On Leadership and Teamwork

empowering communication globally
JOHN SUTHERLAND ON
LEADERSHIP AND TEAMWORK
18 Meeting Expectations14 Closing the Leadership Gap
39 Brilliant Senior Team Work 43 Structure Follows Strategy – But May not Look Like You ImaginedSenior Team Development
for the Unwilling
34
The 4 P’s: Saving 25%
of Meeting Time
28
5 Leaders Who Hunt As a Pack2 Leaders Who Hit The Numbers Developing Leaders with
Practical Mastery
9
Creating Collaborative
Advantage
22

Leaders Who Hit
The Numbers
Leadership is seen in the heat of the moment in
the world of work, not in theory during an off-site
course. Leadership development, therefore, must
occur during business as usual, not in some sim-
ulation. In this article, John Sutherland discusses
three main problems in leadership development
programs and key solutions on how to solve them.
W
hat does your business need from its lead-
ership? If you are like most businesses it
will be some, or all, of the following:
Leaders who:
• Hit the numbers
• Increase profitability
• Galvanise those working with them
• Deliver and develop your business plan
• Grow value through business development
• Create traction and delivery rather than drama
and slippage
• Actually lead and take the business forward under
their own steam
So you have read 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins
and studied the '7 Habits' espoused by Steven Covey.
You may even have sent yourself or some of your
leaders off to business school, but so far no prog-
ress. Your business has not substantially transformed.
Nothing has moved the dial on net profit.
Well how hard can this be? Surely there are experts
on leadership who can advise you on what you need to
do to transform your business. And thereby hangs a tale.
Leadership development is in urgent need of a
shake up. The tried and tested approach of attend-
ing a business school to learn leadership is designed
to fail, and no one in the schools is going to be the
turkey that votes for Christmas by exposing this
truth. Books on leadership cannot, by their nature,
give you leaders who hit the numbers in your busi-
ness. Fact. Innovation is required in leadership devel-
opment and in this article I will set out the three main
current problems and the three key solutions I see.
PROBLEM ONE: There is no one set of
universal leadership skills
Ever wondered why there are so many leadership
models? Servant Leadership, Situational Leadership,
Transformational Leadership, Relational Leadership,
Authentic Leadership, Level 5 Leadership (add your
own favourite here). In addition to the famous ones
there are dozens of other models put forward by man-
agement consultants and business schools. All apply in
specific situations and many are well researched (within
the current research paradigm) but all fail the same test:
they do not understand your business context. In fact,
if you parachuted any of the authors of these models
in to run your business the most likely result is that
they would fail miserably. You are the expert on the
leadership needed in your business. You may want
some help developing the leadership you know is re-
quired to deliver your business plan but you do not
need someone to tell you how to run your business.
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Any book or
leadership course
that thinks that it
has the answer to
'how you should
lead' runs the risk of
turning its audience
into followers, not
leaders.You can't
create leaders by
telling them what to
do.Think about it.
Leadership
2 The European Business Review March - April 2012

www.europeanbusinessreview.com 3
The reason why there are so many models of leadership is that
the leadership required for success is strongly dependent on the
context and purpose of the organisation you are leading. Leading a
business focussed on manufacturing and production is, of course,
very different from one focussed on gaining a return on investment
as a venture capital company. Even within one sector there are dif-
ferences. Leading an early stage technology start-up enterprise is
very different from leading the same organisation as it goes through
ramp up. Ask any investor.
PROBLEM TWO: A leader without followers is like a
rudder without a boat
The well-known business schools and books fall foul of a second
fallacy, that you can work on leaders in isolation from those they
seek to lead. Firstly, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
learnt to her cost, as soon as you step too far beyond the purpose
that your followers (her cabinet) are prepared to accept (in her
European policy of the day) your leadership days are numbered.
There is a connecting thread that needs to stay intact and you
cannot take people where they have no wish to go. Interestingly, if
you can keep the connecting thread intact you can persuade them
to do all sorts of things they had no intention of doing but yank
the thread too hard and it breaks - permanently. Keeping the thread
vibrant and intact seems to me to be part of how you galvanise your
followers, but that is another article.
Secondly, if you try using the leadership skills you developed,
for example, running a large engineering operation as a managing
partner in a firm of advisors you will quickly learn that the skills do
not translate. In practice, you cannot develop leaders in isolation from
those they seek to lead. Sending them off for a couple of months to a
business school disconnects them from the very context they have to
perform in. Leadership is seen in the heat of the moment in the world
of work, not in theory during an off-site course. Leadership develop-
ment, therefore, must occur during business as usual in the real world
of work, not in some simulation. In fact, in my understanding, lead-
ership is a behaviour that is only exhibited in a context. It is a behav-
iour that emerges between people and, in practice, the actual leader in a
group may revolve rapidly as the task goes through its project life cycle
phases from inception through design, delivery and review.
Donna Ladkin's map of leadership is helpful here (figure below)
showing how leadership is nested both in purpose and context
of an organisation and in the nature of those you are hoping will
follow your lead. (Source: Rethinking Leadership, by Donna Ladkin,
Edward Elgar Publishing 2010)
Feature
LEADER
FOLLOWER
PURPOSECONTEXT
THE
LEADERSHIP
MATRIX

PROBLEM THREE: Telling people how to lead
makes followers not leaders
Any book or leadership school course that thinks it
has worked out the answer to 'how you should lead'
runs the risk of turning its audience into follow-
ers, not leaders. You can't create leaders by telling
them what to do. Think about it. Instead you have
to treat them as leaders from the outset and ask
them to identify the areas where leadership needs
developing. This may seem obvious with hindsight
but the vast majority of leadership courses and
books are based on the idea that the course organ-
isers or book author know what you should do. The
best such approaches can ever hope for is to make
carbon copies of past leaders, and frankly copying
someone else's approach is not my idea of leader-
ship. Leaders have to lead their own leadership de-
velopment. Obvious really.
Most training programmes attempt to dictate not
only the frame of reference but also the content of
the learning for their participants. They are hierarchi-
cal. And most participants expect there to be a struc-
tured programme and a model so that they know
what they are going to get and can feel uncomfort-
able if there is a lack of clarity. Whilst this can work
for skills training at the management level it cannot
work as a method for developing leaders. There needs
to be at least a level of collaboration between partic-
ipants and course providers or, better still, the direc-
tion setting needs to be done by the participants.
Business schools and business books have their
place, of course. They are great for developing indi-
viduals and enhancing their CVs. But they can never
get to grips with what your specific organisation
needs. If you want to develop your business, rather
than a few future leaders, you need to focus your de-
velopment activity in-house and run a bespoke pro-
gramme where you set the focus.
So how do you develop leadership that hits the
numbers?
Here are our top three solutions.
SOLUTION ONE: Develop a coherent
sense of direction
The first thing you need is a strongly coherent sense
of direction. In my 22 years of working with senior
management teams, both assessing them (in manage-
ment due diligence processes for the venture capital
community) and developing them, I have learnt that,
after the quality of the CEO/President, the single
most important factor is to have coherent direction.
This means that no matter who you ask and how you
ask it, you get the same answer back about what it
is you are hell bent on achieving as an organisation.
This is the laser like focus of energy within your or-
ganisation that means you can punch through all the
obstacles the market and your competitors will throw
at you. And they will.
SOLUTION TWO: Clarify the leadership skills
you need to achieve your business plan
Once you have a coherent sense of direction you are
ready to ask the obvious question. What leadership
skills do we need to achieve our vision and strategy?
Where should we focus our attention and resources?
As a leader this means you are calling the shots on
where you need to focus, not asking someone who
does not understand your business and could not run
it to tell you where your leaders should focus.
SOLUTION THREE: Run your leadership
programme during business as usual
Thirdly, as far as you can, run your leadership devel-
opment work to support and facilitate the work that
needs to happen in order to deliver your business
plan. Using leadership development time to strength-
en people working on strategic projects works really
well. These are the heat of the moment issues, and
serve to ensure that your leaders are developing their
skills with the people they need to lead, not in isola-
tion. Use leadership development to serve your busi-
ness, rather than being the customer of the leadership
programme's clever ideas about whichever model of
leadership they espouse.
The Leadership Development industry needs, in our
view, to learn how to serve its customer, the real leaders.
That is the key innovation required in the sector.
About the Author
John Sutherland is the managing
director of Strategic Resource and the
Leadership Initiative. Strategic Resource
is a leading provider of management
due diligence. The Leadership Initiative
provides an international innovative approach to
developing leadership within organisations during
business as usual.
Email: john.sutherland@leadership-initiative.co.uk
www.leadership-initiative.co.uk Tel: +44 207 887 1372
If you want to
develop your
business, rather
than a few future
leaders, you need
to focus your
development
activity in-
house and
run a bespoke
programme
where you set
the focus.
Leadership

Leadership
LEADERS
WHO HUNT
AS A PACK
Feature
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Most leadership development does not produce a
pack. It produces individual leaders. Below, John
Sutherland discusses the importance of leaders
working well with other strong leaders, and argues
that the pack that hunts together stays together.
W
olves hunt as a pack and are brilliant team
players. Once they pick up the scent they
are strategic, purposeful and persistent.
Quite frightening if you are the quarry but good news
if you are interested in the wolf pack's success.
What about your leaders? Do you have individ-
uals who vie with each other to be top dog or do
you have powerful leaders who also pull together as a
pack? And what do you need to achieve your business
plan? If you are like most businesses you need leaders
who pull together to become an unstoppable force
focussed on hunting down your compelling vision.
You want all the energy channelled towards your ob-
jective, not dissipated in internal fighting.
But most leadership development does not
produce a pack. It produces pack leaders. Great for
the individual ego, but counter-productive if you
need leaders who hunt as a pack.
The Cult of the Individual Leader
The primary focus of most leadership programmes
is developing individual leaders, not creating the pack.
That may be no surprise because the very word “lead-
ership” conjures up the image of an individual, like
Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. The debate then starts
on the particular qualities, behaviours and habits that
define these charismatic individuals. No wonder, then,
that a focus on the individual is what most people
are expecting when they go off to a business school
Every leadership programme we have run has the same
deﬁning moment. It is the point at which the leaders
realise the potential they collectively have to really shift
the dial on performance across their organisation.

