One of the key activities we do during our Compete Growth Leader workshops is to play a bit of a game. As the group gains insight into both the core strengths and opportunities embedded in the Four Key Capacities of Growth Leadership, we begin to apply them to real-world situations. As the work progresses in one of the advanced application exercises, we offer to share with them exactly how their team typically behaves and where they will get stuck during their projects.
To the participants, it can seem like a bit of a party trick. Without knowing them personally or having spent significant time with them, we can, with a great deal of certainty, outline to them where their growth work will break down. Once we start the discussion, they frequently assume someone has tipped us off during the pre-workshop call.
The truth is that once you work with the Complete Growth Leader capacities, it’s a bit like knowing that brownies made without baking powder will not rise: when one of the four capacities is deficient, it will stop the team from creating that needed event. Just like the brownies, teams will have a very hard time effectively completing the work product to move them from their big idea to seeing value on the balance sheet.
For example, a common senior team issue is to have a group that is heavy in the Architect and Champion capacities. With this mix, you can expect great energy, a lot of ideas, and the conversation to flow freely with great leaps of logic to develop new and fresh thinking. The conference room walls will be filled with flip charts, dot voting will be completed with a flourish and charismatic wrap-up discussions will be completed.
The blind spot for a group like this is that they will see this as the tool for every challenge. They will then repeat this activity frequently, without realizing that none of these ideas will be taken to implementation without a well-thought-out path that is activated by the Catalysts and Anchors. In short, this team is great at idea generation and very short on implementation muscle.
The fix? Yes, one part of it is to make sure that all the capacities are present, but it’s not as simple as that. Left to their own devices, each capacity will still find its lowest common denominator for performance. The consequence of this is that while the team will function, it is only producing the bare minimums and leaving significant value on the table. This is because each member of the group has a hard time relating to the needs of the other three capacities and works in the least dependent way possible – reducing the group’s effectiveness dramatically.
To fix this, the group needs to be curated, aligned in a specific way and given organization that allows it to reverse the path of isolation and complication that established firms find themselves naturally falling into. When this work is done, you’ll find teams that can step through the functional silos that impede value creation and consistently identify and execute new and profitable insights. The result is the ability to take on new challenges in growth and renewal with confidence getting to the finish line.
The good news? With some diagnostic work, we can help you get both the right capacity mix and leadership toolkit to set the stage for solid progress. With some specific coaching in communications, expectations, and viewpoint, we can help your team turn in a measurably better performance.
Our work focuses on helping teams in complicated firms to choose great projects and develop both the individual leadership and team structure needed to be genuinely impactful. If you’d like to talk, you can either reach us at (847) 651-1014 or by scheduling a short (no strings attached) call using this link.
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