Sometimes management teams get stuck not knowing which way they want the business to grow, and how to grow it. One small, long-established manufacturing company with five owner-executives spent months trying to decide which customers and markets they needed to focus on, what new capabilities they needed to develop, and where their facility should be located. Unfortunately, the longer they discussed these issues, the more their competitors chipped away at their business.

Corporate indecision at the top can make any business stagnate. A CEO of a mid-sized high-tech firm would sometimes drive his executive team crazy because of his routine indecisiveness on big issues and his tendency to make decisions alone. It often took a crisis to get this CEO to act more expediently. Similarly, a CEO of a distribution business would disappear for days or weeks at a time to work on pet projects while his management team waited for his involvement in critical company decisions.

Sometimes, top management teams get stuck in fire-fighting too many pressing day-to-day issues. In stead of grappling with longer-term or larger issues, they get stuck in the short-term and petty ones. Also, when this happens, it is easy to get sidetracked by interpersonal conflicts that surface because the larger business issues are not resolved. Such teams need to step back from the fray and understand if they don't get their act together, there will be much less of a business to manage. Other times, when management team issues don't get resolved, executives will just optimize their own areas of responsibility, rather than deal with the give and take of making the whole organization work.

Some actions that CEOs and management team members can take to better work together:

1. Get to the heart of the matter. In one firm, management spent many hours on particular sales and marketing issues for a new company offering when the real problem was understanding how the new offering fit into the company's overall strategy. A lot of aggravation can be saved by focusing on the right issues, and not be sidetracked by the smaller ones. Sometime seeing problems from a fresh perspective, by consulting with a competent and trusted outside advisor, can sometimes help to point conversations in the right direction.
2. Clarify roles and responsibilities. Turf battles and gaps in responsibility are very common in organizations that haven't spent the time to figure out who is responsible for what company areas. Make sure each executive has a job definition and measures by which their performance can be gauged.
3. Measure and reward teamwork. Make sure that the management team, as a whole unit, has performance measures by which they can be measured and rewarded. Without overall top team goals, measures, and rewards, individual team members will focus only on their part of the overall business.
4. Turn conflict into collaboration. Know that whenever there is an interpersonal conflict at the top, it often means that some larger organizational issue has not been resolved. For example, two executives were attacking each other's personal style because they were at loggerheads about where to commit resources in the business. The logjam did not end until an objective outsider pointed out that they were both right from their unique perspective, and then found a way to divide up company's resources creatively in order to accomplish what they both needed. It's important to get executives working together to focus creatively on the real business problem and not get sidetracked by differing personal styles.
5. Staff the management team with capable people. One weak executive can drag down the whole team. Make sure there is mutual respect among team members for the knowledge, experience and skills they bring to that team. If you have the wrong person on the team, bite the bullet and gracefully replace them.
6. Meet regularly, without distraction, as a top team. Use on-site meetings to deal with day-to-day issues, and off-site meetings to tackle larger and longer-term items. Structure those meeting properly, using agendas and minutes, and make sure decisions are made and actions are initiated and completed.
7. Invest in top team development. Regularly bring in professionals (speakers, consultants, etc.) from within and outside of your industry to stimulate the thinking and development of your top team. Having your group go through common and tough developmental experiences (even difficult outdoor sporting experiences) can strengthen their drive, trust, capacity and personal bond as a working group.

With proper attention to the management and development of your company's top team, the potential for winning in business improves. Investing wisely here in better teamwork will yield superlative returns for you and your business.


Harvy Simkovits, CMC, President of Business Wisdom, works with owner managed companies to help them grow, prosper and continue on by offering innovative approaches to business development, company management, organization leadership and learning, and management education. He can be reached at 781-862-3983 or .