or enrol on a leadership programme. They want to
become a compelling leader who stands out from the
crowd, to grow leadership presence and get promoted
above the rest. To be top dog.
It seems logical to want the best leaders working for
your company. The current fad for “Top Grading” is
a prime example. The idea being that you only recruit
the top 10% of people in any profession or disci-
pline, on the assumption that if you have the very best
people working for you your venture will do well. And
of course having excellent people is a useful starting
place, but if they end up fighting each other rather
than fighting the competition together you will have a
problem. They not only have to have phenomenal in-
dividual leadership skills, they also need to know how
to work well with other strong leaders. It is a bit like the
Olympics. Having a number of potential gold medal
winners at their individual discipline is fantastic. If, in
addition, they know how to be part of their country's
team and support each other as they build the momen-
tum required to march up the medal table together,
then it can be amazing.
However, many of us are not wired or trained to
work well together. We want to be in charge. Picture
the scene. Two strong and independently minded
leaders stand facing each other pulling a tug-of-war
rope between them. Each is trying to haul the other
over to their side to win. If either succeeds they will
feel validated and triumphant but the business will
have lost out and the loser will plot their revenge.
Meet Jonathan and Ted, both senior players in a
retail business. Jonathan's experience tells him that
you need to make decisions quickly and crack on
with a sense of urgency, otherwise you never hit the
numbers in the plan. Ted's experience is that if you
rush a decision you fail to tackle the issues in suffi-
cient depth to find the robust answer that will stand
the test of time. Jonathan is structured and has a
value around people following clear instructions, and
he has a personal need to feel in charge. Ted is flexible
and has a value around involving people so that they
are on board with the chosen way forward, and he
has a need to feel heard. They are both strong char-
acters and neither is willing to back down, so their ar-
guments become heated and often end in stalemate.
There are a large number of Jonathans and Teds in
every business. Strong “medal contenders” in their
own discipline but working across each other rather
than synergistically.
So how do you develop a pack that knows how
to, and wants to, work together? Here are the four
success factors we have found in our leadership de-
velopment work over the last 25 years.
1
Scenting the Quarry
Your leaders need a common goal to unite
behind and get their teeth into. Just running
a leadership programme is not enough, it needs to
be directly focussed on achieving your business plan.
A focus on revenue growth, for example, will draw
out different leadership needs than one aimed at
turnaround. If you need to develop cohesion across
a global business or develop margin in the EMEA
region these, again, will influence the specific leader-
ship skills you require. But whatever your business is
focussed on achieving, the same rule applies: make
this the primary focus for your leadership develop-
ment work and expect the programme to make a sig-
nificant contribution to the delivery of your high
level objectives.
Every leadership programme we have run has
the same defining moment. It is the point at which
the leaders on the programme realise the potential
they collectively have to really shift the dial on per-
formance across their organisation. This is when it
stops being a mere leadership programme and starts
becoming a group of significant leaders, realising just
how much impact they can have working together on
real business issues. There is always a surge of energy
at this transition point as the leaders on the pro-
gramme realise that “this is for real” rather than “just
for development”, and it is my favourite moment.
They quickly become an unstoppable force focussed
on delivering your extraordinary achievement.
Your leaders need a common goal to unite behind and get their teeth into. Just
running a leadership programme is not enough, it needs to be directly focussed
on achieving your business plan. A focus on revenue growth, for example, will
draw out different leadership needs than one aimed at turnaround.
Leadership

2
Learning on the Run
Having set the target as the achievement of
your business plan, the leadership develop-
ment work can then be focussed on the real and live
business issues of the day.
But the key advantage is that it means the work is
live and relevant, not based on some abstract scenar-
io which has been beaten to death by a thousand dele-
gates before you. Scenario based learning is the major
teaching methodology of most business schools and
leadership programmes, because they are not able to
focus on the precise needs of your unique organ-
isation. Live work on current objectives within your
business brings compelling advantages.
As I write we are working with a client who has just
made a major acquisition, and the leadership team is
drawn half from the parent company and half from
the company they have acquired. A perfect place to
develop post-acquisition competence and high per-
formance senior team work in real time. One half
of the team had been on a leadership programme
before but found that doing the development work
“for real” around live business issues made all the
difference. It was so much more relevant and they
could see the immediate benefits of their learning.
They were excited, and it was infectious.
Learning on the run immediately removes the age
old problem of how to transfer learning from off-
site workshops back into the real world of work.
When the benefits are obvious uptake is immediate
and morale gets a boost. Leaders begin to sense the
potency of the pack and that is when a critically im-
portant switch in the development focus takes place.
At the outset somebody, perhaps the CEO or the HR
Director, decided there was a compelling business
case for running a leadership programme and invited
people to attend. But when the people they have
invited on the programme start to see the impact they
can have, and the benefit they are deriving, they begin
to find their own sense of direction and momen-
tum for their ongoing development as a pack. They
become leaders of their own leadership development
work, identifying where the development work can
focus next to bring the most benefit.
3
Teaching Others to Hunt
Leaders who have been through a highly pro-
ductive and relevant development programme,
progressing real business issues, always have the same
reaction. They want to pass their learning on to their
direct reports so that they can have a positive influ-
ence on the wider organisation and accelerate progress.
There are three fantastic benefits of this impulse. The
first is that one of the best ways to really understand
Learning on the
run immediately
removes the age
old problem of
how to transfer
learning from off-
site workshops
back into the real
world of work.
Feature

what you have learnt is to teach it to others. It means
you have to understand it at the level of practical
mastery, so that you can explain it from direct expe-
rience, rather than just spout theory. The second is
that they pass their knowledge on in a way that is di-
rectly tailored to the needs of their unique organisa-
tion. Yes, this leadership model builds real collabora-
tion but the way we ground that in our organisation is,
of course, unique. The third is that, through so many
leaders getting involved in working with the next layer
of the organisation, it becomes apparent which are
the four or five most potent leadership models that
capture the distilled essence of what really works for
moving the dial on performance here. No two organ-
isations are ever the same, of course, and I can never
predict which, of the 70 or so models we regularly use,
will prove to be the key ones for each client organisa-
tion. Quite often the final selection includes a model
that has been co-created between the leaders and the
facilitators. Putting all this together means that they au-
tomatically produce a unique company leadership ap-
proach, based on proven models, that helps provide
continuity across the organisation and gives a cohesive
framework for new joiners. You end up with your own
book on how to do leadership here.
4
Forming as a Pack
When leaders work and learn together with
peers in this way it is inevitable that strong
bonds of loyalty are formed. The pack that hunts to-
gether stays together. They are there for each other
and reach incredible levels of honesty, challenge and
focus which translates into impact, productivity and,
finally, Return on Investment. It takes a good deal of
courage and self-awareness to get past the stage of
vying to be top dog in order to realise the potency in-
herent in complementing each other's skills and ex-
perience. Paradoxically, you cannot have your pack of
wolves working well together unless each individu-
al has developed a high degree of emotional com-
petence. If Emotional Intelligence is understanding
my reactions and those of others then Emotional
Competence is mastering the practical skill of
knowing how to turn tension into traction and con-
flict into cohesion. Entirely more useful and critically
important in pack behaviour.
Because they go through a lot together the pack
forms more tightly and they feel able to tackle organ-
isational issues that have been resistant to change, or
seemed to present insurmountable problems. Once
leaders are confident in the pack their optimism rises,
not based on some fluffy good intention but rooted
in the repeated experience that the pack is much
stronger than the sum of the parts.
Your leaders forming as a pack is bad news for your
competitors. Focussed and persistent with fabulous
team work. Self-directing and quick to learn. Scary. I
would not fancy their chances against you.
About the Author
John Sutherland is the Director of the
Leadership Initiative, which provides
leadership development focussed on
delivering the business plan. He also
runs Strategic Resource, which pro-
vides management due diligence and portfolio value
enhancement work for the investment community.
john@leadership-initiative.co.uk +44 15394 66000
The pack that hunts together stays together. They reach incredible levels of honesty, challenge and
focus which translates into impact, productivity and, ﬁnally, Return on Investment.
Leadership

Leadership
You may know about leadership but can you
lead? One you learn from a book or a course, the
other through repeated trial and error in the real
world of work. The difference is critical when
you need to ensure you get a healthy return on
investment from leadership development. John
Sutherland introduces the Nexus process spe-
cifically designed to ensure the development of
wise owls: leaders with practical mastery.
PHIL HAS A LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Phil attended a leadership programme, and returned
to his desk filled to the brim with clever ideas and
models. He enthused about the course, which he
found utterly fascinating, especially all the input on
the so-called “soft skills” (which he affectionate-
ly referred to as “psycho-babble”). But there was a
problem: Yes, he had a light bulb moment, but it was
only 25 watts. Six months later, no one had seen any
change in his actual leadership behaviour. For sure,
he was a walking encyclopaedia of conceptual slides,
but the collaborative skills he went off to learn were
marked by their absence. He still became defensive
when others offered alternative views and his col-
leagues continued to manage around him for the next
two years. What had gone wrong?
Phil had learnt about leadership, but had not learnt
how to lead, and there is a crucial difference. You learn
about leadership when you read a management book
or attend a course. But learning how to lead means
deliberately developing practical mastery, through re-
peated trial and error, until you find a process that
works for you, and gets the intended results in the
real world of work. Leadership models help point the
way, by offering insight, but the path to mastery re-
quires sustained effort and, usually, some discomfort
during the learning process. You have to be willing to
make mistakes in order to learn.
It turns out that there are a lot of leadership
courses like the one Phil attended where the net result
is a zero return on investment, and this is becoming a
real issue for business. We need to ensure that the in-
vestment made in the “value on legs” (that's “people”
to you and me) gives a healthy return. This is especial-
ly pertinent in war-for-talent sectors where the talent
may use its legs to walk out to join the competition, if
it does not think it is being developed in role.
So how do you develop genuine leadership at a
practical level of mastery? The first step is to be clear
about how adults learn, and learn to the point where
there is a clear change in behaviour.
Feature
Developing Leaders
with Practical Mastery
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
“The secret of
change is to focus
all of your energy
not on ﬁghting
the old, but on
building the new.”
– Socrates

