Executive Leadership Team Alignment

Over the past several years, researchers such as Peter Senge et al, writing in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, describe how, as organizations have grown more interested in encouraging high-quality teamwork, many businesses are making a significant shift at their most senior levels.

Despite the focus by the press and Wall Street on the heroic personality of the CEO (Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, etc.), these organizations are moving away from the “great individual” model of leadership, and moving toward being led by a team of executives instead.
This new leadership is sometimes formalized in structures such as “Office of the President” or “Office of the Chief Executive”— the “office,” in actuality, being a decision-making team of four to nine people.

In working with executive teams over recent years, I’ve discovered that the circumstances in which their mastery must be developed are generally more difficult than those faced by any other team.

They have an even more complex and far-reaching agenda because of the responsibilities inherent at the executive level…
AND the issues that this level must deal with competently.

Your executive team must, for example, become good at the core issues that any team must master, such as alignment around a shared vision, the ability to discuss current reality without bias, clarity of roles and accountabilities, and methods for capturing and accessing collective knowledge.

The ability to dialogue openly and truthfully holds wondrous promise for the executive team.
Unfortunately, divergent points of view show up too often as tensions and unspoken conflicts.
Methods are either mastered for handling these tensions and conflicts constructively or the team’s potential is never realized.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT:

Information-gathering mechanisms seem to evolve in ways that result in the top of the system having a limited, incomplete, and even biased understanding of reality.

You must develop methods that surface and rectify these mechanisms, so that, for example, bad news is as likely to come to your attention as good.
Face-to-face, two-way communication must be developed deep into the organization
AND, a norm must be established of responsibly surfacing and naming the truth as completely as possible.

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT:

Information-gathering mechanisms seem to evolve in ways that result in the top of the system having a limited, incomplete, and even biased understanding of reality.

You must develop methods that surface and rectify these mechanisms, so that, for example, bad news is as likely to come to your attention as good.
Face-to-face, two-way communication must be developed deep into the organization
AND, a norm must be established of responsibly surfacing and naming the truth as completely as possible.

STRATEGY AS LEARNING BEHAVIOR

“Strategy as team learning behavior” stands in stark contrast to “strategy developed by experts.”

The best strategy formulation reconceives the firm and its environment in line with the construction of new mental models, and new organization intelligence.
The promise of such an effort is a more accurate, more robust view of the future, but it will require that everyone on your team (and many other key individuals) actually think about life differently.

STRATEGY AS LEARNING BEHAVIOR

“Strategy as team learning behavior” stands in stark contrast to “strategy developed by experts.”

The best strategy formulation reconceives the firm and its environment in line with the construction of new mental models, and new organization intelligence.
The promise of such an effort is a more accurate, more robust view of the future, but it will require that everyone on your team (and many other key individuals) actually think about life differently.

ORGANIZATION CHANGE

As an executive team, you must master managing organization change — design, structure, and implementation.

This must be accomplished through methods that get the entire organization engaged and committed, both in favor of the shared vision and in a rigorous search for the truth.
If you want to create an organization committed to a new way of being and a new business concept, then the processes that must be employed must foster commitment.
Any coercive process, no matter how well intended, simply cannot ultimately result in commitment.

ORGANIZATION CHANGE

As an executive team, you must master managing organization change — design, structure, and implementation.

This must be accomplished through methods that get the entire organization engaged and committed, both in favor of the shared vision and in a rigorous search for the truth.
If you want to create an organization committed to a new way of being and a new business concept, then the processes that must be employed must foster commitment.
Any coercive process, no matter how well intended, simply cannot ultimately result in commitment.

Your executive team will have it’s own unique difficulties in learning.

For the executive team member, life is more a “zero sum game” than ever before.
Earlier in the executive’s career, on teams lower in the organization, he or she could get ahead without necessarily “winning” at the expense of another team member.
Generally, this is not true for the executive team.
One person getting ahead often means another getting left behind, a phenomenon particularly evident around the issue of succession.
Lip service to collaboration notwithstanding, this is a very real dynamic on many executive teams.
My plan vs your plan, my budget vs your budget is a common mindset.

