Executive Teams

"What Makes a Decisive Leadership Team? (Collection)"

This is a collection of 4 articles which all focus around what makes a successful and positive executive team. The first article, “Stop Making Plans; Start Making Decisions” by Michael C. Mankins and Richard Steele focuses on how to turn insight into action during strategy meetings. It encourages organizations to spread strategy review throughout the year rather trying to squeeze them into a short 2-3 month time. The authors suggest that executive focus on one strategic issue at a time until a final decision is made.  The second piece “Stop Wasting Valuable Time” by Michael C. Mankins recommend that leadership teams move issues off of their agendas as quickly as possible by developing clear time tables. This time table should detail when and how a team will make a decision and who will approve the final strategy. This will help executive tams get the most out of their meetings and not waste time. The next article “What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions” by David A. Garvin and Michael A. Roberto suggest that in order to improve your leadership teams decisiveness, master the “three C’s” of decision making. 1. Foster constructive conflict 2. Demonstrate consideration 3. Bring the decisions process to closure. The last article “How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight” by Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy, and L.J. Bourgeois give guidelines for fostering constructive conflict. These authors suggest that teams evaluate a range of alternative when making decision in order to explore all options. Questioning the team often leads to some of the best solutions.

1.  Bourgeois, L.J., Kathleen Eisenhardt, David A. Garvin, Jean L. Kahwajy, Michael C. Mankins, Michael A. Roberto, and Richard Steele. "What Makes a Decisive Leadership Team? (Collection)" Harvard Business Review on Point (2005): 1-46.

"Executive Team Leadership."

Kaplan argues that the single most important aspect to create a strategy-focused organization is the ownership and involvement of the senior team. This article points out how to create a highly successful and motivated senior team. The first part it covers is building executive teams and what this process looks like. It also takes a look at how many different leadership styles there are and which ones work best. The piece also includes a variety of case studies that give a more in depth look at how successful senior teams work.

2.  Kaplan, Robert S. "Executive Team Leadership." The Balanced Scorecard: Harvard Business School Publishing (2000): 1-5.

"The Morning Meeting: Best-Practice Communication for Executive Teams."

This article has identified two common themes in organizations that are struggling: chronic communication problems within the executive team and a lack of shared accountability. These authors argue that a new way of meeting can significantly increase executive team effectiveness; the morning meeting (TMM) has delivered significant payoffs to organizations. This piece offers guidelines as to how this meeting should be run. At these meetings anything can be put on the table to be discussed and it is a good time for issues to be addressed. TMM is about communication but imbedded within it are the norms and values that are critical for organizations that must deal with difficult issues.

3.  Linsky, Marty. "The Morning Meeting: Best-Practice Communication for Executive Teams." Harvard Management Communication Letter (2006): 1-5.

"Building and Leading Your Team."

This is a check list for leaders to follow in order to build and manage teams. It was developed by Linda Hill who is a professor at Harvard Business School. She developed this list for senior leaders as well as leaders in all levels.

4.  Michelman, Paul. "Building and Leading Your Team." Harvard Management Update (2005): 1-3.

"Mobilize Change Through Executive Leadership."

With an ongoing study of organizations that have achieved great performance, this article has identified six characteristics that are required to mobilize change. The first is top leadership sponsorship, meaning that the top executive is actively involved and engaged in the organization. The second is the case for change is clearly articulated; it must be understood that effective strategy execution involves the entire organization. The third practice that is necessary to mobilize change is getting the leadership team engaged. The fourth requirement is to make sure vision and strategy are clarified because mobilizing change requires a clear mission, vision, and strategy. The fifth necessity is to make sure the new way of management is understood through out. Finally, it is essential that a program manager be identified during the mobilization phase. The program manager must be qualified and be able to implement the specific needs of an organization. 

5.  Norton, David P., and Randall H. Russell. "Mobilize Change Through Executive Leadership." Harvard Business School Publishing (2005): 1-7.              

"Ambidextrous Teams."

This piece suggests that for an organization to be successful they must create distinct units that are tightly integrated at the senior level. In order to achieve a positive results for the company, it is important that businesses have the ability to asses the past and look forward to the future.  According to the authors, this mental balancing act is one of the biggest managerial challenges. This article examines how actual it is for companies to pursue innovations that are beyond their current products and markets. It takes an in depth look at successful ambidextrous organizations such as USA Today and Ciba Vision. They highlight the fact that companies like these have ambidextrous senior leaders who can adapt to different kinds of business, exploit the present, and explore the future.

6.  O'reilly, Charles, and Michael L. Tushman. "Ambidextrous Teams." Harvard Business Review (2004): 1-8.