Free Webinar
Introduction to The CEO + Leadership Team System
All of our CEO + Leadership Team programs are powered by Metronomics. Listen in and hear from our founder Michael Palumbos, talk "Why Metronomics"?
You'll also hear from the founder of Metronomics, *Shannon Byrne Susko, she will be teaching, What is Metronomics?
This is a great webinar for every person that takes on the responsibilities as head of company. You'll learn how to "grow up" your leadership team and get everyone aligned
and accountable.
*Not affiliated with Lincoln Financial Advsors.
KEY # 1. DEVELOP AN “A-PLAYER” LEADERSHIP TEAM
How do we help you Develop an “A-Player” Leadership team?
Almost 60 years ago, psychologist Bruce Tuckman conducted research into group dynamics theory, his research is still helpful today. His foundational research identified four stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.
Here’s a quick overview of the four stages:
Forming Stage- Team members come together, establish goals, and define their roles under the guidance of a leader. Communication is superficial as they focus on building relationships and understanding the team's purpose.
Storming Stage- Challenges to authority, management style, and the team's mission may arise. If roles and responsibilities are unclear, individuals might feel overwhelmed or frustrated causing friction.
Norming Stage- The team begins to resolve conflicts, establish norms, and develop a sense of cohesion. Members start to appreciate each other's strengths, collaborate more effectively, and establish shared values and goals through open communication.
Performing Stage- Members have a clear understanding of their roles, work seamlessly together, and leverage their diverse skills to achieve shared objectives. The focus is on problem-solving, making decisions, and delivering results.
Tuckman’s theory is the foundation of why we coach CEOs plus the Leadership team.
We’ve observed that as the CEO and leadership team grow:
- Business revenue and profits grow
- Company culture is enhanced
- Accountability and alignment become the norm
- Attracting and retaining top employees is easier
- Work - Life Balance is better
- It’s fun to come to work again
We’ve also learned that Tuckman’s theory shows a linear development for teams, and that’s never the case. Teams can go back and forth between storming and norming for years. They can reach the performing level, add a new team member, and their right back to forming.
When Covid-19 happened - every business around the world was pulled back to the forming stage. Team development is not linear which is why it’s often hard to determine where your team currently is and what needs to be done to move to the next stage.
That’s what we do! We help CEOs and leadership teams work through the phases of team development so they can more easily move to the next phase.
Key # 2. Create a culture of accountability
How do we create a culture of accountability throughout the entire organization?
In the realm of sporting events, a scoreboard is a fundamental aspect of the game. It prominently displays the score, remaining time, period/quarter, timeouts available, and players' foul count.
This scoreboard serves as a vital tool for players, coaches, referees, and fans alike. It allows everyone involved to have a clear understanding of where the game stands at that point in time, the teams' performance, and the impact of individual contributions.
Similarly, in the business world, an organization can establish a Company Scoreboard by implementing key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives and key results (OKRs), and progress tracking systems. This dynamic scoreboard provides real-time information on team members progress towards agreed upon goals; key marketing and sales metrics, financial results and operational performance.
Just as the scoreboard drives the game's competitiveness and motivates players to strive for victory, a business scoreboard fosters a sense of accountability, encourages productive performance, and guides the company towards success.
Your company's scoreboard should includes things like:
- One Page Plan - your company's strategy, goals, values, and the execution plan presented clearly and concisely on one page.
- Team member's individual plans, including their top priorities and metrics.
- Status of company priorities.
- A visual method to know how well team members are performing in order to promote accountability and ownership.
- A place to store meeting minutes as an ongoing record.
- Breakdown of quarterly goals and metrics into weekly sprint lanes.
Since we are talking about sports, let's talk about trading cards. Every sport has the foil packed trading cards for every player on the team. The trading card has their name, position, the team they play for, and all of their stats. It becomes very easy to identify the great players, regardless of whether you know the sport or not, by looking at their stats.
We don't call them trading cards in business (maybe we should?) but every position on your team should have a scorecard.
The scorecard would identify the following for each position:
- The Position
- Key Competencies
- Accountable Metrics
- Functional Accountabilities
- Company Values
Think about what it would look like to distill every job description down to the absolute core things that the person must handle on a day to day, month to month, and quarter by quarter basis. It would be easier to hire and the team member would know how they were doing in their job every single day.
This doesn't preclude people from helping out others or saying, "that's not my job", this is all about being very clear on what they are accountable for in their day-to-day position.
Key # 3. Be focused on head-of company requirements
How do we ensure the Head of the Company is focused on Head of Company activities?
Most family business CEOs are fighting fires and jumping into the day-to-day business to ensure that everyone is getting stuff done - GSD! Once you’ve built a strong leadership team the CEO should be focused on two things:
- Company Culture
- Company Strategy
Company culture is every CEOs number one priority. It resides at the intersection of core purpose, core values, and the companies vision for the future their Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).
Three questions every CEO should ask themselves:
What do I tolerate?
Are the company core values alive and well in your company? Do you hire based on core values fit? Do you fire team members that don't fit the company values?
What do I measure?
Are leadership team members accountable for specific KPIs or OKRs? Do all team members have access to the scoreboard so they can see how the rest of the team is performing? Do you hold team members accountable?
What's my impact?
Why does your organization exist? Beyond profit, what good do you do for your community? What challenging experience from your past shaped who you are and what you stand for?
It's hard not to succeed when CEOs relentlessly focus on ensuring that everyone in the organization know the answers to the above questions and add to the company culture.
When It comes to building a strong company strategy we want you to think about this one simple, but powerful phrase:
Don’t be a beige sock company!
Though several years ago now, a famous commercial made waves during a football game when a well-known actor walked into a closet and held up a pair of beige socks in one hand and polkas dot "sock puppet" on the other. He challenged an ordinary business man dressed all in beige, looking for his beige socks, to avoid the blasé and have some "pizzazz" or else he may be devoured by others willing to stand out.
In other words, don't compete to be the best...compete to be unique. Make sure your company's strategy allows you to standout.
At Family Wealth & Legacy, our approach focuses on helping clients to embrace their uniqueness and stand out from the competition. We firmly believe that every company can find the five to seven attributes of their industry and combine them in a manner that makes them unique.
Say goodbye to beige, take the leap, and let's rock those colorful fun socks together!
Together, we will redefine your vision for the future, team alignment, function accountabilities, and layout an execution plan for future success.
Join our virtual study group where CEOs and their leadership teams meet monthly to learn about and implement Metronomics, share successes, and discuss issues along the way.
Accelerate your company's growth with a customized coaching program designed specifically for your company. Every customized program is led by a certified coach that will guide you and your team through every step of scaling your business.