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When I shared this title with one of my former clients, Patrick, with whom I worked for years as an Executive Coach, he said the point was simple: “Write about our work in building a culture of execution with the orthopedic manufacturing company.”
What does building a culture of execution have to do with building resilient teams?
Patrick had a clear charge when he was hired as GM of one of the divisions: grow the business with an entrepreneurial approach and change the culture, meeting both bottom and top line projections.
Given the dysfunctional culture that he inherited, he religiously followed the principles of Patrick Lencioni (The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team). Collectively, we worked to implement Lencioni’s equation of “SMART + HEALTHY = SUCCESS.”
While many organizations seek to be SMART, the long-term competitive advantage is being HEALTHY.
During the first months, he implemented SMART principles like clear-cut objectives, quarterly priorities, along with dedicated effort, and laser-focus business practices, all grounded in accountability. Eventually, the facility moved from a 50% on-time delivery to 100% on-time delivery in the first six months.
He also accepted the reality that building a HEALTHY culture would take every ounce of perseverance and courage to stay the course to become HEALTHY. What are the dynamics of a HEALTHY organization? Things like engagement, productivity, job satisfaction, conflict management, accountability, awareness, excelling with strengths, personal and professional development.
Within three years, things were successful at every measurement.
“We focused our energy on understanding our strengths and how to leverage one another on the leadership team through building trust and mastering conflict,” Patrick said. “In fact, after 50 years in business, we grew 150% in three years (that type of business growth is unheard of), and have done so while growing more aligned, and producing more raving fans as customers.”
Sounds peachy until the dreaded phone call from one of their clients. They canceled their order, thereby decreasing Patrick’s top line revenue by 30%.
THAT is adversity. Maddening and potentially debilitating. I recall that he closed his office door. He followed a practice I had taught his team called ”The Mindfulness Ladder.” His first reaction was to “go down the ladder.” He gave himself permission for 45 minutes to be angry, agitated, blaming, judgmental and hypercritical. He did some deep breathing and leaned into the invitation to “go up the ladder,” or, acknowledge reality, embrace reality and find solutions.
An hour later, he shared the news with the Leadership Team. They, too, went down The Mindfulness Ladder and eventually made the choice to go up the ladder. Then, he invited his Leadership Team to join him in taking near heroic steps in leading the division through the crisis. They not only survived; they thrived.
A few years later, a corporate executive from Patrick’s orthopedic company took a new position with a different company. Reflecting with his new boss on whether or not to build on the SMART and HEALTHY principles, he suggested that they consider hiring me. The executive who watched Patrick’s team thrive reflected, “Mark worked closely with Patrick and the leadership team from a division of my former company as they faced a major setback,” he said. “They made a pivot through adversity, recalibrated, and still grew the business.”
That’s why resiliency matters!
Resiliency is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy or significant sources of stress. Resilient individuals are members of resilient teams that have the capacity to recover professionally and personally. It does not happen by luck. It happens when transformational leaders choose to lead from their HEAD and HEART – equate that with SMART and HEALTHY.
Resiliency is more than just a word. It shows up with the energy and activity applied to becoming resilient. If leaders want to build and lead resilient organizations, they must be committed to do so. Dr. Henry Cloud (Boundaries for Leaders) states, “As a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: what you create and what you allow.”
What does it take to build resiliency? Building an execution culture with the equation of SMART + HEALTHY = SUCCESS.
At the same time, leaders also need to develop a mindset that I learned from the first leadership book I read (Leadership is an Art, by Max DePree). “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”
Define reality. Many leaders see this as complaining or whining. I am not promoting ruminating on adversity. I am promoting that leaders lead the way in creating space for people to define what is happening in their organization and how it affects people’s emotional well-being. Like the GM, you must accept the reality that your world just got turned upside down. It’s admitting that this news is bad…sometimes debilitating! Leaders who were able to pivot through the pandemic and post-pandemic started with defining and accepting reality. They admitted the challenges. They focused on how the reality impacted them emotionally and then began the process of retooling. They applied the execution principles around the new reality.
We will face different levels of diversity every day. Building a strong culture of execution is good business. It will also create resilient teams capable of handling even the toughest adversity.
Mark Freier is the Executive Coach and Trusted Advisor of WhatIf Enterprises, where he focuses on transformational leadership and its correlation to building disciplined and high-performance teams. He is the author of “The Choice to Show Up” and “The Execution Culture,” and a highly-regarded speaker. To learn more about The Mindfulness Ladder, you can email Mark.
