I met Dan through someone I know, we connected and he very kindly sent me a copy of his book. I am a big fan of Dan’s work in general, as it shifts the thinking in an organisation from individual work to teamwork. So often we focus on building individual leaders, we forget that those leaders are part of a wider ecosystem. Below you will find the key points I took from the book. You also find here a link to the podcast episode I recorded with Dan. [My own thoughts are added]
Traits of effective leadership
Importance of vulnerability – asking for help as a sign of strength
Importance of trust – but reality can be you need approval to do simple/ basic things (eg hiring, business travel, attending outside events)
“It’s hard to become a chess player when you feel like a chess piece”
Importance of having an executive leader who makes decisions
“The way we do anything is the way we do everything”
High performance at work
Performance levels decrease as you move down the organisation, eg Exec team 7/10, 3 levels down could be 3/10
Issues need to be addressed at the source – the exec team – to stop the same problems happening again and again
Hold each other accountable to agreed standards
Purpose and boundaries of the Exec team
Decision-implementation scorecard
On teamwork
Similar to leadership, just because you’re called a “team” doesn’t automatically mean that you work well together
It doesn’t take a genius to see what makes people different, but it does take patience and wisdom to see what different people have in common
80% of execs believe they have the necessary skills to perform their role, but only 30% believe their colleagues do – [this must cause a lot of conflict]
Power vs trust [the concept of power has come up in a lot of conversations recently and I would love to explore it in greater detail]
The Knowing-Doing Gap
Knowing doing gap – changing behaviour not just saying you know something
know what to stop doing!
Exec team leader needs to make decisions – not decision by committee [this ties in to the purpose of the meeting]
Set clear Standards of Excellence
Common sense is about knowing, common practice is about doing
3 mergers – legal, rational, emotional – need to get all three right
Knowing doing gap -> focus, discipline, accountability
Future possibilities – effective meetings
The more meetings people attend, the more exhausted they feel, and the higher they perceive their workload to be [is there a perception that more meetings = more important?]
Move conversations from talking about what’s broken to talking about what’s possible
The executive leadership meeting is where the leadership team gives birth to their company culture
Involvement breeds commitment [involve the team in decisions]
Decisions drive business success
Agenda is more than just items on a list, should be clearly defined as: discussion; decision; problem solving; or brainstorming
How to create effective change
Strategy: clarity, connection, collaboration, contribution, consequences
People do what they do for the consequences of their behaviours (if there are no negative consequences, or if they haven’t received feedback on the negative consequences of their behaviour, then they’ll keep doing it)
3 levels of engagement – responsibility, accountability, ownership
Ownership is a choice, cannot be delegated
During times of change – we become very internally focused
External expertise as a catalyst for change
Executives do not see themselves as needing “training” – so call it something else
Doing something new requires courage, willingness to fail, vulnerability and going first
Further resources
Listen to the podcast Dan and I recorded together here
Watch our LinkedIn Live recording on YouTube
Dan’s website
