The fact that a steering committee is constituted does not necessarily imply that it knows how to work as a work team. It is necessary to understand and enhance the managerial capacity together with the ability to Lead Work Teams.
We have carried out many consulting works with more than 300 management committees, which corroborate the importance of developing and enhancing managerial capacity and managerial habits, among which is that of Teamwork, in which one of the most important things important is to iron out interpersonal differences and forget about personal goals to pursue a common goal.
Is a Management Committee always a Work Team?
I will start with the description of an example of a specific Steering Committee:
DG: In principle he is a good manager, he makes decisions and gets involved, but he is very influenced by the Director of Operations, and he listens little to others.
D. of Operations: Bold and intelligent man. Intimate friend of the DG In fact he is the one who takes the reins of the company.
D. RR. HH: He is studious, but perhaps impractical. He believes that the friendship between the DG and the DO is a problem, and that the others cannot "play tricks". This irritates him a lot because the decision is limited.
D. Commercial: Goes on his own. Practically declared enemy of the D. of Operations, but the real reasons for this confrontation are unknown.
D. Computing: He gets along very well with D. Commercial. It is politically correct, but it frequently drops its agreement with the DC in its disagreements with the DO
D. Financial: Young and a good person. They tend to leave him quite on the sidelines, so he goes on his own and does what he can.
Is this a Steering Committee? Yes. Is it a Work Team? Not.
A Work Team is a group of people with a different history, past, experience and knowledge, who interact with each other because they have the appropriate habits, integrating what each one can contribute to the achievement of a common objective.
The objective.
The main objectives of the Management Team as a team are those of the company: to create wealth and provide a service to society, starting from what the company IS to direct it towards what it SHOULD BE.
Today, the complexity of the business network of many companies, as well as the changing and demanding market, mean that these objectives cannot be achieved by a single person. It requires a team that meets all the necessary qualities for it.
The responsability
The Management Team achieves results when it achieves a greater commitment, integration and synergy, to enhance the intangible, which is what makes the difference.
This commitment needs a common team goal that everyone believes in. This objective is what gives meaning to the team. This shared purpose, in turn, has to become clear and concrete objectives at the level of each of its members. Therefore, a Management Team is not democratic, even when a decision has been reached by vote. Each and every member must assume 100% responsibility for the end result of the common objective.
In a Management Committee, the DG, as team leader, not only has to be able to make decisions, but also has to know how to coordinate it, maximizing the capabilities of each one. This means that you will have to rely at all times on the most competent person to make the decision.
The integration of knowledge, the exchange of criteria, the appropriate habits, communication and responsibility enrich the general direction, since they reduce the probability of improvisation and of a quick consensus (guilty of many bad decisions in the history of large and well-known companies.). It is not worth my own vision, nor that of the other, but the common vision built between all and perfected. It is a matter of habits.
For all this, a Management Team works when it develops team members as individuals and the company, creates a culture of trust and achieves results.
«The best thing that a Management Committee can do to positively impact the entire company is not to seek that impact, but to work as a team. «
