.

Until becoming an Executive team member, your key relationships in the organisation
are typically vertical: upward to your manager, and downward to your direct reports.
From the moment you join an executive team, your key relationships shift from the
vertical to the horizontal. As of then, your first and overriding commitment will be to
your peers - the other members of the executive team - not to your functional group.
Why? Because your key role will be to make decisions that are for the best of the
organisation as a whole, not just for your functional group. There will on occasion be
conflicts between what is good for your functional area and what is good for the
organisation as a whole, and when those conflicts occur, your commitment must be to
the organisation as a whole - represented by your executive team members - not to your
specific functional area.
This of course does not mean that you can no longer be loyal to your functional group. It
also doesn't mean that you cannot lobby for their best interests or represent their needs

The Role of a True Executive Team Dattner Grant

- indeed, you are expected to do just that. Being an effective member of an Executive
team frequently means using the word 'AND' instead of the word 'OR'3 e.g.

Keep all the existing loyalty you have to your functional team AND add an overriding
commitment to your executive team members.

Focus on delivering the key deliverables of your functional team AND place achieving
organisational goals above all else.

3. Cabinet Solidarity
Executive dialogue is vigorous and robust. People say what is on their minds, challenge
each other and the ideas presented, sometimes it gets heated AND when the discussion
is done and a decision is taken, the dynamic changes:
A cornerstone of the Westminster system of government for centuries, Cabinet
Solidarity means that no matter their personal position on an issue, once a decision is
made by the Executive team it is issued and upheld collectively. You can voice all of your
concerns and objections on any issue while its being discussed, but when a final
decision is made, it's made by all of us. When Executive team members leave the
meeting room, they stand side by side on decisions, indivisibly, jointly and fully
supportive of the decisions they make as a team.
The implications of this are important:

You don't get to second guess executive team decisions. You don't get to go into
a colleagues office (or worse still one of your own team) after a meeting and
pick apart any decision that has been made. You don't get to complain about or
undermine any decision that has been made, to anyone outside the executive
team meeting.

You don't get to obstruct, ignore, sandbag or avoid implementing any decisions
or their implications or consequences.

You do get to be a role model in implementing agreed decisions - swiftly, fully

and with enthusiasm, whatever your stance was when the decision was being
debated.

A key finding of Collins and Porras seminal book Built to Last, William Collins (1994)

The Role of a True Executive Team Dattner Grant

This doesn't mean that executive teams are infallible, or that people have to act
like robots and persevere with the consequences of poor decisions. Executive
teams make mistakes: sometimes a decision proves to have been the wrong one.
When that happens, any executive team member can bring evidence that a
decision needs to be re-thought - but only after an agreed period of supportive
endeavour, and only in a scheduled executive session.

In summary, a key transition from senior functional management to Executive team

membership involves going meta to what was previously your primary concern, the
successful fulfilment of your functional responsibilities.
Effective Executive teams focus their time, energy and attention on those few, critical issues
that require high degrees of interdependence and for which they are prepared to take
collective responsibility.
When youre acting as part of the Executive team, you should check your functional hat at
the door, work laterally rather than just vertically and ensure you model and uphold cabinet
solidarity around the decisions of the team.

Marshall Cowley
Dattner Grant
February, 2015

The Role of a True Executive Team Dattner Grant