THE JUMP START PROGRAM™

Alignment starts at the top.

But a misaligned executive team will never create an aligned company.

That is why we created The Jump Start Program, a one-hour introduction to the brand new Develop One Team methodology, delivered by SHIFTPOINTS founder and CEO, Dave Ramos.

It is a perfect way to jump start an executive team retreat or all-hands meeting.

To begin transforming your team, click the button below to schedule your Jump Start Program.

EXECUTIVE TEAM ALIGNMENT

Your corporate executive team sets the bar for alignment.

No one will be more aligned than they are.

This starts with your CEO. Your CEO must be the role model and operate as the company’s Chief Alignment Officer.

Second, the entire corporate executive team must embrace alignment as a critical corporate initiative. There are several reasons for this:

• The corporate executive team is ultimately responsible for aligning the company’s multiple divisions, departments, functions, and geographies. Often, these groups operate very independently from one another on a day-to-day basis and only come together at executive team meetings.
• The corporate executive team is ultimately responsible for aligning the interests of the company’s multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders include investors, creditors, employees, boards, vendors, customers, governments, the communities where you operate, and more. These stakeholders often have competing interests which must be aligned.
• The corporate executive team is ultimately responsible for aligning the company’s multiple strategies, tactics, goals, priorities, and initiatives into a coherent corporate strategic plan (One Plan).
• The corporate executive team is ultimately responsible for aligning the company’s resources—both human and financial—with the corporate strategy. Budgets must be allocated. Headcounts must be approved.
• Each corporate executive has the responsibility to align their functional area. The Chief Financial Officer must consolidate the budgets. The Chief Marketing Officer must integrate the marketing plans. The Chief Sales Officer must roll up the sales forecasts.

Finally, the corporate team “sets the bar” for alignment. If they are not aligned as One Team, the rest of the organization will be dysfunctional. They must be role models for alignment. A misaligned executive team will never create an aligned company.

That is worth repeating: A misaligned executive team will never create an aligned company.

MOST EXECUTIVE TEAMS ARE "RUNNING ON FUMES"

Succeeding in today’s disruptively competitive world is exceptionally difficult.

To win, you must have a high-performance executive team.

Unfortunately, in most companies, the executive team is running on fumes.

In addition, when asked, “What are you doing to develop your executive team?” the number one answer was, “nothing.”

The Develop One Team methodology transforms individual executives into a high-performance executive team.

Our approach is a unique, one-of-a-kind blend of strategy consulting and executive team coaching. We call it Strategy Coaching^TM.

Unlike traditional coaching programs that focus on one individual, we work with the entire executive team.

Because leadership is a team sport!

THE UNIQUE DYNAMICS OF EXECUTIVE TEAMS

Executive teams have unique dynamics.

These unique dynamics make them totally different from any other kind of team.

Books about corporate teamwork often use metaphors from other kinds of teams. Unfortunately, none of those metaphors accurately reflect the unique dynamics of executive teams.

Some of the factors that make executive teams unique include:

• The leader of the executive team is the CEO. The role of the CEO is unique on many levels. First, the CEO is the link between the board, the executive team, and the entire company. Second, the CEO is also the link between the company and its many stakeholders. Third, the CEO is (generally) the most visible and highest impact member of the company. Therefore, their strengths, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and foibles are magnified … have a 100X impact on the organization.
  
  
• The members of the executive team are the senior leaders in their function. They are highly accomplished, and many are both highly opinionated and highly competitive. Some have big egos who think they are always right.
  
  
• The corporate structure creates divisions. As companies grow, they create divisions. There is only one problem: divisions—by definition—divide. In addition, some companies are organized as a “company of companies” where each company is a separate legal entity with a separate P&L. This makes teamwork especially challenging.
  
  
• The executive team meeting is a unique experience. In virtually every other meeting that executives attend, they are the highest-ranking person in the room. This changes when the executive team gets together. In this meeting, they are outranked by the CEO. Thus, executives must pivot and become followers. In addition, they must “pivot” and become team players. In addition, many executive team meetings are “virtual,” which creates additional challenges.
  
  
• The executive team is uniquely cross-functional. Unlike most teams (such as a marketing team where everyone on the team has similar skills) the executive team is uniquely cross-functional. The CFO is typically the only finance person on the team, the CMO is the only marketing person on the team. This also means that they have different perspectives. They look at problems and opportunities through different lenses.
  
  
• The executive compensation plan can create divisions. In many companies, every executive has a unique compensation plan. Often, these plans are highly leveraged towards individual—not team—performance.
  
  
• Most executive teams are a hybrid of General Managers and functional executives. Often, there is a power struggle between these two types of executives. General Managers have P&L responsibility, and many General Managers will push to have everything under their direct control. In addition, many executive teams also have geographic General Managers, which adds to the tension.
  
  
• The executive team is under the most pressure for results. This is especially true for public companies and Private Equity/Venture Capital backed companies where investors can put extreme pressure on the executive team to deliver results. This pressure cooker can cause tempers to flair, etc.
  
  
• Most executive teams don’t spend much time together. Most executive teams are geographically dispersed. Obviously, the larger the company is, the more geographically dispersed the executive team will be. Global companies have executives on every continent. In one company we worked with, the executive team had never been to dinner together. The time executive teams do spend together tends to be in “death by PowerPoint” meetings.
  
  
• Executive teams must make resource allocation decisions. The executive team must allocate corporate resources (human and financial) as part of the annual budgeting process. The budget is essentially a zero-sum game, and there are winners and losers. This leads to “sharp elbows” and “no holds barred” interactions.
  
  
• Executive teams have a unique responsibility to set the example. The executive team is rightfully held to the highest standards. They must personify the company’s core values, model the expected behaviors, and adhere to the code of ethics. Executives who don’t do these things can create significant organizational dysfunction … especially when their dysfunctional behavior is tolerated.
  
  
• Many executive teams have relational dysfunctions that have existed for a long time. Confronting dysfunctional relationships between executives is very challenging. As a result, many companies “sweep them under the rug” and never deal with them.
  
  
• Most companies don’t do anything to develop their executive team. Most companies “hire and hope.” They hire executives and hope that productive and positive team dynamics will emerge. It not enough to just have the right people in the right seats … you have to intentionally work to transform the group into One (high-performance) Team. SHIFTPOINTS can help make that happen.

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