I was once working with the leadership team, of a construction company,
to develop a new corporate strategy.
The company had grown quickly, but saw their profits shrink as a result.
And all of the sudden they found themselves in a difficult
financial situation.
I and my colleague organized a retreat for them to come up with a plan for
growing profits again.
The top executives of this team were all talented and had deep experience.
That's why I was surprised when they seemed to have a tough time getting a good
conversation going.
The company's CEO had even started off the day by telling them, we need your help.
We need to think creatively, so there are no dumb ideas.
Let's just get everything out on the table.
So after a slow start, we were finally able to generate some dialog.
More and more of the executives chimed in,
they talked about what they were hearing in the field and
they started coming up with insights about the company's strategy.
I wondered why it had taken so
long for these bright leaders to start engaging each other.
Then, in the middle of the discussion, the CEO who had been pretty quiet up to that
point, started banging his hand on the table, and yelled, folks, we're in
a serious situation, and all I hear is a bunch of dumb ideas that won't work.
The room fell silent.
And all the sudden the problem became clear.
The CEO who had told them to open up at the beginning of the day,
turn out to be the type of boss who would shut people down
when he didn't like what they had to say.
Fortunately, the CEO missed the most of the following discussions for
other meetings.
It was a good thing because as soon as he left,
the dialogue became a lot more free flowing.
The executives created the foundation for a solid strategic growth plan and
when the CEO came back at the end of the day, he was happy with the results.
He seem to have absolutely no idea the effect his attitude having on his
teams ability to speak up and think critically.
The point here is not that the CEO was a bad leader.
On the contrary,
he had been really fundamental to the company's success before this crisis.
But, good leaders make mistakes, and even the best performing teams get misaligned.
They can lose commitment, and their performance can suffer for
reasons that they may not even notice.
Just as the CEO was blind to the ways he was bringing the room down.