You have had loads of changes in your Leadership Team. You have restructured and added new people so there is a delicate balance of old and new. There has been some evolution and a few fall outs. The old guard and the change makers coming together and butting heads a bit. Nothing catastrophic but you are taking a bit of time to find your balance. There are definite signs of Leadership Team tension.
It feels a bit messy and a bit misaligned. Even after quite some time, people don’t seem to know each other that well. It feels like there is some baggage kicking around somewhere. Some of the fresh eyes might have noticed the small ripples of tension. Others might be oblivious.
There are ways things are done around here. But as the people on the team move and shift, those “ways” seem to have less and less of an anchor point. There are a few questions emerging as to where those things came from in the first place, and why things are done that way.
This may feel uncomfortable. Particularly when your team had been evolving fairly quickly over a short period of time. It may continue to evolve. There will be some aligning of old and new, some reshaping of the culture. And some moving and shaking.
The balance
One side of the situation is messiness, awkwardness and Leadership Team tension. Some discomfort and apprehension. You may find some people feel like they are having to give up something they were used to doing. Perhaps they feel like they need to agree because it is easier or to speed forwards to harmony. They may still feel they don’t quite have permission to step forwards.
The other side is humanness, curiosity and the space for innovation and challenge. This space where tension resides is actually fertile ground for digging deep and moving forwards. It is the place for finding a new balance and harnessing those different opinions, the new and the old, the different background skills and knowledge.
So how do you move forwards in a way that harnesses that productive tension, invites the challenge you need, but maintains the right level of harmony?
- Name the tensions – what are the main things that are making you feel all at sea? This may be different for different people. These things could be around tradition and innovation, fast paced delivery and slower thoughtful execution or the push and the pull of performance and engagement.
- Focus on one thing to start with. Overwhelm will not help you. Let’s take the innovation vs tradition as an example.
- What are the benefits and unintended consequences of each?
- You might say that the benefits of innovation are that you develop new ideas to stay ahead of the competition. But the unintended consequences are that you try to change too fast and lose the good stuff you have built up.
- The benefits of tradition are that you have spent time and taken care to shape the way you want things. There is a solid culture, a reputation and a brand. But then times have changed, and you can’t quite remember why you do some of these things. They have become stale and outdated.
- What are the patterns and insights that you can see when you look at this picture?
- What are the action steps to take towards maintaining the benefits of both innovation and tradition?
- The kinds of things that you can do to really capitalise on those innovative ideas.
- And the kinds of things that you can do to ensure you keep the culture and identity you have worked hard to build.
- What are the early warning signs that you are leaning too far into the unintended consequences of both innovation or tradition?
- The signals that you are racing ahead to develop new products too quickly.
- The things you notice when you are repeating the same patterns over and over again.
The final thing to consider is what you can do next? What are the key actions and decisions you can make now, that will enable you to maintain this balance.
If you need help working through your Leadership Team tension, give us a shout. We help Leadership Teams work better together.
