PART FOUR
Traction
HARVEST
Although the last of Kathryn’s Napa Valley off-sites had a different atmosphere from the others, it began with a familiar speech. “We have a more experienced set of executives than any of our competitors. We have more cash than they do. Thanks to Martin and his team, we have better core technology. And we have a more connected board of directors. Yet in spite of all that, we are behind two of our competitors in terms of both revenue and customer growth. And I think we all know why that is.”
Nick raised his hand. “Kathryn, I’d like you to stop giving that speech.”
A month earlier, everyone in the room would have been shocked by such a blunt statement. But no one seemed to be alarmed at all.
“Why is that?” Kathryn asked.
Nick frowned, trying to think of the right words. “I guess it seemed more appropriate a few weeks ago when we were a lot more ...” Nick didn’t need to finish the sentence.
Kathryn explained as nicely as she could. “I’ll stop making this speech when it’s no longer true. We are still behind two of our competitors. And we are still not where we need to be as a team.”
Kathryn continued. “But that’s not to say that we aren’t on the right track. In fact, the first thing we’re going to do today is take a step back and assess where we are as a team.”
Kathryn went to the white board and drew the triangle again, filling in the five dysfunctions.
Then she asked, “How are we doing?”
The team considered the question as they re-examined the model.
Finally, Jeff spoke first. “We certainly trust each other more than we did a month ago.” Heads around the room nodded, and Jeff completed the thought. “Although I think that it’s still too early to say that there isn’t more work to be done.” Heads continued to nod.
Jan added. “And we’re doing better with conflict, although I can’t say I’m used to it yet.”
Kathryn assured her, “I don’t think anyone ever gets completely used to conflict. If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway.”
Jan accepted the explanation.
Nick jumped in. “As far as commitment is concerned, we have definitely started getting better buy-in around objectives and deliverables. That’s not a problem. But the next one, accountability, worries me the most.”
“Why?” asked Jeff.
“Because I’m not sure that we’re going to be willing to get in each other’s faces when someone doesn’t deliver, or if someone starts acting against the good of the team.”
“I’m certainly going to get in their face.”
To everyone’s surprise, it was Martin who made the comment. He explained. “I don’t think I could handle going back to the way things were before. And so if it comes down to a little interpersonal discomfort versus politics, I’m opting for the discomfort.”
Nick smiled at his quirky colleague and finished the model. “Well, I don’t think we’re going to have a results problem. None of us will come out of this smelling rosy if we can’t make this company work.”
Kathryn had never been so glad to see a room full of people nod their heads in agreement. But she decided that she should let some of the air out of the team’s balloon.
“Listen, I agree with most of what you’ve said about the team. You’re moving in the right direction. But I want to assure you that there will be many days during the next few months when you will wonder if you’ve made any progress at all. It’s going to take more than a few weeks of behavioral change before we see a tangible impact on the bottom line.”
The team seemed to be agreeing with her too easily. She decided she needed to rattle them one more time. “I’m telling you this because we are not out of the woods yet. I’ve seen plenty of groups slide backward that were a lot further along than we are. This is about having the discipline and persistence to keep doing what we’re doing.”
As bad as Kathryn felt about raining on the team’s parade, she was relieved to have prepared them for the bad weather every team faces on the way to shedding their dysfunctions. And for the next two days, the team experienced that weather. At times, working together in a spirit of cooperation, at other times seemingly at each other’s throats, the group wrestled with business issues and worked each one through to resolution. Ironically, they rarely discussed the notion of teamwork directly, which Kathryn interpreted as a sign that they were making progress. Two observations that Kathryn made during breaks and meals told her she was right.
First, the team seemed to stay together, choosing not to go off on their own as they had at previous off-sites. Second, they were noisier than they had ever been, and one of the most prevalent sounds that could be heard among them was laughter. By the end of the session, though they were clearly exhausted, everyone seemed eager to schedule follow-up meetings with one another when they returned to the office.
GUT CHECK
Three months after the final off-site had ended, Kathryn held her first quarterly two-day staff meeting at a local hotel. The new vice president of marketing, Joseph Charles, had joined DecisionTech a week earlier and was attending his first meeting with the group.
Kathryn kicked off the session by making an announcement that no one was prepared for. “Remember Green Banana? The company that we considered buying last quarter?”
Heads around the table nodded.
“Well, evidently Nick was right about their being a possible competitor. They want to buy us.”
Everyone except Jeff, who sat on the board and already knew about the offer, was shocked. No one more so than Nick. “I thought they were in financial trouble?”