Leadership workshops focus on the reviewing and
experimenting phases of the learning steps. Vital for
beginning the process towards mastery – unconscious
competence in this model, but not sufficient in and
of itself – to establish new neural pathways. That
needs more time and can require weeks or months.
By design, therefore, the vast majority of leadership
programmes are set to fail. Sure, they may provide
a follow-up some months after the initial workshop,
where they hope participants will return with stories
of how they triumphed, putting their skills into prac-
tice. All too often, the sorry tale is that their best in-
tentions got lost in the myriad of operational priorities
that hit them like a tsunami on their return from the
course. Even those who make early progress with a
new skill often report losing momentum because their
progress was not reviewed and supported on a regular
basis. The follow-up becomes just another date in the
diary for an event that fades in the memory during the
months that follow. Something much more robust is
required to support the repeated practice of new lead-
ership skills until they are mastered at a practical level,
and used to great effect day to day.
With this in mind we have developed the Nexus©
process, after many years of experimenting with dif-
ferent forms of on-site practical learning. It is based
on five principles, all designed to provide a robust
and reliable process for supporting learning during
“business as usual”.
1. Just the right amount of structure
Over the years we have tried everything, from expect-
ing leaders to evolve their own structure, to direct-
ing each step of the way and setting “homework”.
Unsurprisingly, neither extreme works. With too little
structure, a lot of time is wasted discussing how the
emerging leaders are going to work together. Too
much, and it removes the ability of leaders to exercise
choice in their learning focus, and it becomes more
like a taught course rather than a true leadership pro-
gramme. Just the right amount, like the bowl of por-
ridge that Goldilocks devoured, is perfect.
What is “just right” tends to vary from business
to business; but, as a place to start, we recommend
delegates work in groups of between three and six
and choose one main priority area to focus on each
month. It is their job as leaders to ensure that the
objective they choose is relevant to the business,
and is something each group member can direct-
ly address. They actively try out different ways of
LEARNING STEPS AND THE NEXUS PROCESS
Noel Burch developed a model of learning steps,
which is sometimes wrongly attributed to Maslow.
Although developed in the 1970s, it is still relevant
today and, if anything, is even more compelling now
that we are our able to see the way the brain creates
new high-speed neural pathways as it learns. For
highly practiced skills, such as in professional sports
and music, the brain actually shows physical changes
due to the creation of new learning connections, al-
lowing these messages to travel easily and quickly. To
become masters at leadership we also need to have
enough practice to get to the point where our new way
of leading has become a well-learnt routine. Having
had a lifetime of being defensive, Phil had not given
sufficient time to the practice of really listening to
his colleagues with an open mind. His old defensive
routine remained the easiest and quickest route.
FIGURE 1. UNCONSCIOUS-
INCOMPETENCE/LEARNING STEPS
UNCONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
I am not aware that I can’t do this
PRACTICE
EXPERIMENT
REVIEW
UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE
I can do this without having to think about it
CONSCIOUS COMPETENCE
I can now do this by deliberate effort
CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE
I now know that I can’t do this
To become masters
at leadership we
also need to have
enough practice
to get to the point
where our new
way of leading has
become a well-
learnt routine.
Leadership
10 The European Business Review July - August 2014

CLARIFY AND
APPLY LEARNING
DEFINE LEARNING
OBJECTIVE
AGREE RESEARCH
PROCESS
ANALYSE
DATA
CARRY OUT
ON-SITE RESEARCH
REFINE
SUMMARY OF
LEARNING
NEW RESEARCH
TOPIC
FIGURE 2. NEXUS© DIAGRAM
©
APPLIED
LEARNING
NEXUS
making progress with the objective over the month,
using ideas they heard about during the course, but
also learning from each other. They meet after a
fortnight to compare notes, swap ideas and in-
sights, and refocus their efforts for the next two
weeks. At the monthly meeting we provide a facil-
itator who helps them gather their individual and
collective learning, and choose the theme or objec-
tive for the following month.
2. A mall group who learn together
Developing practical mastery requires stamina and
resilience. Ask any sportsman or musician about the
many hours of work they put in before they were “sud-
denly discovered overnight”. It is all too easy to set off
with good intentions (like that diet) and find that a few
weeks in you have lost your resolve. This is especial-
ly true when the focus is developing emotional com-
petence, where you need strong leverage over yourself
to manage the discomfort involved in challenging and
changing old, baked in, habits that no longer serve you.
Being part of a small group of between three
and six people has several benefits. Firstly, the com-
mitment you make to each other firms up the col-
lective resolve to see the learning through. Secondly,
if you are all focussed on developing similar leader-
ship skills, you benefit from each other's experience.
Thirdly, even if, in the final analysis, how you lead as
a unique individual is subtly different from how your
peers lead, it is still very useful to learn from their suc-
cesses and failures and they, of course, will benefit
from your learning.
3. Focus the learning on your key
strategic objectives
Now this may sound obvious but it is worth stating.
Assuming you are not a generic business, you do not
need a general leadership programme. You are unlike-
ly to need seven habits or seven questions or any other
“tried and tested” model. It is more likely that you want
your leaders to be busy developing the precise individ-
ual and team skills required to move the dial on your
key metrics. You probably need to achieve your busi-
ness plan and hit the numbers in the current year.
So if, for example, you have six high level strategic
objectives, focus your Nexus group learning on one
objective a month and measure their progress against
your usual metrics. Your leaders can choose the order
in which they work on them, based on their opportu-
nities and needs. And, of course, there is nothing like
having a compelling need, such as a personal objec-
tive or KPI, to focus the mind.
4. Include emotional competence
Hans had recently finished a two-day course on
coaching but had not improved his coaching skills.
No amount of theory made any difference to the dis-
comfort he felt in confronting poor performance.
For Hans, like many of us, the key to unlocking his
leadership potential lay hidden beneath an old emo-
tional scar that limited his choices.
So, alongside the strategic objective our Nexus
groups select each month, we also strongly encour-
age each person to continue their journey with emo-
tional competence. It is crucial work and not easy to
do, which is why so many leadership programmes
ignore this element if they can. It means moving
past the review phase to the experimental stage of
the learning steps model, where we deliberately try a
new action, until we find an effective way of turning
tension into traction.
You have to have leverage over yourself in order
to make progress with emotional competence, and
that is much easier to do when you are working
Feature
We also strongly encourage each person to continue their journey with
emotional competence. It is crucial work and not easy to do, which is why
so many leadership programmes ignore this element if they can.

with others who are on the same journey. Think
more “marathon” than “sprint”, and you will get the
picture. I plan to write more on this fascinating area
in a subsequent article.
5. A process that becomes self-sustaining
If you have satisfied all the four points so far, you
will now have a group who have become self-reli-
ant and know how to continue their learning without
any further facilitation. This is excellent news for you,
because it means you have a delivery mechanism to
build future value for no further cost.
Our experience has been that most Nexus groups
become self-sustaining after five monthly supervision
sessions. It has by then become an effective, simple and
efficient learning group of peers who know how to
challenge and support each other, and keep themselves
focussed on the strategic objectives of their organisa-
tion. If, like me, you believe that learning is for life,
then being part of a peer group that sees the value in
carrying on their journey together is highly rewarding.
CONCLUSIONS
For Phil it all ended well, eventually. Two years later,
the team he had been working with went on a lead-
ership team programme and the team became his
Nexus group. They learned together, and used each
meeting to refine their skills and to remind each other
of their personal and collective learning objectives.
He finally got to unlock the emotional competence
issue that had acted as the handbrake on his progress
to date - his need to feel in control. This time his light
bulb moment kept glowing.
About the Author
Leadership Initiative, which provides lead-
ership development focussed on deliver-
ingthebusinessplanandproducingasolid
return on investment. He also runs
Strategic Resource, which provides a suite of services for
the investment community. john@leadership-initiative.
co.uk +44 15394 66000
Being part of a peer
group that sees the
value in carrying on
their journey together
is highly rewarding.
Leadership

Creating individual leaders is not enough. To achieve your ambitious plans you need
leaders who know how to hunt as a pack. Your job is to make sure they have a coherent
purpose in focus. Our job is to give you leaders who work together as an unstoppable
force until they achieve your objectives.
Wolves are…
Focussed
Strategic
Purpose driven
Courageous
Successful
And they hunt as a pack.
T. +44 (0) 15394 66000 | info@leadership-initiative.co.uk | www.leadership-initiative.co.uk

