Primal Leadership, With a New Preface by the Authors

CHAPTER NINE THE EMOTIONAL REALITY OF TEAMS

THE TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM of a manufacturing firm had accepted an important charge: to find ways to address the fact that the firm was perennially locked in what they called “flat growth.” Translation: They were losing their edge. The trouble was, the team simply could not seem to make big decisions, no matter how important. In fact, the more urgent the decision, the more the team members would put off making it, careful to avoid topics on which they knew they disagreed. Worse yet, they sometimes acted as if they did agree on key issues, only to leave the meeting and, as one person put it, “quietly sabotage the decision.” Meanwhile, the manufacturing firm fell more and more behind on implementing ...