Traction for Senior Management Teams

Frequently, one finds that senior management teams, which are responsible for business units or similar organisation units, are unclear as to what the role of the management team, as a team, should be. The consequence frequently is that the team meets to discuss how to ‘get the desired results'. These results may be the agreed business objectives for the year, or key aspects of the business plan. The senior team focuses on specific metrics, and debates how to improve results against these metrics.

While, intuitively, this approach may seem sensible, it is usually counter-productive for a number of reasons:

• First, the ‘drive for results' approach usually leads to direct intervention by the team at relatively junior levels, bypassing or replacing middle management. It is not unusual for a first level manager to suddenly find himself receiving instructions from a director. The directors may feel they are ‘addressing the root of the problem' with this approach. In reality, they are confusing junior managers, who are wondering who is really in charge, and they are demotivating the middle managers who should be deeply engaged in developing and implementing solutions. (See the related article, What Managers Know )
• Second, ‘drive for results' leads to a short-term focus, with the long-term needs of the business relegated to relatively low priority. In effect, the business begins to adopt a fire-fighting mentality, which may feel salutary in the short term, but is nearly always disastrous in the long term.
• Third, ‘drive for results' minimizes the leadership role of the management team, which has much to do with vision, strategy, culture and the long-term. This focus on Management (dealing with complexity) at the expense of Leadership (realizing constructive change) undermines the role of a Leadership Team. Senior teams must take time to see the organisation in its context, and to think strategically and broadly about both its direction and the path to be taken.

I like to use a mechanistic model – a ‘Traction Model' – to encourage senior teams to see their role as a team in context. Figure 1 is a Traction Model of an organisation. 

Figure 1

The driving pinion, in yellow at the centre, is the Leadership Team. This pinion delivers the energy into the system so that the entire organization rolls forward in the direction, and at the speed / momentum which is intended. Note that the Leadership Team interacts with management teams at the next level, and these management teams interact with operational teams. The reality is that all these teams have choices, so that slippage between teams is possible (even likely): we are not dealing with a locked gear train!

Success of the organization in this model (as in reality) depends, in large measure, on the traction between teams at each level. Is the team at the higher, more central level, able to engage the teams with which it is in contact to stimulate and motivate movement in the right direction at the right speed? If there is slippage, the organization will not move forward to the extent planned. If there is very little slippage, and much traction, the organization is likely to outpace its competitors!

This model suggests that for the Leadership Team, the key issue, once the Vision/Mission and Strategy are defined, is: Do We Have Traction? Is there Leadership Traction, Management Traction, Operational Traction? See Figure 2. 

Figure 2

The model proposes that a Leadership Team needs to concern itself with traction at each level: how effective is it? What can be done to improve it?

What are some examples of Traction? Well, for instance:

Notice how small a part of the overall picture performance against metrics becomes?

The agenda for Leadership Teams, once they have addressed the obvious questions about Vision, Mission , strategy and culture is two-fold:

• What evidence do we have on the various indicators of Traction in our organization?
• What actions are we, the Leadership Team, individually and collectively, and with our management teams, taking to improve Traction in the organization?