Home > Articles > Business & Management

Introduction to Connecting Top Managers: A Pack of Top Dogs

The authors of Connecting Top Managers share with you what they have learned about leadership teams and how to boost the positive impact they can have on organizations.
This chapter is from the book
  • Lisa was sitting with the CEO of a food manufacturer discussing the model for their senior leadership team. The CEO and his vice president of human resources had taken a stab at creating their model and had emailed it to Lisa the week before and asked for her input.
  • "I think what you have here is great, but it is incomplete," Lisa said. "You are missing half the model."
  • "Really, how so?" asked the CEO with great interest.
  • Lisa pulled a simple one-page diagram from a folder. "What you have defined is your expectations for what great functional leadership means to you and at this organization. What you have not yet addressed are your expectations for how your team ought to lead together or what senior leadership team excellence looks like and the impact you expect your team should have on steering this organization, results, culture, and the strength of the management function."
  • The CEO saw the power of the revised model immediately, and it changed his approach to how he and his team would lead together, and it expanded his definition of senior leadership team excellence.

This is a true story and one that we have seen played out with many leaders over the years. These experiences inspired us to write this book and share with you what we have learned about leadership teams and how to boost the positive impact they can have on organizations.

Many organizations use incomplete leadership models, which is not surprising because leaders often tend to focus on their functional (or divisional) responsibilities. Most of their time is spent running the part of the business they have been hired to lead. Their financial rewards are likely tied to unit success, and the people in their unit are who they represent at leadership team meetings and during strategic planning sessions. Recruiting and hiring decisions are often based primarily on previous results as a group leader, and bigger and broader job opportunities are often offered to the leaders who have effectively managed their units.

And so it is not at all surprising to us that the other part of the leadership model, the part that we call leadership team excellence, is often overlooked. You might be thinking that this makes perfect sense. That 95% of a leader's time is spent running his or her function or unit, and therefore we should focus on, measure, and reward leaders based on what happens there. If departments and divisions don't perform well, organizations can't succeed.

We agree that functional success is critical and that it represents only half of the picture of excellence. Here are a few things we have learned that we hope will compel you to keep reading:

  • Leadership teams, as a whole, create the culture and set the tone for how managers and employees work.
  • One of the greatest predictors of whether a workforce will seek union representation and whether a union campaign will succeed is the connection and trust employees have established with the leadership team.
  • Clashing styles within the leadership team have a strong, rippling, and negative effect on the entire organization.
  • Although they are the most expensive in the organization in terms of payroll and opportunity costs, many leadership team meetings fail to produce satisfactory results.

Throughout this book, we explore these and many other ways that leaders, as a team, impact organizational success. We share examples, research, and actionable practices that you and your team members can use to enhance your results across several measures of excellence.

We believe in the 5/95 Rule. Five percent of your time—the approximately 100 hours per year that you spend together as a team—impacts 95% of the success of several organizational systems. If you can optimize this 5%, you will see positive returns in many areas including organizational culture, employee engagement and retention, productivity and results, and organizational agility. We have designed and organized this book to help leadership teams make the most of this precious 5%.

Who This Book Is For

We have written this book for leaders. Leaders are members of at least two teams—their functional or unit groups and their peer leadership teams. Our focus is on helping leaders and their team colleagues get better together. Members of middle management teams will also benefit from the recommendations we share, and we invite human resources, organization development, and training professionals to use this book to develop their leaders and leadership teams as well.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020