The executives of ACME Corp regularly refer to themselves as a team.

They aren’t.

At best, they function as a committee. At times, they seem to be little more than a group of people cohabitating a similar space on the organizational chart.

This is a large and rapidly scaling company. By nature, it is complex. Its divisions and holdings need unified leadership. They need clarity about where the company is going and how it should operate now. They also need leaders who are able to look both into the future and downstream to anticipate friction, resolve competing priorities, and remove roadblocks.

But that is not what they are doing.

It is not that the executives do not care. They do. It is not that they are lazy. They all work hard.

But each executive remains primarily focused on their own priorities, timelines, standards, and area of responsibility. They meet. They give reports. They discuss the company. But they do not consistently lead it together. They lead it separately.

As a result, their direct reports are forced to wrestle with conflicting expectations, or figure out how to work around executive decisions. They often spend more time trying to “manage up” than on the performance of the company as a whole.

Meeting together does not make a team. Reporting to the same CEO does not make a team. Proximity on an organizational chart does not make a team.

It takes more to make a team.

If They Aren’t a Team, What Are They?

In many cases, they are functioning as a committee.

A committee is a group of people who contribute individual perspectives, priorities, or interests to a decision. This is in contrast to a team that accepts shared responsibility for the decision and its outcome.

But in many cases, they aren’t even working as a committee. Their normal day-to-day work is largely independent of each other. They simply coexist in proximity on the organizational chart or in the executive suite.

What, Then, Is a Team?

A team is a strong team to the degree that it has:

Shared Vision: They are working to create the same future.

Shared Effort: Their priorities, decisions, and work are aligned and coordinated in support of that future.

Shared Risk and Reward: The company wins and the people win. They experience the meaningful consequences of success and failure together, including: recognition, opportunity, compensation, sacrifice, and accountability.

The ideal team includes all three. If even one ingredient is lacking, problems emerge:

• Shared Vision + Shared Effort without Shared Risk and Reward = Disillusionment or Disengagement
  People are working toward the same future, but they do not experience the outcomes fairly.
• Shared Effort + Shared Risk and Reward without Shared Vision = Confusion
  People work hard and experience the consequences together, but they are not clear about what they are building.
• Shared Vision + Shared Risk and Reward without Shared Effort = Resentment or Entitlement
  People agree on the future and expect to participate in the rewards, but not everyone contributes in an aligned or meaningful way.

Each of these three qualities exists on a spectrum. But wherever one or more qualities are lacking, you can expect to experience some of the negative consequences described above.

ACME Corp. has high Shared Effort. Everyone is working hard. But it has low Shared Vision and low Shared Risk and Reward. Unsurprisingly, they are struggling with confusion and disillusionment, even while working their tails off and experiencing what many would view as success.

This is an eminently solvable problem. And we can see where they need to focus.

The ACME Corp. executive team is not a bad team. It is not necessarily a toxic team. It simply is not much of a team.

But they could be.

What About Yours?

How would you rate your executive team in each of these areas?

• Shared Vision
• Shared Effort
• Shared Risk and Reward

Where are you strongest?

Where do the gaps create confusion, resentment, or disillusionment?

What is one step your executives could take to function more like a team?

Take good care,

Christian