Some leadership issues become familiar enough that the team can describe them in a few words. “The handoff again.” “We need to sort out priorities.” “I thought we had already decided this.”
The words carry a history. People remember the meetings where they talked it through, the agreement they reached, and the reasons it seemed sensible at the time. Then something happens in the working week and the issue returns to the agenda.
I am interested in what keeps that pattern going. A team can put considerable thought into a problem and still have more to understand about how it is being recreated in the work.
That is a useful place to begin a focused team workshop: with one issue people recognize, and enough time together to examine how it actually happens.
Look at one recent instance
Consider an illustrative example. Sales has promised a customer a start date before operations has confirmed capacity. Operations finds out when the job arrives, moves other work to accommodate it, and asks for earlier involvement next time.
The leadership team has discussed this before. Everyone agrees that sales and operations need to communicate. The next urgent customer request puts that agreement under pressure again.
Looking at one recent instance gives the team something specific to work with. What did the salesperson know when they offered the date? What information did operations need? Where could either person see the current capacity? Who could confirm the commitment to the customer?
Each person may have been responding sensibly to the part of the situation they could see. Hearing those accounts together helps the team understand the conditions that keep producing the same difficult handoff.
It also makes the next agreement more precise. “Communicate earlier” needs to become something people can use when a customer is waiting for an answer.
What I work on with a leadership team
In a focused workshop, I help the team stay with its actual issue long enough to understand what each person is seeing and what the work requires of them. The people involved have knowledge that matters. They also need a way to bring it into a shared conversation and make decisions together.
In the sales and operations example, that could mean agreeing who confirms a start date, what information they need, and how a request gets an answer when capacity is uncertain. The team would also need to decide what happens when a customer asks for an exception.
Those decisions reach into everyday work. Someone may need to change a field in the sales process, make capacity information easier to find, or explain the new agreement to colleagues who were outside the room. Each action needs an owner and a date.
The session ends with those responsibilities made explicit and a first review agreed. At that review, the team can examine what happened on the next few requests and adjust the parts that need attention.
The same approach can apply to a decision that keeps getting reopened, commitments that repeatedly slip, or priorities that mean different things in different parts of the business. The issue gives the work its focus.
Give the agreement a place in the week
This is why I want the conversation to include what people will do when they return to work. An agreement may require several people to change something, including the leader who has been stepping in whenever the process gets difficult.
A named owner helps carry that work forward. A first action gives it a starting point. An early review gives the team a place to learn from what happens once the agreement encounters a real request.
That work tends to suit owners and CEOs of growing companies whose leadership teams keep revisiting the same issues. It can also help management groups where handoffs vary between teams, or leaders preparing for a retreat who want to think through how the agreements will be used afterward.
Start with the issue that keeps returning
Before your next leadership meeting, choose one recurring issue and write down its most recent instance. Describe what was expected, what actually happened, and which work or people were affected.
Bring that instance into the conversation. Ask the people involved to explain what they knew and what shaped their decisions. Then choose one adjustment, name who will carry it, and agree when you will look at the next instance together.
If you would like help working through that conversation with your team, I offer a 30-minute discovery conversation. We use it to clarify the recurring issue, identify who needs to be involved, and decide whether a focused workshop is the right response. Where the work calls for an ongoing approach, it can develop into a leadership program around the same issue.
