Senior Executives Explore Strategies for
Breakthrough Performance at AMA Forum

AMA’s latest Executive Forum brought together senior executives from corporations as divergent as Verizon, Federal Home Loan, Inttra, Cerexagri and Sankyo Pharma for a discussion of the best practices in high-performance teams today.

Led by organizational development expert Howard M. Guttman, principal, Guttman Development Strategies, Inc., the event included a panel of three executives who discussed the real-world effect the implementation of high-performance strategies has had on their businesses. Their stories focused on the benefits they’ve experienced in decision-making processes, conflict resolution and the all-important bottom line, along with the challenges they have faced along the way. The panelists included: Manuel Jessup, Vice President of Human Resources, Sara Lee Branded Apparel, Brands and Products; Gordon Knapp, President, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare NA; and Grant Reid, Senior Vice President of Sales, Masterfoods USA.

Guttman emphasized that if an organization is to achieve high performance, its senior team must be aligned in five key areas:

1. Business strategy
2. Business deliverables coming from the strategy
3. Roles and responsibilities at individual and department levels
4. Decision-making ground rules and other relevant protocols
5. Business relationships

Successful implementation of these alignment strategies involves a major cultural shift from a traditional, hierarchical structure to a horizontal one, explained Guttman. This process requires changes in structure, systems, roles and behaviors that can be quite dramatic and therefore, challenging, for personnel. Whereas previously, a manager may have felt accountable only for himself and his direct reports, a horizontal structure adds tiers of accountability—for one’s peers, for the top leaders, and ultimately, for the success of the entire organization. The key, said Guttman, is that effective change must come from the top: “The senior executive team, for better or worse, is the model that everyone else in the organization replicates. They are the role models, so the stakes are high for them to succeed.”

The journey to breakthrough performance can be a rocky one, Guttman explained, as many of the requisite behaviors can be counter intuitive. People must be willing to cross departmental lines, break out of their established silos and become involved in areas that they may not consider “their business.” Each team member must take on a sense of ownership and accountability for the business results of the entire team and feel empowered to speak out on any matter that impacts the group. Each team must periodically self-assess its progress regarding business deliverables, individual commitments and relevant protocols. Once team members learn how to handle conflicts and problems on their own, senior management will be free to concentrate on more global issues and strategies. Remember, consensus doesn’t mean agreement—it means one can live with the outcome! You must depersonalize the conflict.

Panel Highlights:
Grant Reid, Masterfoods USA: “We wanted to get our executive team to perform as well as our products. But, because we were structured hierarchically, we were optimizing silos within the business, not the organization as a whole.”

Gordon Knapp, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare NA: “Once you start down the path to a high-performance team set up, be prepared to hang in for the long haul. Yes, you’ll run into conflicts along the way; but the key is to deal with them immediately, as they arise.”

Manuel Jessup, Sara Lee Branded Apparel, Brands and Products: “Make sure that the leader is supportive of the process, or it won’t work. You may lose a few people, but once people start working within a functional group, no one wants to go back to being dysfunctional.”

So, where should an organization that wants to develop high-performance teams begin? Guttman advises, “To start, give everyone absolution for past sins. Everyone should begin the process with a blank slate. You may be surprised at which people really step up to the plate to meet the challenge.”

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