Traditional leadership development programmes
operate with a one-size-fits-all mentality. Below,
JohnSutherlandarguesthatthekeytodevelopingthe
right kind of leadership skills for your organisation
lies in creating, and continually refining, your own
programme, and outlines five crucial principles that
need to be taken into account when doing so.
Y
ou have worked hard to create your vision
and turn it into a detailed strategy. It is an
exciting time and the potential for value cre-
ation is credible, based on your analysis of the total
addressable market, your competitors and poten-
tial acquisitions, and your strengths. So far so good.
Now you cast your eyes over your organisation and
ask the killer question: do we have the leadership
skills we need to deliver our strategy? Do we even
have the skills we need to complete the current
plan, in order to earn the right to go onto the next
phase of the plan? For most firms the answer is no,
often to both questions.
If there is a yawning gap between the skills you
need and the ones in evidence, what are your options?
Here are 5 principles we have found to be effective,
based on the newly emerging disruptive technology in
leadership development.
1 Co-design your leadership programme
around the speciﬁc skills you need to
close the gap
This may seem like common sense but, unfortunately,
it is not currently a common feature of traditional
leadership programmes. Most are 'by the book' and
are based on an analysis of what the average business
leader need. They are generic, standard and sold
on the 'tried and tested' ticket. The logic offered
is that if it worked for company x, who are truly
impressive, surely it will work for you. But it won't.
General leadership development is, usually, useless
for meeting your specific needs. You need the precise
leadership skills that will close the gap between your
current performance and your future vision. So the
first task is to get very clear about the actual skills
gap you have and to co-design a programme that
perfectly fits your circumstances and requirements.
Most programmes are not designed this way, even
though it seems like an obvious thing to do.
CLOSING THE
LEADERSHIP GAP
The most reliable and robust way to ensure that you end up
with leadership skills that work in practice in your organisation
is to develop the skills required during business as usual.
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Leadership
14 The European Business Review September - October 2014

Peter's organisation had two obvious gaps. The
first was the need for a real step-up in delivery and
follow-through skills. No point adding new strategic
projects to a long list of unfinished ones. The second
was internal coaching. They were losing the talent
they wanted to keep because those on a rapid career
trajectory did not think they were being sufficiently
developed. Peter's organisation did not need a
complicated design to deliver the results he was after.
All he needed was a couple of modules. Sometimes
less is more, as it keeps it crisp and to the point.
Peter's own experience of leadership development
was of the traditional variety: the good and the great
imparted their wisdom, which was then discussed
in small groups through a series of rather well-
worn scenarios, in the hope this would impart
understanding. Peter said that those who attended had
all got something out of it and had particularly enjoyed
the small group discussion work. But it had not met
his specific needs and, of course, it was not designed
to. To do that your programme needs to be designed
from the ground up, specifically for your organisation.
2 Focus the development around
the delivery of real work
The most reliable and robust way to ensure that you
end up with leadership skills that work in practice
in your organisation is to develop the skills required
during business as usual, preferably on-site. Lashing
a raft together to cross a lake may be fun but has
the obvious problem that you then need to work
out how to transfer any learning that occurred half
way across the lake back into the real world of work.
All too often whatever learning does result from
such activities sinks like a stone. Far more useful
is to develop the skills around the delivery of your
current priorities. Not only do you get facilitation
of your key projects, but you also have leaders
focussed on the exact skills that are needed for
success. An additional benefit is that it minimises
the time spent just on development, because they
are learning whilst performing the day job. If they
are focussed on your strategic priorities it is likely
that you will get yet another advantage, as this will
require your leaders to learn how to work together to
make progress. Strategic leadership usually requires
effective collaboration to be effective.
In Hans Olav's organisation most of the strategic
projects required effective matrix management,
rather than mere collaboration, and this was
Co-design your
programme on
the assumption
that it will keep
on evolving as
the picture of
what is required
sharpens from
slightly blurry into
high deﬁnition.
something they had struggled to achieve since making
a major acquisition a few years before. Focusing the
development work around their 5 strategic projects
meant that not only did they evolve effective cross-
functional teamwork, but it also provided much
needed coherence across their Europe-wide business.
Delivering the 5 projects became their laser-like focus
and, over time, the leadership programme became
synonymous with delivering the strategic plan. In
practice this resulted in the programme being timed
to fit in with the 'drum beat' and rhythm created by
implementing the strategic plan, rather than being
something people had to attempt to fit in around
already over-packed diaries.
3 Plan for continuous improvement
If you follow the two steps detailed so far
you will be way ahead of the competition, but let's
keep you there. Each time you run an element of
your leadership programme you are going to learn
something about how to refine what works well
and about the precise skills needed to make your
vision a reality. So co-design your programme on
Feature

the assumption that it will keep on evolving as the
picture of what is required sharpens from slightly
blurry into high definition. Traditional programmes,
of course, do the opposite. They set out a standard
workshop format and crank the handle, sheep-dip
wise, so that everyone 'enjoys' the same experience.
Whatever element is missing from those programmes
remains absent and the gap stays stubbornly open.
Even worse, whatever element shows promise of
working really well is simply repeated, rather than
refined, minimising advantage.
One of the key elements of the new disruptive
technology in leadership development is the shift
from telling leaders what they should learn to
expecting them to identify for themselves the key
areas of development required for the delivery of
their individual and corporate objectives. The process
raises the bar for leadership development. Who
better, after all, to specify the precise skills needed
and refine how to use them effectively than the very
leaders you have charged with the responsibility of
discharging your plan?
Back to Hans Olav's organisation. It was only
when the leaders really got down to the details of how
to use the matrix to deliver their strategic projects
that it became clear there was a major disconnect
between sales and operations. When quality issues
arose, leading to a delay in manufacturing, there was
an insufficient grasp of the impact this would have
on the sales team's ability to hit the month end sales
figures, leading to a permanent state of frenzied
activity. The missing skill was identifying and acting
on strategic implications across the matrix, and, as it
turned out, not just between sales and operations.
4 Stay with it until the required
skills become mastered
We’ve all been there. You send people on an expensive
development programme and the initial feedback is
positive, but three months down the track there is
scant evidence of any permanent change of behaviour,
let alone improved performance. You can teach an
old dog new tricks but it takes more repetition, effort
and time than can ever be achieved in a two day off-
site programme. Our new understanding of how the
brain changes as we evolve new neural pathways tells
us that there has to be a significant focus on following
through the learning for 3-4 months after the formal
part of the programme is over. In cost terms we
recommend that the follow through budget is about
one third of the overall development costs.
A small group of leaders who commit to
supporting each other's learning goes a long way
to turning your required skills into new habits. It is
asking too much to expect individuals to maintain
momentum by themselves. We tend to support
the process by providing monthly internet based
facilitation, as this provides another spur to maintain
the focus long enough to allow true mastery to
emerge. You can always identify those who have
endured the learning process. They are easily able
to demonstrate the skill on demand and have learnt
to make it their own, fitting their unique personality
and strengths. Paul was a classic case in point. In
his UK based health and safety business he had
learnt how to deal with conflict confidently enough
to be able to go straight to the heart of heated
differences between team members. His assurance
gave others the space to give voice to the issues that
were lurking behind their simmering disagreements.
All this from a person who described himself as
conflict adverse at the start of the leadership work.
He had changed.
As your leaders master new habits there emerges
a sense of cohesion across the organisation – you
evolve an identifiable company style. In Peter's
organisation it was their growing reputation for
delivery that became their hallmark. When they said
they were going to do something their word was their
bond. Not a bad brand when it is customers who are
providing the feedback, rather than internal PR or
marketing people being 'aspirational'.
5 Expect to make a return on your
investment in leadership development
Assuming you have based your leadership
development work on the first four guiding principles
you will be well placed to make a healthy return on
investment, or at worst have the programme become
AS YOUR LEADERS MASTER NEW
HABITS THERE EMERGES A SENSE
OF COHESION ACROSS THE
ORGANISATION – YOU EVOLVE AN
IDENTIFIABLE COMPANY STYLE.
Leadership

Feature
cost-neutral. Focussing the development around the
delivery of your business plan means you are likely
to already have Management Information Systems
for calculating the positive impact of the programme.
We recommend doing this as a cumulative track of
each individual’s contribution, rather than simply
comparing your before and after EBITDA numbers,
as this provides more granularity on the specifics of
who did what and how it all added up to progress.
Expecting to make a return on investment is key
for a couple of reasons. The first is obvious: like
any other business decision, if you cannot see a pay
back within a reasonable time scale then why would
you run the programme in the first place? It has to
wash its face. The second is a little more subtle. It
is a leadership programme and leaders are paid a lot
of money to make a difference and produce results.
So, if your leadership programme is correctly co-
designed, it should magnify their impact in a tangible
way and add to the bottom line.
And finally, there are, as you might expect, some
elements of leadership development that tend to be
required whatever your specific business plan is. Of
these the most important, in our experience, is work
on emotional competence. It is a thread that certainly
runs through all the development we are asked to co-
design. If a leader always needs to feel in control this
will get in the way of developing their collaboration
skills. If a leader avoids conflict they will struggle
to confront poor performance in others. Work
on emotional competence is crucial for unlocking
leadership potential.
It does take more effort and innovation to define
– and then refine – your own programme rather than
importsomeoneelse's,buttherewardsarecompelling.
The early CEO adopters of this disrupting technology
have already proved the concept is effective. How
will you close the gap?
About the Author
Leadership Initiative, which provides
leadership development focussed on
delivering the business plan and
producing a solid return on investment.
He also runs Strategic Resource, which provides a
suite of services for the investment community.
if your leadership
programme is
correctly codesigned,
it should magnify
their impact in a
tangible way and add
to the bottom line.

