The executive team’s average may conceal exactly what needs discussing

When assessing an executive team, attention easily turns to averages.

How highly do team members rate cooperation? What about trust, decision-making, openness or the use of their time together?

An average is useful. It quickly offers an overview of how the executive team appears to be working.

But sometimes the information that matters most to the team lies elsewhere.

In how differently people sitting around the same table experience the same executive team.

The same executive team, two very different experiences

Imagine an executive team whose members rate open discussion reasonably highly.

The average looks good.

On that basis, you might conclude that openness is not among the team’s most urgent development priorities.

But the average can conceal a very different reality.

Some members may feel that even difficult matters can be raised, the CEO can be challenged and unfinished ideas can safely be brought into the discussion.

Others in the same team may think carefully about when it is worth speaking, what is worth challenging and how strongly they dare express their view.

Both are answering the same question.

Both are describing the same executive team.

And both may be right.

That is precisely why an average is not always enough.

Variation is not a statistical footnote

Rokmind’s Leadership Team Success Index™ (LTSI) examines executive team effectiveness from several perspectives. Alongside the current and ideal situation, important information may lie in how similar or different team members’ experiences are.

A wide spread of responses does not in itself indicate a problem in the executive team.

Nor does it explain the cause of a problem.

But it tells us something that leaders should take seriously:

We do not experience this executive team’s work in the same way.

That is where an interesting conversation begins.

Why do our experiences differ?

In which situations do the differences become visible?

Are they connected to the subject being discussed, roles, interaction, power, decision-making or who raises the matter?

Who finds it easy to bring their perspective into the shared discussion?

Who has to work harder to be heard?

The lowest rating does not necessarily point to a problem with the person

When one executive team member’s assessment differs clearly from everyone else’s, an understandable interpretation readily follows:

Why do they experience it that way?

The question may be justified, but it can also direct attention too quickly towards the individual.

What if the more interesting question were:

What happens in the way the executive team works that leads them to experience it that way?

People in an executive team have different roles, responsibilities, histories, behavioural styles and relationships with one another. Their experiences do not therefore have to be identical.

But this is also why a different experience should not automatically be explained by personality.

If one or two people repeatedly feel there is no room for constructive criticism, that their perspective is not heard or that shared decisions are not truly built together, this may be an individual experience.

Or it may be the first visible signal of something the average cannot show.

Even the highest rating does not prove that the approach works for everyone

The same applies at the other end of the scale.

If someone rates the team’s openness, trust or cooperation as excellent, that describes their experience.

It does not yet show that the same environment works equally well for everyone.

This is an important distinction in executive team development.

The team does not need to create an environment in which everyone thinks alike.

Quite the opposite.

A good executive team should be able to use different perspectives, expertise and ways of understanding the business.

The interesting question is therefore not only:

How satisfied are we with our executive team?

It is also:

How well can this executive team make use of different perspectives when they matter?

This is where variation becomes a business question

Openness and being heard can easily be treated as so-called soft issues.

From the executive team’s perspective, they are not.

If relevant information does not reach the shared discussion, the team makes decisions on a narrower information base than it has available.

If presenting a critical perspective is easy for some and difficult for others, the team may not be making use of all its expertise.

If participation depends on status, personality or the ability to take up space, the loudest perspective may receive more weight than the one that best serves the business.

We are then discussing more than the atmosphere within the executive team.

We are discussing the quality of its decisions.

And ultimately, the information on which the company is led.

The goal of executive team development is not the highest possible score

A measure can start a conversation, but improving the measure should not become an end in itself.

The goal is not to make everyone assess the executive team in the same way.

Nor is it to raise every score as high as possible.

The goal is to understand what is happening behind the numbers.

If the average improves because the team learns to discuss difficult matters more openly, that is good.

If it improves because decisions become clearer, trust stronger and members’ expertise more available to the whole team, better still.

But if the average improves because the most critical voices tire of challenging and learn to fit in, the team has not developed.

It has merely become quieter.

That is why the report is only the beginning of the conversation

The value of LTSI does not come from an individual number or report.

It comes from what the executive team does with the information made visible.

When results show variation, useful questions might include:

– Where do our experiences differ most?

– What happens in these situations in practice?

– Whose perspectives readily enter the shared discussion?

– Which perspectives are more easily left aside?

– Is there something in our way of working that serves some people well and others poorly?

– What might this mean for the quality of our decisions?

Measurement then becomes more than a judgement of the executive team.

It becomes a way to make the invisible discussable.

Perhaps the most interesting executive team figure is not the average

A shared understanding of the executive team’s situation matters.

But a shared understanding does not require everyone to see everything in the same way.

Sometimes the difference in perspective is the most important finding.

It may reveal features of the discussion culture, power, roles or working practices that the average smooths out of sight.

When examining an executive team’s results, it is therefore worth asking, alongside the average:

Where do our experiences differ, and what is that difference trying to tell us?

A better average is an insufficient goal for executive team development if it is achieved only by learning to remain silent.

A better goal is an executive team in which a dissenting view also becomes part of the information used to lead the company.

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Melina "Mellu" Näätänen

CEO