Does Your Management Team Measure Up to the Winning Formula?

DOES YOUR MANAGEMENT TEAM MEASURE UP
TO THE WINNING FORMULA ® ?
PAGE 2
Question 2: What is the extent of change that needs to be implemented
and at what pace? The pace of change is a critical choice
point that determines where you lie on the spectrum of turnaround
vs. evolution. Pressure on the organization increases as the tempo of
transformation quickens. You need to understand how the organization
will react to change and at what rate it can be absorbed. How
much of a change agent do your leaders need to be? How does one
drive change effectively in your company?
Question 3: How are decisions made and how is the power to
make them distributed? The job of the CEO and the senior team
is all about making decisions. As CEO, what is your decision-making
style and how do you use your senior team to make choices? Every
company has its own process, explicit and implicit, that must be
understood to know what leader behaviors are required to get things
done. What is the balance of direct authority vs. infl uence that is
required by different roles for particular decisions?
Question 4: What are the external and internal barriers to your
company executing on its strategy? Another crucial job of the CEO
and the senior team is to remove obstacles and barriers to executing
the strategy. Some of these barriers are within your control and some
are not. Barriers might be external, e.g. severe pricing pressure due to
competitors having the ability to lower prices in your market; internal
– a culture that lacks innovation because it is too risk averse and does
not allow mistakes; or lack of a capability – a sales force that cannot
adapt to a new way of engaging the customer, etc.
Question 5: What capabilities (people, process, technology) and
essential leadership behaviors will be required to close the gap
between what you are and what you need to be? You need to be
able to choose the critical few capabilities that require investment
and change and the critical few leadership behaviors that will make or
break your company’s ability to execute the strategy.
A MOVING TARGET As mentioned before, you must update The
Winning Formula ® to keep pace with changes in your industry envi-
ronment and your strategy that place new demands on your leader-
ship. The same commitment in time and effort taken to ensure the
best strategy needs to be applied to ensuring the right leadership
criteria against which you reassess your management team. These
processes should occur in about the same time frame. Big changes in
the business environment; changes in the CEO position; and mergers
and acquisitions are immediate triggers for reassessing strategy and
The Winning Formula ® for leadership success.
ALIGNING AND ACCELERATING YOUR SENIOR TEAM A good
process for defi ning The Winning Formula ® is to include the input of
your senior team in answering the questions above. Here begins the
process of alignment. The Winning Formula ® becomes the leadership
blueprint around which the senior team aligns as they help create it.
You can now initiate an objective process of assessment and feed-
back of each senior team member against The Winning Formula ® . This
becomes data on which you can now make fact-based decisions on
whether you have the right people in the right roles and what devel-
opmental actions and experiences are needed by some to accelerate
the performance of the entire team.
THE BOTTOM LINE To keep your senior executive team at peak
effectiveness in light of changes in your business environment and
requirements for the company’s success:
• Evaluate your organization’s strategy.
• Update The Winning Formula ® to match the new strategy.
• Assess your management team against The Winning Formula ® .
• Adjust team membership and initiate development to fi ll gaps.
ABOUT RHR INTERNATIONAL
RHR International is a fi rm of management psychologists and consul-
tants who work closely with top management to accelerate individual,
team and business performance. We focus on fi ve key areas of client
need — CEO Succession, Executive Selection and Integration, Acceler-
ated Executive Effectiveness, Senior Team Effectiveness, and Manage-
ment Due Diligence. We have been proven difference-makers for more
than 65 years, unique in our combination of top management focus,
psychologists’ perspective and high-level business acumen.
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