The four conversations of a leadership team | Part III
YOU HAVE A STRATEGY TO EXECUTE
Or a pilot to launch. A set of decisions that have been made. But what’s the plan? What happens next? Who’s on point? How will you make those decisions? What are the milestones and timeframes? Who needs to be informed, and by when? We’ve often been surprised to find that top leadership teams rush their planning, and fail to align as much as is required at this level — resulting in confusion and missteps in execution.
IN PREPARING FOR BATTLE I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND THAT PLANS ARE USELESS, BUT PLANNING IS INDISPENSABLE.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eavesdropping on a weak executive team doing planning is like eavesdropping on a disorganized networking party — lots of interesting but noncommittal conversation and wishful thinking!
Non-commitment sounds like phrases such as “that’s a great idea!”. Or, “we should do X”. Or, “we need to…”. These all help everyone bond and feel great about being together. But that’s actually not the point of having a leadership team, especially when it comes to planning execution.
Great leadership teams come across as very structured and focused when it comes to planning. They tend to start with an intended outcome or “point of arrival” rather than starting from the present. They spend time getting very clear and specific about tasks so that they are not ambiguous. You will hear them take and assign responsibility quickly among themselves. And they will always write a plan down and share it during and after any meetings (these days often via collaborative online documents). And perhaps most importantly, there is a mechanism for accountability to the plan — a tracker and a follow up review of progress as part of the rhythm of the business.
A great planning conversation leads to… drumroll… A plan! Which should include
The end result or goal
Checklist of key milestones
Owner (with actual authority)
Timeframe
Try this
Your role here is to create accountability, commitment, and a bias for action.
1 | Listen for ambiguity and ask for more specific clarity about tasks or owners. E.g. “Paint what done looks like” (with thanks to Brené Brown).
2 | Look for moments when the conversation needs to move from intention to action and ask “What’s the plan, then?” or “What’s our Go Do?”
3 | Get what are known as “brief-backs” in the military — your leaders respond with what they are going to take on, vs simply agreeing to what you say. We’ve found that invariably when leadership teams practice this, they uncover misalignment.
4 | Listen for what is not being said, such as involving other people outside the room, or identifying some risk in execution. A good question to ask is “What are the unintended consequences?”
Next week: The decision-making conversation