Most senior teams only have one or two ways of
working together and never learn to vary their
approach, based on the needs of the work in
front of them. Below, John Sutherland argues
that team work is a difference engine and diver-
gence is the fuel.
T
im is in a leadership team but feels torn. He
knows it is important to meet but has found
that, all too often, little is achieved. He has
started writing his emails during the meetings to mi-
nimise wasted time. No one has complained because
his fellow team members also think their meetings
are non-productive. Their in-joke is that they swung
between the 4 T's: Tedious, Time consuming, Tense
and Territorial. They were certainly meeting their ex-
pectations because their expectations were very low,
Meeting Expectations
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
and had been for years. Sounds familiar?
Meetings are the butt of many a joke and often
fall into disrepair or neglect. In fact, many senior
teams have stopped holding team work sessions al-
together because they could not make them effec-
tive. Avoiding meetings, however, just hides the issue
and resolves nothing. If you need to get your meet-
ings back on track here are the five factors that I have
found to be the most powerful, over my 25 years
working with senior teams. What works for you in
your business may, of course, be different. There is
no one rule book that applies to all organisations.
1.Coherence
Everything starts with coherence. But what does that
mean? Sounds like one of those words you get a tri-
ple-bonus score for on BS bingo. It means that no
Many senior teams
have stopped holding
team work sessions
altogether because
they could not make
them effective.Avoiding
meetings, however, just
hides the issue and
resolves nothing.
Senior Teams
18 The European Business Review January - February 2014

Feature
matter who you ask, or how you ask, you get a con-
sistent message about what your organisation is fo-
cussed on. As an analogy, a light bulb works by
scattering energy around the room. Take the same
amount of energy and focus it in a straight line and
you end up with a powerful laser that can punch a
hole through the wall. That is coherence. Which is
your organisation more like, the light bulb or the
laser? When I run management due diligence assign-
ments for investment companies the first thing I look
for is coherence. You need to be able to punch a hole
to grow market share.
Once you are clearly focussed (and in my experi-
ence most organisations are not, even though they
claim they are) you can then ask the simple business
question: what do we most need to focus on in our
meetings in order to move the dial on performance?
The linked, but equally important, question is what
do we need to stop spending time on? What needs
to go off the agenda that has been clogging up our
meeting time but not creating traction?
2. Decisions
The second thing I look for in our management
due diligence work is the decision making capabil-
ity of the senior team. Do they evidence an ability
to take the tricky decisions and abide by them? Or
do they have a 'car park' full of unresolved decisions
they keep on recycling? Decisions are one of the key
'products' from team work but most teams are poor
at the decision making discipline. Why?
Here is a clue. Decisions can be viewed as falling
into one of five logical categories, as seen from the
view-point of the team leader.
In practice, most leaders have a 'home style',
usually either 'I decide' or 'we decide'. The 'I decide'
leaders do not involve people enough. The 'we
decide' people do not lead enough. So what is your
home style? It helps to know. The first task for a team
leader is to match the decision making process to
the needs of the current business issue. Some issues
are not suited to collective decision making, such as
bonus payments. Others require multiple input, such
as strategic debate.
The second task is to ensure that team colleagues
know which process you have selected. Much time is
wasted, and much frustration is generated, by a mis-
match of expectations about which decision making
process is being used. For example, if you have
chosen 'I decide' but your team think it is a 'we decide'
issue the debate is likely to rumble on. Whichever
process you choose, once you have reached a deci-
sion, do yourself a favour and write it down where all
can see. You have not agreed until you know that you
all mean the same thing by the same words. It saves a
lot of time later to take an extra two minutes to check
for real understanding.
3. Sutherland's 4 P's
To be effective and efficient every meeting needs to
be clear about the 4 P's.
There always needs to be a clearly identified leader
for team work. Knowing who it is, especially when
the baton passes between people on different items,
helps to maintain progress. It is this person who has
to make sure that the right items are on the agenda
and the wrong ones are taken off. It is also their job
to ensure that only the people who need to be there
to make progress attend.
Here's a funny thing. Most senior teams only have
one or two ways of working together and never learn
to vary their approach, based on the needs of the
work in front of them. I worked with one leader-
ship team, in the finance sector, for whom every bit
of team work was based on the 'straw man' process.
One unfortunate partner was selected to present a
positioning paper and the other five partners took in
turns to rip it apart. Unsurprisingly, team morale was
dreadful and the weekly meetings were avoided at the
slightest excuse.
Team work can be focussed on providing clear di-
rection, sharing information, making a decision, re-
viewing progress on projects, checking operation-
al reports for strategic implications, considering an
Who is running the meeting
and who needs to attend?
PERSON
What is the clearly deﬁned
purpose of this meeting?
PURPOSE
Which team work
process we are using for
each agenda item?
PROCESS
What tangible outcome
do we expect to get out of
each piece of work?
PRODUCT
SUTHERLAND'S 4 P's
I DECIDE.
I will tell you. No discussion required,
just check you understand.
I will consult for an hour; a day, a week
and then decide.
We will decide together and I will
drive the process.
You have raised an issue for me
to decide on.
I have delegated the decision to you.
I CONSULT
THEN I DECIDE
WE DECIDE
YOU CONSULT
AND I DECIDE.
YOU DECIDE

options paper or kicking-back for wider strategic
debate, and more besides. Each of these have their
own process. Decision making, for example, needs to
focus down to reach a conclusion. Strategic dialogue
needs to open up for wider debate. Most team meet-
ings I sit in on are comprised of a mind-numbing
round of individual operational reports that take up
90% of the available time. Simply using exception re-
porting can reduce the time taken drastically, leaving
space for other important team work tasks. If you
do not vary your team work processes to match the
needs of each agenda item you are not being effective.
But what about the product? If you cannot iden-
tify a tangible outcome from the meeting why are
you planning one? Agreeing the budget, deciding on
project stage gates, running scenario planning, and
acting on the strategic implications from the oper-
ational reports are all examples of 'products' from
team-work. Getting to the end of the planned agenda
is not an outcome. Just a relief.
4. Core Approach
What is your core approach to business? At the senior
team level it typically falls into one of the four quad-
rants, shown in the diagram. You can be strategic or
operational and you can be linear or iterative. Linear
means working in a structured step-by-step manner.
Iterative means refining the process through repeat-
ed cycles of exploration. Many teams get into diffi-
culties because those who are operational and linear
view those who are strategic and iterative as “fluffy”
and wasting time. And those in the strategic-iterative
quadrant view their operational-linear colleagues as
“luddites” who are stuck in the day-to-day. It is easy
to fall into the dangerous trap of believing that your
approach is the way everyone else should work.
Try this thought experiment. Firstly, identify
which quadrant you spend the majority of time in.
Now think of the person in your team you fall out
with most often and identify where they usually sit
in the quadrant. Chances are they are in a different
section, and this is likely to be a key component of
the tension between you.
Which quadrant does your team need to be in,
in order to be successful with your business plan? It
is a trick question, of course. You almost certainly
need to use all four quadrants. Getting them to work
well together is the issue. Many global organisations
exhibit the classic tension between regional business
managers, focussed on the linear current operational
needs of clients, versus corporate directors, focussed
on iterative future strategic development. By con-
trast, I am working with a great business in Bergen,
Norway. Their vision is broken down into key stra-
tegic drivers and balanced score cards (linear) and is
refined through a regular rhythm of strategic process
meetings (iterative). Their process intentionally goes
through all four quadrants in a planned and cohesive
way. Their business has doubled its revenues this year.
5. Team Work is a Difference Engine
The foundation for effective team work is strong-
minded individual leaders. Contrary to the “bumper
sticker” slogan that “there is no i in team” the com-
plete opposite is the case. The pre-requisites for pro-
ductive team debate are coherent focus and clear
leaders who are willing to articulate their divergent
views, strongly if need be. Team work is a difference
engine and divergence is the fuel. To ensure you reach
STRATEGIC
LINEAR ITERATIVE
OPERATIONAL
SENIOR
TEAM
FOCUS
Strategic
Planning
Strategic
Process
Agile Project
Management
Project
Management
To ensure you reach robust outcomes that deliver results, it is imperative to
actively seek the differences between individual team members' positions.
There is no collaboration unless you have people who can think independently.
Senior Teams

same thing just in different words”. Chances are you
are using similar words to mean something quite dif-
ferent from each other. Teams that fuel the difference
engine go faster and further.
So what about Tim? He is not the team leader but
has decided that every time he feels frustration welling
up in a meeting he is going to work on one of these
five factors. The great thing about Tim is that when he
is frustrated everyone knows about it. Go Tim.
What about you? What are your expectations about
the productiveness of your meetings and what are you
going to do about it? The ball is in your court.
About the Author
John Sutherland runs the Leadership
Initiative, focussed on providing busi-
nesses with the specific individual,
team and organisational leadership
skills required for success with their
business plan. He also leads Strategic Resource, a pro-
vider of management due diligence services. Contact
robust outcomes that deliver results, it is imperative
to actively seek the differences between individual
team members' positions. There is no collaboration
(collaboration = deciding together) unless you have
people who can think independently.
You can only have effective debate if each
person arrives at the team session having already
established their autonomous view (autonomy =
deciding for yourself). But if your meetings are
viewed as being a waste of time the chances are
that, like Tim, you and your colleagues will turn
up without having done the preparation work re-
quired to make the meeting effective. Especially if,
like most businesses, you do not send an agenda
out before the meeting.
Try this experiment at your next team meeting.
Ahead of a key item give everyone ten minutes to think
through their autonomous position, before engaging
team debate. Then actively identify the areas of funda-
mental difference between each team member's initial
position. Go for conflict rather than avoiding it and be
cautious of early claims that “we are all really saying the
Feature
What is your
core approach to
business? At the
senior team level it
typically falls into
one of the four
quadrants. You can
be strategic or
operational and
you can be linear
or iterative.

