Without exception, every senior leader I work with wants the same thing: A strong team surrounding them. That’s no surprise. No CEO or leader alone can make a company successful. They know the work of their organizations only gets achieved through teams, as I wrote about in a recent piece, and why they want to overcome the challenges they may experience with their own teams.
For instance, consider the frustration shared by one CEO. “I leave a discussion with my team thinking we’re in agreement and have alignment on next steps, only to find later that nothing has happened.” This type of scenario is not uncommon and tends to trigger the same familiar thoughts: Why hasn’t my team taken action? How can I get them to share my sense of urgency? Why does it feel like we are going back to square one and having the same conversation every time we meet?
If you’re encountering this, it may be because of these three reasons.
The most obvious reason why others haven’t taken action or done what they’ve agreed to? They didn’t actually commit to doing so in the first place. You may have assumed that the head nods, or the attention from those around the table indicated they were on board, or perhaps you took silence as assent. But until you have explicit agreement on the actions and next steps, you don’t really have agreement at all. It’s well understood that competing priorities come with the territory of leadership, which is why what can seem like an indisputable case or burning platform for one leader, may simply be ‘meh’ for others on the team who don’t have the resources or bandwidth to take action. This is particularly true in cases where we’re disproportionately impacted or affected by a problem. We may be chomping at the bit to solve an issue, but others just don’t share our sense of urgency and subsequently put action on the back burner.
It isn’t unusual for teams to leave a meeting with one set of assumptions about what has been agreed to, while the team leader has another. It may seem obvious, but before you can expect agreement, you must first confirm shared understanding, so don’t end the discussion prematurely until you’ve ensured there is real clarity and everyone really understands what we’re asking of each other. For example, when a leader says to a member of the team, “You’ve agreed to do X,” a follow up question could be:
Unless and until we get agreement on the problem, a team won’t be motivated by whatever solution or action you need them to take, no matter how compelling the issue or problem. Put simply: You can’t sell someone on a solution until you’ve sold them on the problem first. If you want to influence, build in enough time in advance to share a compelling reason why the problem must be solved that resonates with your team or audience, so they’ll be inspired to take the required actions to address it.
If you find you’re getting resistance or skepticism about tackling what seems to be an obvious problem, it may be that you need to build a stronger case that addresses the following questions.
Now more than ever, CEOs and senior leaders must count on their teams to do some very heavy lifting as the world moves into a new post-Covid chapter. Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain. Leaders can’t assume execution will just happen because “I said so,” and even serious problems aren’t always seen the same way by everyone. Most of all, alignment isn’t just a mindset or about everyone nodding their heads, but rather, something that is gained on a daily basis through productive, candid dialogue between leaders.
