Nobody Killed the Initiative. It Just Faded.
Execution Fade Isn’t a Project Management Problem — It’s a Leadership One But it started so well… Most strategic initiatives launch well — clear rationale, visible leadership backing, a kickoff. Then, somewhere around month three to six, the attention quietly moves on. Steering committee meetings get skipped. Updates get shorter. The thing that was going […]
When conflict goes underground
When The Team Doesn’t Disagree In Meetings, There’s a Problem Two Failure Modes There are two failure modes when it comes to conflict in leadership teams. The first is obvious: escalating conflict, openly adversarial peer relationships, meetings that generate more heat than resolution. Most people recognize this as a problem. The second is more subtle, […]
Profiled. Workshopped. Still Stuck.
Personality profiles don’t explain why you’re not executing We’ve all experienced personality profiles as part of our leadership team experiences. DISC, Myers-Briggs,Insights Discovery, an enneagram workshop, They can tell you who’s a driver, who’s a stabilizer, who needs more processing time before a decision. They are great for breaking the ice and breaking down interpersonal issues. […]
The Combined Leadership Team
Last to integrate. Most expensive to ignore. Merged on Paper. Not in the Room. We’ve all heard stories of the teams, that years after the acquisition is done, introduce each other by their previous company’s name. “I’m from Citi” “I’m from Chase.” I know I’ve experienced it post merger. Integration plans after a merger are […]
Accountability Without Blame
Accountability has a reputation problem. For a lot of people, being held accountable feels like being set up to be blamed. So, they hedge commitments, qualify timelines, and avoid owning outcomes they’re not certain they can control. The result is a team that’s busy, well-intentioned, and too often vague about who is responsible for what. […]
The Organizational Scar Tissue Problem
Every organization carries history. Hopefully a lot of it is good, sometimes a lot of it is bad. The restructuring that blindsided people. The leader who played favorites. The initiative that consumed enormous energy and went nowhere. New leaders don’t always know the details. But they feel the effects every day. Scar tissue is invisible […]
The Quiet Cost of Almost-Alignment
The most expensive misalignment usuall starts with a nod The most expensive misalignment on an executive team rarely starts with a disagreement. It starts with a “nod” — physically or verbally — and everyone assuming it meant the same thing. Nobody flags it. Everyone assumes they’re aligned. They’re not quite aligned. They’re almost aligned. And […]
What Signals Are You Sending?
Culture doesn’t come from a slide deck Your organization doesn’t learn culture from a slide deck. It learns it by watching what the leadership team actually does: how you disagree, how you decide, and whether your actions match your words. The culture of the senior team is the culture of the organization, whether it intends […]