CREATING
COLLABORATIVE
ADVANTAGE
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Senior Teams

what seemed like strong mutual agreement, in fact covered over
real and palpable differences. This is more like gardening, with
regular weeding required, than building a framework agreement
and setting it in place. Baden and Tony were a case in point. They
had easily agreed that, in outsourcing technology development to
a specialist firm, there would be real mutual advantages to both
parties, in terms of controlled costs for Tim and securing a large
contract for Baden. As the first year rolled by it became clearer that
for Tony the overarching purpose was to support his desire for
“world domination”, whereas for Baden it was more about proving
the validity of the collaborative model. For Tony collaboration was
simply a means to an end but for Baden it was an end in itself. Not
a showstopper but something that put a real edge in their unfolding
partnership discussions.
This section is called Towards Coherence because, in practice,
you never really fully achieve it but the constant quest towards it
turns out to be critically important. In practice, what you need is to
understand where your alignment overlaps and where it diverges.
It is never going to be a complete match. But so long as you have
Figure 1: Sutherland's Cumulative C'sINTERNALEXTERNAL
Coherence Capability
CollaborationCo-creation
Virtuous Cycle of Symbiotic Participation
Sutherland's
Cumulative C's
Successful collaboration between businesses can have myriad
advantages. In this article, John Sutherland talks us through
four key aspects for successful collaboration and demonstrates
how sometimes collaborative advantage is of far more value
than competitive advantage.
B
usiness looks through the prism of competitive advantage.
Almost every book on strategy is based on the assumption
that you want to compete with others in your sector and in-
crease your market share, at your rival’s expense. Consequently, the
well-worn strategic tools relied on in countless strategic off-sites,
such as the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats), are also predicated on the same assumption. But what if
you have decided that you want to collaborate, rather than compete?
An increasing number of organisations and businesses are
seeking collaborative advantage, as the most effective way of
realising their vision. And there really are compelling reasons for
selecting to work collaboratively for some organisations. Get it
right and it takes you out of the fight for preserving your share of
a commodity market and puts you in a place where the symbiosis
between you and another organisation creates a new offering/
service that is competitor free. But at the moment these vanguard
leaders are struggling to find the tools that will enable them to make
their collaboration effective.
Here is the health warning. It is not easy. In fact Chris Huxham,
a leading researcher in the field, warns that you should only consider
seeking collaborative advantage if the reasons for doing so are
utterly compelling. Otherwise keep away. Many have tried and
ended up with “collaborative inertia" rather than real progress. So,
in this introductory article, I am going to set out the 4 factors that
my team and I have found to be powerful aids, over the 20+ years
that we have worked with collaboration and partnership work.
1. TOWARDS COHERENCE
Ask those at the start of the journey towards developing collaborative
advantage what is going to be crucial and they will, correctly,
say that there needs to be clarity on the purpose of the proposed
collaboration. What is the compelling mutual benefit and why does
this make obvious sense to both parties? Indeed, this is where my
own alternative SWOT analysis (Figure 1: Sutherland's Cumulative
C's) model begins. It is an excellent starting place and I can attest that
collaboration without coherence is very hard to achieve.
Ask the same people after the first year of working together
on collaborative advantage about primacy of coherence and they
will tell you that the work on this never ceases. It is dynamic and
as the journey unfolds you discover more and more areas where,
Allowing the other organisation to be different, and tolerating them thinking and
acting differently, is all part of the resilience required for effective collaboration.
Senior Teams

enough in common, that is “good enough”. Allowing the other
organisation to be different, and tolerating them thinking and
acting differently, is all part of the resilience required for effective
collaboration. You have to be different, and allow each other to be
different, to collaborate effectively.
2. ASSESSING COLLABORATIVE CAPABILITY
Not every organisation can manage collaboration. A reasonable
barometer is to check for collaboration within your own
organisation before seeking to collaborate with another. Some
people do not possess the emotional competence to collaborate
and cling on to the need to be in control. Kevin's team struggled
to collaborate. When we worked with them it became clear why.
As highly experienced precision engineers they had never found the
need to focus on working relationships - they just got on with the
job in hand. The idea that there was a need to focus on the quality,
and clarity, of their working relationships was a complete anathema
to them. We might have been speaking a foreign language. So a core
capability is the emotional competence and willingness to attend to
relationships.
Behind these so-called “soft skills” are a whole host of other
capabilities to assess. What technical, practical and complimentary
skills are both sides bringing to the table? The ability to be “brutally
honest” about what each side can bring, and cannot bring, is of
crucial importance. Firstly, for the obvious reason that you need
to know what resources you can call on for your collaboration.
Secondly, because this is an early opportunity to explore trust. If
you can be straight with each other, and experience bears out what
you are saying, then trust starts to grow. If there is any sense that
you have misled, or been misled, then trust is damaged and, at this
embryonic stage, may never recover.
One of the hidden capabilities to check for is time. I can give
you a cast iron guarantee that the amount of time absorbed in
setting up effective collaboration is more then you would expect at
the planning stage. If you are already heavily time constrained this
needs to be a serious consideration before proceeding.
3. THREE COLLABORATIVE PARADOXES
No two people, let alone two organisations, can be in constant
collaboration. It would be far too exhausting and time consuming.
In practice, collaboration is just one of the “relationship modes” you
need to be in. So, and here is the first of three paradoxes, to achieve
collaborative advantage the first skill is to know when you need to
be collaborating and when not. Much of the rest of the time you
are getting on with the work to hand. But there are two other
“relationship modes” that you need to master, both of which enable
effective collaboration at the right time (Figure 2).
The first is “Contractor” mode. This is when you need to take
instruction from the other organisation about how they need you
to operate, behave or perform. In every collaborative relationship
Feature
there are times when you need to simply do as you are told, without
arguing back. The ability to respond to direct instruction and
direction setting from the other party is a major building block
for collaborative competence. So much so that, and here is the
second paradox, it is in fact easier for unequal organisations to
achieve collaboration than for organisations that are matched for
power and influence. Some of the most successful collaborations
exist between customer and a supplier, where the customer always
retains the ultimate control and the supplier offers something of
mutual benefit to both. In these cases there is no need to fight
over who is in charge and how power is shared. It is obvious. The
degree of difficulty and risk of collaborative inertia goes up as
the organisations become more matched. In such cases the effort
required to collaborate successfully grows exponentially, mostly
around a simmering battle for power.
Figure 2: Contractor Model
Ourinﬂuenceincreases
Expert Collaborator
ContractorSurvival
Their inﬂuence increases
The other useful relationship mode is the “Expert” mode where
you bring your unique contribution to the collaboration. There is
something you do really well, which is the reason why you have a
seat at the partnership table, and for collaboration to flourish you
(and your colleagues) need to have room to excel at this, without
fear of being told that you are not being “very collaborative”.
The mode to avoid is the “Survival” mode, which is an area all
collaborations fall into at some point. This happens when there is a

mismatch between what you expect from the partner
and what you get, and what they expect from you and
what they get. “Why are they doing that” is Survival
mode's signature tune. It is a painful place and quickly
erodes trust. The main thing you need to know is how
to get out of the Survival box as quickly as possible.
The answer is the third paradox. The only way out of
Survival is to go back into Contractor mode. That is
to clarify what the other party needs from you. Any
attempt to go from Survival back into Collaboration
without going through Contractor first will fail,
and only serve to erode trust further. You will save
yourself a lot of anguish if you take my word on this.
4. THE WORK OF CO-CREATION
The final part of the jigsaw puzzle is to actually do the
work of collaboration to gain the latent advantage. In
this practical “getting on with it” phase there are three
issues to watch out for. The first is that, inevitably,
the group involved in the collaborative venture
broadens and new people join who have their own
agenda, which can complicate matters immensely.
Martin, a newly appointed purchasing manager for a
retail firm, was keen to prove his worth by taking as
much cost as possible out of the suppliers. He was
a late joiner to a team that had spent nine months
delicately developing a joint understanding of how
to gain collaborative advantage through their supply
chain. It went against everything Mark had learnt to
resist the temptation to grind the suppliers into the
mud rather than developing a symbiotic partnership.
The second is that it is always better to start
out with modest aims and let trust grow through
what you have achieved together, rather than
talk forever about what you might achieve in the
future. Actions do speak louder than words when
developing collaborative competence between two
different organisations, where business processes,
cultures and values add to the complexity of turning
potential into progress. So start small and build
from there.
The third is that those at the sharp end of the
action can easily get caught between the need to
take decisions, so that progress is made, and the
need to report back to other decision makers in their
organisation, so that they keep their colleagues on
side. Decisions can grind to a halt in a never ending
round of “I'll have to check that with my boss and
come back to you" before momentum is lost and the
potential remains unrealised. Back to the gardening
analogy, sometimes what is needed is hacking away
the bureaucratic undergrowth that threatens to engulf
the tender new shoots of collaborative advantage. To
collaborate and succeed sometimes you have to be
brutal rather than “nice”. If you can balance brutality
with partnership working you will do well.
When you have been round the cumulative
C's once you are ready to go round again, but this
time with greater coherence, refined capabilities,
collaborative competence and practiced co-creation.
The work never finishes.
Whether you choose to seek competitive or
collaborative advantage the key is to make a deliberate
choice. Just knowing that there is a choice puts you,
already, ahead of the pack. If you choose to collaborate
you will find that there are, currently, few resources to
help you make progress. Here are two tools that can
assist, my own version of a SWOT analysis, geared
to foster collaboration, and the Contractor model. It
also helps to have someone working with you who
has been down the path before. Let me know how
you get on.
About the Author
John Sutherland is the Director of
Strategic Re-source, which assesses and
develops senior teams in order to
support them in achieving their
business plan. He is a pioneer in the
practice of developing collaborative advantage. Email
john@strategic-resource.co.uk.
Whether you
choose to seek
competitive or
collaborative
advantage the
key is to make
a deliberate
choice. Just
knowing that
there is a choice
puts you,
already, ahead
of the pack.
Senior Teams

Strategic Resource has 25 years of experience supporting senior teams, and those who
work for them, in developing and delivering their business plan. We are pioneers in the
ﬁeld of collaborative advantage.
T. +44 (0) 15394 31945 | john@strategic-resource.co.uk | www.strategic-resource.co.uk
Are you gearing
up to seek
collaborative
advantage?
We know how
to oil the wheels
of success

