Case Study:

Executive Team Building

Situation

A top management team was facing several critical issues. The company had recently changed from a functional to a business unit organization. The new structure created greater ambiguity in roles. A number of key executives were attempting to adjust to new roles and several new executives had joined the team from outside the organization. New global competitors were forcing the team to improve business performance. Financial restructuring (greater debt) was also creating additional pressure to increase bottom line results.

Hyde & Lichter was asked to work with the executives to improve teamwork so that critical business objectives could be achieved.

Client Solution

  • Consultation with the CEO to understand the business vision and expectations of executives as individuals and as a team.
  • Organizational and team assessments to identify strengths and gaps.


    Team activities:

    • Establish a team vision
    • Identify barriers to productive team behavior and create action steps to remove or reduce obstacles
    • Improve communication by discussing mutual expectations and clarifying roles among executives
    • Establish preferred decision-making processes within the team
    • Agree that the leadership team would work as “Office of the CEO” rather than only as advocates for their respective businesses and functions
    • Strengthen basis of trust for open dialogue and productive disagreement


    Individual coaching provided to:

    • CEO on sharing leadership role
    • New executives to help acclimate to the team
    • Established executives to adapt to new roles within the changed organization
    • Those executives who needed to improve their peer relationships by becoming more collaborative and less adversarial

Outcome

This client is successfully making the transition and steadily improving its results in the midst of a challenging business environment.