My husband and I have been working with Bert for six months now. When we came to see him initially, we were really close to giving up. We had seen other counselors and coaches both as a couple and separately, but it hadn’t make any substantial lasting changes in our relationship. After a few sessions with Bert, I knew that this was the right person for us to work with; he had earned our trust, and I knew he would offer us the right mixture of challenge and encouragement. What ultimately shifted our relationship — our way of being with each other — was the experience of being with Bert; he constantly inspires and challenges us to live as our best selves, modeling how we might grow into something new, while helping to illuminate the inner dialogue or the behavior that could keep us stuck where we are. In his work with the Integral Institute and Spiral Dynamics, Bert has helped to map out the way that adults develop throughout their lives, and so it’s reassuring to hear him say we’re making progress, because he knows what progress really is: not just a horizontal translation into better skills and techniques, but also vertical growth into different ways of experiencing, being, and knowing. When we started, we were drowning in a sea of issues and disagreements; it’s clear now that we are on a learning journey together, and I feel so honored to have Bert on the journey with us,
acting as our coach, mentor, and teacher.

Marcy Deluce, San Francisco, CA

Bert Parlee is helping me during a critical point of my development as a leader. He is resourceful, kind, generous and perceptive not only of my stated needs and wishes, but also insightful of the ways I get in my own way. His wisdom, counsel and guidance have been absolutely invaluable.

Richard Karpel

I first had the pleasure of experiencing Dr. Parlee’s talents when I enrolled for a weeklong training he led on Leadership in Westminster, Colorado. I was so impressed with his ability to weave world-class, cutting edge information with powerfully designed and skillfully implemented experiential learning that I approached him on the spot to take my organization through a year long Leadership Training Program.

I would be delighted to furnish any further information, either written or via telephone, that might assist you in your decision-making relative to Dr. Parlee.

Rick Fort, President, ESM

Bert Parlee is a wise and compassionate coach. His insightful questions have helped me unravel complicated tangles of thought, emotion, and behavior to reveal a path of growth congruent with my most authentic self. With kindness and steadfast encouragement, Bert has supported me through experiencing negative emotions and breaking identification with limiting belief systems. I trust Bert, and his coaching has profoundly impacted not only my life but also the lives of those closest to me.

Robin Reinach

Bert Parlee is an amazing instructor that provided an abundance of content that can be applicable to any profession. As a participant, I was delighted to see our management team move from a group of working individuals to a leadership team that became focused on performance and innovation, while successfully managing change and understanding the human mindset. I suspect Bert’s being a psychologist has something to do with his ability to see hidden dynamics that we weren’t aware of. He helped open our eyes to see one another in refreshing new ways that were both profound and delightful.

Colleen Young, Director of Training Education Sales Management

Bert is not only a world-class professional trainer, but he does so with a confidence that is complemented by highly attuned interpersonal sensitivity and empathic attunement. People are drawn to Bert as a person, enjoying his openness, authenticity and warmth. I would be delighted to furnish any further information, either written or via telephone, that might assist you in your decision-making relative to Dr. Parlee.

Rick Fort, President, ESM

As a large enterprise level organization moving towards increased global complexity, we needed larger, more empowering frameworks within which to manage our many complications and contradictions. Bert introduced us to Polarity Management and related Integral mental models, allowing us to have next level conversations with new stage concepts. Over the next few years with Bert serving as coach, facilitator, coach and consultant, our leadership team was much better prepared to negotiate the shift from a print to a digital foundation.

Vince O’Brien, President, ESM

In 2008 I was fortunate enough to participate in one of Integral Institute’s Leadership Seminars that was facilitated by Bert Parlee and other world-class integrally informed thinkers. I was so inspired by Bert’s leadership skills and presentation style that I invited him to participate in a transformative initiative being implemented by the Government of British Columbia’s Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance. By means of executive coaching and staff training seminars, Bert pla…

Wayne Reid, Manager: Transformation and Implementation, Government of British Columbia, Provincial Services