Getting a Struggling Senior Team "Unstuck"

After several years of more than 60% annual growth, a leading life science company was struggling to define "what's next?" An aligned team effort was more critical than ever, however the senior management team was struggling to make important business decisions, leaving most of them to the CEO. Senior managers were continuing to act according to personal agendas, often undermining each other's efforts.

Beginning to take responsibility for team results
Our discovery made it clear that the managers needed start seeing the senior team, not their functional/division teams, as their "First Team". This current mindset was leading to fragmented decision-making and planning that was optimized for different goals. The diagnostic also indicated a set of supporting mindsets and behaviors that were keeping this dynamic unaddressed.

What we did:

• Conducted a thorough diagnostic including 25-30 interviews with senior leaders, focus groups and an extensive organizational survey
• Created a development agenda for the senior team that focused on 3 key areas of behavior change to improve their functioning and effectiveness
• Worked both on and off-site over the course of a year to help the team move past conflict and lack of trust to truly debate tough issues and land on decisions they could all get behind
• Coached and developed senior team and individual leaders in one-on-one and group meetings
• Helped leaders strengthen the teams below them on targeted issues

Shift in leadership
The quality of participation in senior team meetings improved dramatically throughout the engagement. Furthermore, not only did they increase their own effectiveness, interviews indicated they were also able to truly motivate and inspire the organization at a critical time in their business.