Seize The Opportunity

The phone rang. It was my client.

The first thing he said was, "I'm afraid our strategic vision and the future success of our firm are at risk. We have a significant trust issue that has come to a head."

"Can you help us?"

I sensed his frustration and the sense of urgency. He and his senior leadership team had put significant effort into co-creating a compelling future vision for the company.

That was all about to unravel unless something wasn't done right away.

In your company, has this happened to you and your team?

I've had the opportunity to be a part of winning, and championship teams as well as mediocre or losing teams both in the field of competitive sports and in the corporate boardroom.

Of the biggest determining factors - probably the most important - that define the winners from the losers, are the level and quality of trust.

Curious to Know?

Ask yourself, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being excellent), what is the level of trust in my company? Then ask your senior leadership team. Then ask your employees.

Do you think you would get responses to that question that differ from your own?

I asked this question in a half-day retreat with the senior leadership team, including the CEO, of one of my clients. Then I asked them to each share their number on the scale. Most rated organization-wide trust at about a 5.

The CEO rated it a 9. A big difference and this is the area of opportunity and growth.

Carpe Opportunium

To seize the opportunity to grow from this introspective look, you need to ask the next question.

What would make it a 10? Anything less than a 10 deserves attention. It's sort of like a Net Promoter Score for levels of trust.

So ask and keep asking until everyone has had the opportunity to respond. Then you must do the hardest thing for leaders to do - sit quietly and listen. Listen between the words. As one person put it, listen for the music between the lyrics.

The Solution

"Yes, I can."

I wasn't surprised by my client's situation, the lack of trust. It started at the board level and had festered and filtered down through much of the organization over time. So what did he do?

How would you solve this problem? Take a minute to think about it.

There were a lot of hurt feelings that resulted from decisions made by leaders in the past. The leadership team was skittish about confronting the elephant in the room and so everyone danced around the issue, afraid of escalating the conversation to a confrontation.

The client asked if could help facilitate a meeting with him and the senior leadership team. I had several ideas of how to best help him address the issue and we met as a group, offsite for a day.

That day started off by laying a foundation for more trust by coming to an agreement on the importance of the strategic vision that they had all worked hard to create.

Once reaching a level of consensus, I helped the CEO facilitate the rest of the meeting such that everyone developed an understanding of others' perspectives, and everyone was fully engaged in expressing their viewpoints and perspectives without reprisal, including a proven process to resolve the conflicts.

Did it Work?

Well, as they say, "The proof is in the pudding."

About a month later, my client called to say, "Something magical is happening. We are having open, honest, and direct conversations and everyone is playing on the same team." Later that year, their revenue grew by 20 percent.

Thank you for reading today's edition. I'm excited to share some of the latest on leadership, clarity, purpose, and personal growth sharing my experiences and insights from over 40+ years in business and leadership, and the current trends and thinking on leadership.

Until next time!