Ineffective meetings are the bugbear of many
organisations. In this article, John Sutherland,
Director of Strategic resource introduces and
discusses the 4 P's model. He advises that
setting out the 4 P's – Person, Purpose, Process
and Product for any form of teamwork or organ-
isational meetings promotes efficiency, produc-
tivity and focus.
D
o you sit in meetings that just seem to ramble
on, whilst your life strolls by and other impor-
tant work mounts up? Ineffective meetings
are the bugbear of many organisations. Our clients
tell us that using the 4 P's adds structure, focus, and
ownership and increases productivity. On average
they report being 25% more efficient in their meet-
ings. Interested?
THE 4 P'S
Of all the models I have developed in my 25 years of
consultancy work, to date, this is the most straight-
forward and the most impactful. Whenever you are
about to engage in meetings, or any form of team-
work, it pays to set out the 4 P's.
SAVING 25% OF MEETING TIME
PERSON
You always need to know who is
'holding the pen' for each meeting. If
the pen is going to pass between team
members it is particularly important to clarify when
the pen passes and whether it is passing back to you
for the next agenda item. Just having a clearly identi-
fied leader marshals activities enormously. When Neil
volunteered to be the Person for his team's first dis-
cussion using the 4 P's the unanimous feedback was
that it was the most productive meeting they had ever
had, in 13 years, primarily because there was someone
designated as the main driver.
The other job for the 'Person' is to clarify who
needs to be involved in each part of the agenda.
Far too many meetings have team members sitting
around waiting for their turn to present, when they
could be getting on with other priority work. There is
a natural discomfort for many in simply stating who
needs to be involved, and therefore who does not, for
fear of having people feel excluded. My advice is to
take a risk and check.
"Hey Regit this next item does not really involve
you so why don't you pop back at 12:00, when we
come to the piece on financial planning?" Not too
hard to say and frees up time for Regit. It also gives
more space for discussion amongst the key players.
You want the people who can add value to this piece
of work to take up the air time. No others.
Some people are better at being the 'Person' than
others. They are more accomplished at drawing out
different voices, holding the verbal ramblers in check,
keeping the work on track and summarising where
‘we have got to’. The 'Person' does not have to be the
BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Far too many
meetings have
team members
sitting around
waiting for
their turn to
present, when
they could be
getting on
with other
priority work.
Feature
The 4 P's:
PERSON
Who is running the meeting and who
needs to be involved?
What are the clearly deﬁned reasons for
working on each issue?
What team work processes will we use?
What do we expect to achieve?
PURPOSE
PROCESS
PRODUCT
Senior Teams

agenda owner, team leader or even the subject expert.
Just someone who is good at setting and keeping a focus.
PURPOSE
Businesses are prone to the malaise
of the rolling agenda. The common
picture being that every, say, Monday at
10:00 the team meets for an hour to go through a set
agenda, working hard to keep it to an hour. Typically,
the meeting over-runs, covering only the urgent op-
erational matters and seldom the more transforma-
tional, forward looking needs of the business. Teams
frequently spend too much time working in the busi-
ness and not enough time working on the business. To
check this tendency the Purpose question provides a
strategic analysis of what you need to be working on, at
the team level, in order to achieve your business plan.
It is a relevance check and helps to maintain a balance
in teamwork. If your meetings are not focussed on the
most pertinent questions what are they for?
Sometimes the answers the Purpose ques-
tion throws up can be surprising. Take Darryl, who
decided to review the Purpose of their monthly Board
preparation cycle. When he and his team fearless-
ly explored what they were asking the International
regions to do they realised they had been getting the,
already over-stretched, regional managers (and their
teams) to do work that would be mostly repeated a
week later. They had been doing this for 5 years. The
resulting saving in time was immense and positive-
ly impacted the wider organisation. Of course, not
all Purpose discussions produce such dramatic results
but, routinely, the 3-5 minutes taken to ask 'Why'
helps to bring clarity, priority and a sense of owner-
ship into the meeting.
PROCESS
The Process you use to achieve your
Purpose will be driven by the nature
of the Purpose. And this is where
most teams go wrong. They simply 'do what they do'
when working as a team, with the vast majority using
a combination of operational reporting and project
update Processes in all meetings, regardless of the
Purpose. Useful in their own right but never designed
to, for example, assess the Total Addressable Market
in your sector or identify the learning that emerges
when you look across your business division's per-
formance. If you know you need to come to a de-
cision use a decision making process. If you need to
discover best practice use an inquiry process, and so
on. As an aid to thinking about mapping Purpose to
Process here are four continuums we have recently
developed, through our work with client teams. (See
Teamwork Process Map below)
Strategic-Operational
Is your Purpose more strategic or more operation-
al? Are you looking to set or refine direction (stra-
tegic) or report on progress or deviations against
plan (operational)? Even most senior team meet-
ings are weighted towards an operational focus, not
giving enough oxygen to the unfolding work of
strategy. And this is why they often end up being
so tedious. When challenged, teams say that there
is never enough time to debate strategy, because of
the busyness of the urgent and important opera-
tional matters. But, of course, if the only Processes
you deploy are designed to focus on operational
matters you will never 'find time' to work on more
strategic issues. You have not equipped yourself
with the right Process tools.
THE PURPOSE QUESTION PROVIDES A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS OF WHAT YOU NEED TO BE
WORKING ON, AT THE TEAM LEVEL, IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE YOUR BUSINESS PLAN. IT IS
A RELEVANCE CHECK AND HELPS TO MAINTAIN A BALANCE IN TEAMWORK.
Senior Teams

Processes for working with Strategic purpos-
es are, of course, different from Operational ones.
Some are very well known, such as the (over-used)
SWOT analysis. Others are less frequently used, such
as a Stakeholder analysis or running a future scenario
planning exercise. Sometimes you need a process that
starts out Strategically and move down the continu-
um to become more Operational. For example, the
use of a KPI 'dashboard' highlights the critical areas
to dig into at the operational level, in order to achieve
the plan. Others move intentionally from Operational
to Strategic. For example exception reporting means
reporting only those items of current performance
that have strategic implications.
Divergent-Convergent
Does your purpose mean you need to open up debate
(Divergent) or bring a wide range of views to a single
point of agreement (Convergent)? Divergent process-
es are good at bringing in new ideas, perhaps through
brain-storming or inviting an external advisor to give
input. They are also ideal for wide ranging strategic
debate. By contrast all forms of decision making, be
it an options paper, a consultation process or team
decision, are natural convergent Processes. Many
teams are better at the divergent end, spawning
endless debate, than the convergent end, bringing it
all to a conclusion.
Some Purposes are best served by first working
Divergently before funnelling down to a Convergent
conclusion. Many team discussions can be described
in precisely this manner. It is a core Process. However,
it helps if everyone knows in advance what the 'game
plan' is, so that when it comes time to funnel down
they start looking for connecting strands and summa-
ries rather than new avenues for exploration.
Informational-Transformational
Does your Purpose lead to a need to gather and
share information or is the core Purpose to trans-
form and improve the organisation? Informational
processes include sharing updates on competitor,
market, or sector activity and may require a Process
specifically designed to gather intelligence and de-
termine the relevant 'signal from the background
noise'. Other processes, for example running a team
development session, are by design transformation-
al in their Purpose. As before, you may start with an
informational process, e.g. how is the team current-
ly performing, before moving to a transformational
process, such as an exploration of useful additional
team work processes to drive team work efficiency.
Linear-Iterative
This is the one that catches most people out. Over
half of us are wired to organise work through Linear
structured Processes, such as project management
with clear stage gates. The rest of us prefer to organ-
ise work through an Iterative learning process, getting
nearer our goal through each new phase of activity.
Some Purposes lend themselves to a more Linear ap-
proach, for example compliance control. Others lend
themselves to a more Iterative approach, for example
software development (agile project management). If
you are like most people you will have an in-built bias
one way or the other and will need to check that you
are flexing the Process you select based on the actual
needs of the Purpose and not just on what suits your
preference as a person. Tricky.
A PROCESS EXERCISE
• Take 20 minutes with your team to think back
over the previous 3 meetings. What team work
Processes did you use?
• Take a further 10 minutes to think ahead to
your next meeting. When you examine the in-
tended Purpose behind each agenda item what
new Processes could you import that would be a
credible match for the work in hand?
Feature
Team Process
SamplerIterative
Strategic Iterative Divergent Operational Informational Linear
Transformational
Divergent
Operational
Informational
Linear
Convergent
Vision
Double-
loop
learning
Strategic
dialogue
Parameter
Setting
Total
addressable
market
Business
plan
Delegated
actions
Shared
vision
Real-time
strategic
change
Total quality
Bench-
marking
Change
management
Dashboard
Brain-
storming
Agile project
management
Focus
groups
Pilot
Inquiry
Sub-group
problem
solving
Co-ordinated
research
Workstreams
Funnel
Project
update
Project
management
Priority
setting
Thinking
hats
Gap analysis Cost control
Transfor-
mational
Some Purposes are
best served by ﬁrst
working Divergently
before funnelling
down to a Convergent
conclusion. Many
team discussions
can be described in
precisely this manner.

