Why you need a Senior Management Group
Chief executives…
9 THINGS TO DO. NOW.
To be clear on definitions, the SMG is not the same as a Senior Leadership (SLT) or Executive Team (ET).
The SLT or ET, typically comprised of 4 – 8 senior execs, create the conditions for the long-term success of the business by setting direction, promoting the desired culture, architecting the development of new capabilities, and providing collective oversight of operations. They may do so in discussion with and/or at the behest of the board, if one has been established.
At one stage of your company’s growth, you probably knew everyone…
For sure you were setting direction etc.. but you also had your sleeves rolled up and were right in amongst the detail of operations, product development, and client conversations. You were fire-fighting. And rather enjoying it!
You successfully scaled and established a leadership team around you…
The distance between you and your staff was still pretty short, and you hadn’t quite managed to escape the gravitational pull of operations and putting fires out.
THE COMPANY IS NOW A GOOD BIT BIGGER…
You are going to have to let go and trust others to manage the business, to make things happen. Your key responsibility, and that of your senior execs, is strategic leadership and capability building.
Now is the time to bring your senior managers together into a HIGH VALUE forum. Your ET’s first reports and other key people perhaps.
They will provide a sense-making, interpretation, and alignment bridge between the Exec Team and the staff delivering value to your clients.
They will make sure that the business is delivered. They will trouble-shoot and collaborate across the business to make this so.
They will help inform strategy with the experiences and intelligence gathered from front line staff and clients. And once the strategy is updated and business plans made, they’ll run with the explicit tasks as well as the work that is implicit in these.
And they’ll get to learn how the ET and Board works. For some this will build their confidence and ignite their passion for a future executive leadership role themselves. You will be growing fabulous talent.
And they’ll take the operational and fire-fighting pressure off you and the ET, and give you the space to be the strategic and capability building chief executive your Board expects and your company deserves.
SO WHAT?
#1. Let go. You cannot manage operations on your own, or even through an ET anymore.
#2. If you haven’t formed an SMG, give it some thought. Now.
#3. Establish Terms of Reference or a SMG Charter to provide clarity of purpose, alignment, and value. Make this the goal of the first gathering.
#4. Consider making this a forum enabled and supported by your Chief Operating Officer. Or one of your senior managers on rotation.
#5. Bring them into the ET’s thinking and planning.
#6. Meet regularly, maybe monthly; and maybe quarterly or biannually with the ET. Maybe offsite. In fact, ideally offsite for the big, performance improvement and innovation conversations.
#7. Consider the cross-cutting projects they could put their heads, hearts, and souls around. Consider whether they could become something of an innovation hub.
#8. Don’t communicate AT them. Don’t debate your well prepared positions. Engage in dialogue. Create new understanding and winning ways together.
#9. The SMG is not a leadership barrier between you and your staff. Keep getting out and about, talking and listening, and inspiring and being inspired by everyone.
NOW WHAT?
You might not need help to get the ball rolling but we can certainly help facilitate and coach the conversations you are all going to need.
We can help you inquire into really significant questions and issues; help you really listen to one another; help you discover new insights; help you shape and deliver the value to your clients and wider stakeholders.
Get in touch now to find out more.
