Connecting Top Managers: Developing Executive Teams for Business Success

2. The Clash of Titans: Executive Teaming

“When two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.”

—African Proverb

We talk to professionals in hundreds of organizations every year, and we have noticed an interesting pattern. When mentioning the topic of executive teaming, we tend to get applause from middle managers and frontline professionals but a less enthusiastic interest level from leaders. Teaming, perhaps, is like flossing your teeth—critical but not on the top of the list of things to do. Also many leadership teams either don’t know they have teaming issues or know but aren’t committed to correcting them. When a senior-level team behaves in a dysfunctional way, it affects the entire organization and processes like decision making, ...