Build Trust
Your leadership team should be no more than 12 people, but you should aim to be as small as possible (3-8) for several reasons.
More speaking time per person means they're more likely to spend their speaking time on inquiry over advocacy.
- The fewer people, the better each person can get to know everyone else!
- Fewer people = more speaking time
More speaking time per person means they're more likely to spend their speaking time on inquiry over advocacy.
Inquiry Ask questions, seek clarity. Moves a conversation along towards mutual agreement. Open-ended, disagreement isn't seen as personal. "Why do you think X?" "What could Y lead to?" |
Advocacy State your case, make your point. Can bog down a discussion with opinions, devolve it into petty arguments. "We should do X." "If we don't do Y, we're going to have Z problems." |
Real-World Examples
Sierra Soccer Team Instead of using grade or age to determine captains, coach selects two players who embody what he wants the team to eventually look like. Then he spends a significant amount of time and energy ensuring all three of them (coach + two captains) build trust and alignment. Selecting too many captains (ex. all of the seniors) can easily lead to misalignment, a lack of clarity, and significant unpredictability for all players on the team. |
Blunder Mifflin Company Regional manager Michael assembles a leadership team, comprised of each department head (accounting, sales, HR, and operations). They used to hold conference room meetings with every employee present, but they were worse than useless: they were detrimental! Now decisions can be made by people who know each other well and who can spend time asking questions instead of yelling answers. |
Sharpe First Aid Squad Helping others feel heard is crucial for building trust, so monthly business meetings (with every member of the squad present) are not the place to solicit feedback on decisions. Instead collect feedback or ideas in small groups so everyone can feel heard and comfortable inquiring instead of advocating. |
Tl;dr Top Tips:
- Meeting with several smaller groups almost always yields better results than meeting with one large group.
- If you're selecting a leadership team, focus on selecting a smaller number but a higher quality.
- Organizations become like their leaders. The larger the group, the less trust, the more disjointed the organization,