• Finally, think through how you could describe
the 'rules' of each Process to your team, so
that they know how to work efficiently towards
your intended outcome. Each Process has its
own set of 'instructions'.
If you want some prompts take a look at the team
work sampler, to stimulate your creative juices. This
is not intended to be an exhaustive list; we work with
a library of over 60. But it will give you a reasonable
starting point. The aim is to grow your own unique
library, matching the needs of your unique organisa-
tion. (See team work sampler on previous page.)
PRODUCT
The final P, and in many ways the
most important one, is having 'the
end in mind'. If the Purpose is at
the strategic level (the 'Why') the Product is at the
Operational level (the 'What'). What will we achieve
as a result of this agenda item and the meeting?
If you cannot specify the 'Product' at the start of
the meeting the chances are you will not arrive at
a clear destination. Meetings can then become a
vacuum, sucking up energy, time and morale. By
contrast repeatedly achieving a clear 'Product' is
incredibly motivating and, more importantly, gets
your team into the healthy habit of making regular
tangible progress.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The power of the 4 P's is in putting them all togeth-
er. Our experience is that it can feel awkward at first
but stick with it and very soon you and your team will
start to prompt each other on when and how to use the
model. One of our energy sector clients has made the 4
P's into large posters that adorn all their meeting rooms,
in their offices around the world. The senior team lead
by example and expect to see the 4 P's in active use in
all meetings. They are now working on making the 4 P's
'pop up' in the software they use to book meetings. The
more they use it the better the results they get and the
better the results they get the more they use it.
One way to start would be to share this article with
your team and experiment together. Reading about the
ideas is not enough. Then all you have to decide is what
to do with the 25% of the time you will save. Pack
more into your meeting or finish early? Your call.
About the Author
John Sutherland is the Director of
Strategic Resource, which assesses and
develops senior teams in order to
support them achieving their business
plan. He is also the Director of the
Leadership Initiative, which provides bespoke in-
house programmes focussed on the specific skills re-
quired for each unique organisation.
Repeatedly achieving
a clear 'Product' is
incredibly motivating
and, more importantly,
gets your team into
the healthy habit
of making regular
tangible progress.
Senior Teams

33 The European Business Review November - December 2015
Perfect teamwork is a skill that comes with
knowledge and practise.
Rowing in the same direction helps too.
Strategic Resource are specialists in assessing and
developing senior teams and have been for 20 years.
T. +44 (0) 15394 31945 | info@strategic-resource.co.uk | www.strategic-resource.co.uk

BY JOHN SUTHERLAND
Senior Team Development
for the Unwilling
Traditional team work over-emphasises the
whole team approach far more than is needed
for most practical purposes. In this article, John
Sutherland discusses developing effective team
work for senior teams.
C
lare had an issue. Senior team work was unpro-
ductive but she was not sure how to resolve it
to make progress. The team members were all
strong characters and no one had time for any develop-
ment. Too busy. Historically, when they had explored
how they worked together, it opened up a whole new
can of worms about how fundamentally different they
were from each other. Too risky. In fact, the mere sug-
gestion that the senior team needed developing was
deemed to be mildly offensive. Too senior.
Team Development is Never an End in Itself
The senior team just needs to be able to develop and
deliver their part of the business plan, and not get
in the way of others who are busy delivering their
part. The senior team's job is to move the dial on per-
formance, not to feel like they have excellent team
work. So, rather than focus on team development,
focus instead on supporting them whilst they are
busy making progress on their key strategic drivers.
No one has time for team building these days. But
making team work fit for purpose whilst you crack
on with delivering the plan is both efficient and ef-
fective. Efficient because it avoids taking up extra
time. Effective because you develop practical forms
of team work that operate well in the heat of the
moment. Craft yourself an excellent “dashboard”
that gives you a dynamic view of progress against
plan and the stage is set to crack on with the work.
Here are four facilitative factors that we have
found helpful in maintaining progress with your
senior team.
1.Avoid gratuitous team work
Much of the work that actually needed to be done in
Clare's team, to make progress against plan, was best
done by individuals, pairs or small groupings. Only
three items needed the full team of seven to all be in-
volved. These were setting the budget, agreeing the
medium-term strategy and ensuring a consistent ap-
proach was taken across the organisation on bonus in-
centives. And here is an interesting point. Traditional
Senior team work (meetings aside) is really a
collection of sub-groupings, linked together to make
the necessary progress. Mature teams slide up and
down a team work continuum.
Senior Teams

team work over-emphasises the whole team approach
far more than is needed for most practical purposes.
Senior team work (meetings aside) is really a collec-
tion of sub-groupings, linked together to make the
necessary progress. Mature teams slide up and down
a team work continuum (see graph on the left page).
Individual functioning means that no team work is
taken place. Best avoided.
A working group has a clear leader whose task
is to ensure each person is focussed on the relevant
tasks so that, overall, progress is made.
A co-ordinated group, in addition, ensures that the
communication about these tasks is flawless, exter-
nally and internally, so that communications are con-
sistent and no work is repeated.
A project team is formed for the life time of that
project and disbands upon its completion.
A collaborative team finds that, on a routine
basis, fuller team work is required to achieve the
desired outcomes.
A full team is one where, like an operating theatre,
it would be impossible to operate alone. There is no
such thing as a lone anaesthetist. They are always part
of a team.
A collusive team means that you have moved into
the danger area of “group think” where individuality
is stifled. Very dangerous.
When Clare first saw the level of team work con-
tinuum she let out a sigh of relief. She feared that
anything focussed on team development would, in-
evitably, end up with them having to spend yet more
time locked in a room together. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
Try this fifteen minute team work exercise.
1. Write the team work continuum up on a flip
chart.
2. Ask your senior team work colleagues to place
their initials next to the level of team work they
have observed the team using (on average) over
the previous two months.
3. Discuss any clear differences in perception.
Fascinating issues tend to appear when you do.
4. Ask your colleagues to place their initials next to
the level of team work they think (on average) the
team need to be working at in order to achieve the
business plan.
5. If there is a gap between the two sets of scores,
talk in detail about the practical differences in
team work that these scores indicate.
I do this exercise a lot with senior teams and this
is what I find.
Most teams place themselves at 2.5 for their team
work over the previous two months and say they need
to be at 3.5 in order to achieve their business plan.
When asked what the practical difference will be
it translates into more intentional use of each other,
rather than ploughing their own separate furrows.
At some point, and this is the key to this exercise,
the realisation appears that the whole range is helpful.
The skill is in knowing when to flex the level of team
work to match the needs of the business plan.
Gratuitous team work means attempting to keep
the level of team work at 4-5 all the time, irrespec-
tive of the need, and is to be avoided at all costs.
Much time is wasted in business by the notion that
we “must be a team”. Only be a collaborative team
when you need that level of team work to achieve
your strategic objective.
2. Develop your unique library of team work processes
Developing your own senior team library of team
work processes is an excellent way of refining your
team work, developing real ownership and increas-
ing productivity. I wrote about this in the July-August
2015 edition of The European Business Review (pages
45-47) which you can read on-line at http://www.eu-
ropeanbusinessreview.com/?p=7712. The 4 P's save
teams an average of 25% of their meeting time. If
your senior team leads by example, and insists that
all other teams do the same, the total amount of time
saved in your organisation will be significant.
3. Resetting the team's level of challenge
My colleague David Powell and I were working with
an investment team whose performance was not
where they needed it to be. They would not have in-
vested in themselves. After running them through
a team review, focussed on why a team of highly
Developing your own senior team
library of team work processes is an
excellent way of reﬁning your team
work, developing real ownership
and increasing productivity.
Feature

intelligent, financially literate professionals were
struggling, the “culprit” turned out to be a lack of
challenge. Some teams avoid strong disagreement.
Other teams seem to be in constant conflict. What
about your team? (see graph above)
The challenge continuum is a useful yard stick
for self-assessing your senior team. Just as in the
fifteen minute exercise above, ask your colleagues
to say where they think the level of challenge has
been, on average, over the last 3 months. The dif-
ference on this continuum is that there is a pre-
ferred level. You need to be able to be at 4 (chal-
lenge) and 5 (contend) on the key strategic issues,
otherwise decisions will not be robust enough.
“Contending” is perhaps a word that needs unpack-
ing. It means I have a clear view on what we should
do next, and so do you. We start from the assump-
tion that the best solution will be a synergy of both
our views, rather than one person “winning the ar-
gument” or, some sort of mucky compromise. So,
rather than working to pull you over onto my side,
I seek to understand why you, experienced pro-
fessional that you are, see it differently from me. I
don't back down from my view but I give yours a
damn good listening to. And you do the same with
me. If we both do this cleanly, in a distress free way,
the solution that gets forged through the heat of
our strong debate will be better than the one either
I or you had in mind before we started.
4. Leveraging your differences
I wrote before that team work is a difference engine
and divergence is the fuel. (The European Business
Review January-February 2014 pages 58-60). You
need individual differences to be stated clearly and
cleanly to allow team work to flourish. But how do
you understand the differences between you? Some
are obvious. She is an accountant. He is an engineer.
Others are more hidden, but equally telling, and have
been hard-wired into us through our nature and then
reinforced by our experience (nurture).
At the senior team level there are three that are
crucially important.
The first is the different way people gather infor-
mation, in order to make a decision. Just over half of
us like to get into the details and consider what is hap-
pening right now. Before we can think about future
strategy we need to develop the case from the ground
up, making sure each step builds on the last. The rest
of us prefer to stand back from the detail to see the
overall pattern and conjecture where the emerging
trend will take us. We let others worry about how to
fill in the gaps between the current situation and our
imagined future. For the “ground up” people we look
as if we have our head in the clouds, talking about
mere blue sky potential. For the “trend spotters” the
ground up people seem like they are painfully slow
and stuck in the past. Most senior team tensions are
expressions of these differences in approach. Of
course you need a blend of both approaches to get
the best answers, but that can only happen if we see
value in each other's preferences.
The second is concerned with the approach to risk.
Some of us are really good at seeing everything that
could go wrong. We can instantly spot all the manhole
covers left up in the road we are about to attempt to
drive down. The rest of us are fantastic at finding
ways around, through, over or under obstacles - once
they have been pointed out to us. For us there are no
Team work is a difference engine and divergence is
the fuel. You need individual differences to be stated
clearly and cleanly to allow team work to ﬂourish.
Senior Teams

On Leadership and Teamwork

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