A siloed division that started working as one team

The Situation

A division of vice presidents from around the country, each running a national organization inside its own vertical. Structurally, they were a team. In practice they rarely worked a hard problem together, because the calendar and the org chart both pulled the other way.

Their own description of the starting point was blunt. One of them puts it on camera: there was room for improvement in how the group worked and engaged together. The discussions that mattered were the ones nobody was having in front of each other.

What We Did

A series of sessions rather than a single offsite, because the gap was about how the group worked over time, not about one unresolved decision.

1. Build the foundation. The first session worked on the teamwork, the foundational principles, and how the group engaged with each other, before any live business issue was put on the table.
2. Put real issues in the room. The second session took actual business problems and hard topics, the ones that had been handled one to one, and worked them as a group.
3. Commit and come back. Later sessions turned the conversation into named initiatives, with each person taking a piece, a deadline in weeks rather than quarters, and a review of progress at the next session.

What Changed

These are the team’s own observations, recorded at the end of their sessions.

• The uncomfortable became discussable. People grew comfortable with things that would have been uncomfortable before, and the candor, the discussions, and the challenges were all things the group was not seeing at the start of the program.
• Hard topics got worked as a team. Real business issues and hard topics, taken on candidly by the group rather than escalated or avoided.
• Accountability and coaching appeared between peers. Teams holding each other accountable, peer-to-peer coaching, and quieter voices starting to speak up in the group forums.
• Commitments carried a name and a date. Each person leaving with a piece to deliver in the next two to three weeks, tied to the number the division was chasing.
• Progress got reviewed, not assumed. Action items taken away, then brought back to the table to check progress, on the business and on the team.

In Their Own Words

Six leaders, recorded at the end of their own sessions. No preparation and no script, which is why several of them start by describing what the group was like before.