Whenever an executive leader tells me their team is too busy to spend time on building team cohesion, I think:
You are
choosing
poorly.
This is our dog, Olive, forlornly staring across the road to where her BFF Hailey lives.
Most mornings around 8:30 Hailey comes over to play. (Hailey, also a dog, has free reign of the neighborhood).
Olive usually has breakfast around 7 a.m.; for safety reasons we make her wait at least an hour after a meal to play.
Today, breakfast was late, and Hailey came just as I was making the dogs’ breakfast.
I gave Olive the option to go out and play with Hailey or eat breakfast. Initially she chose play, but quickly came back in for breakfast. She then wanted to play after eating and wasn’t allowed to.
She chose poorly.
Of course, Olive’s capacity for reasoning is limited. She doesn’t understand that she’s not allowed to play after eating. She just went with what felt like a more immediate need and lost out on the playtime. And then pouted for the next 2 hours.
She couldn’t reason that she could play with Hailey AND then have breakfast.
It’s like executive leaders who can’t reason that they can invest time in executive team development AND still get everything done.
Of course, when you’re hyper-focused on growth, it can make it hard to reason.
The irony is that by taking the time to build cohesion, trust, and elevated leadership potential on your team, you’re actually going to be able to move FASTER, TOGETHER.
So you:
- Recognize the work will always be there.
- Set aside time for intentional team development.
- Work with a leadership team expert to help your team explore and commit to how they will collaborate and align.
- Get back to the work–and feel a new sense of ease and accomplishment as you work faster together.
That’s what I do with my signature program, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.
From one of my clients:
“I was skeptical about taking the time for this work. But we also needed to build communication and relationships and invest in leader development. The value in your structured, efficient, and outcomes-focused process is that it creates an opportunity for better business results as the executive team performs at a higher level.”
As I said to Olive, breakfast will be here after you play with Hailey. Go play. Choose wisely.
Executive leader, your work will be there after you spend intentional, focused time on your team. Go focus on your team.
Choose wisely.
#leadership #executiveteam #techleadership
Recent Comments