“They were,” explained Kathryn. “I guess they raised a truckload of money last month and are suddenly hungry to buy something. They’ve already made us an offer.”
“What’s it look like?” Jan wanted to know.
Kathryn looked at her notes. “Quite a bit more than our estimated worth today. We would all make decent money.”
Jan pressed on. “What did the board say?”
Jeff answered for Kathryn. “They’re leaving it up to us.”
No one spoke. It was as if they were all calculating their potential payouts and trying to put the offer into some sort of context.
Finally, an almost angry voice with a British accent broke the silence. “No bloody way.”
Everyone turned toward their head of engineering. He spoke with more passion than anyone had ever heard from him. “There is no way that I am going to walk away from all of this and hand it over to a company named after a piece of unripened fruit.”
The group burst out into laughter.
Jan brought them back down to earth. “I don’t think we should discard this quite so fast. There is no guarantee that we’re going to make it. This is real money.”
Jeff added to his CFO’s point. “The board certainly doesn’t think it’s a bad offer.”
Martin didn’t seem to believe Jeff. “Then why did they leave it to us to make the decision?”
Jeff paused for a moment before explaining. “Because they want to know that we have the fire in our bellies.”
Martin frowned. “The what?”
Jeff clarified for his British colleague. “They want to know if we want to be here. If we’re really committed to the company. And to each other.”
Joseph summarized the situation. “It sounds like this is a gut check.”
Carlos spoke for the first time during the meeting. “I vote against it.”
Jeff was next. “So do I. Definitely.”
Nick nodded his head. As did Kathryn and Joseph.
Martin looked at Jan. “What do you say?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Green Banana? Are you kidding?”
They broke into laughter.
Kathryn quickly refocused the meeting, wanting to capture the momentum and direct it toward real business. “Okay, we’ve got plenty of other big topics to take care of today. So let’s get started.”
For the next several hours, the group took Joseph through the five dysfunctions. Nick explained the importance of trust. Jan and Jeff together covered conflict and commitment. Carlos described accountability within the context of the team, and Martin finished off results. They then reviewed Joseph’s Myers-Briggs results and explained the roles and responsibilities of his new peers, as well as their collective goals.
Most importantly, for the rest of the day they launched into some of the most passionate debates Joseph had ever heard and ended those debates with crystal-clear agreements and no sense of lingering bitterness. They called each other on the carpet once or twice in ways that made Joseph uncomfortable, but in each case they brought the discussions around to results.
By the end of the session, Joseph decided he had joined one of the most unusual and intense executive teams he had ever seen, and he couldn’t wait to become an active part of it.
THE MARCH
Over the course of the next year, DecisionTech grew its sales dramatically, and met its revenue goals during three of its four quarters. The company moved into a virtual tie for the number one position in the industry, but had yet to separate itself from its chief rival.
With the substantial improvement in performance, the company saw turnover among employees subside and morale rise steadily, with the exception of a slight and temporary dip when the company missed its numbers.
Interestingly, when that happened, even the Chairman called to encourage Kathryn not to get too disappointed in light of the undeniable progress she had made.
With more than 250 employees, Kathryn decided it was time to trim down the number of executives who reported directly to her. She believed that the larger the company, the smaller the team should be at the top. And with the addition of a new head of sales and a human resources director, her staff had grown to a barely manageable eight. It wasn’t that Kathryn couldn’t handle the weekly one-on-ones, but it was increasingly difficult to have fluid and substantive discussions during staff meetings with nine people sitting around the table. Even with the new collective attitude of the members of the team, it would be only a matter of time before problems began to surface.
So more than a year after the final Napa off-site had ended, Kathryn decided to make a few organizational changes, which she delicately but confidently explained to each of her staff members. Nick would again assume the role of chief operating officer, a title he finally felt he had earned. Carlos and the new head of sales would report to him and would no longer be on the CEO’s staff. Human resources would report to Jan, leaving Kathryn with five direct reports: Martin as CTO, Jan as CFO, Nick as COO, Joseph as VP of marketing, and Jeff as VP of business development.
A week later, another of Kathryn’s quarterly two-day staff meetings took place. Before Kathryn could start the meeting, Jan wanted to know, “Where’s Jeff?”
Kathryn responded matter-of-factly. “That’s what I wanted to talk about first today. Jeff won’t be coming to these meetings any more.”
The room was stunned. Both at what Kathryn had said, and that she said it with so little emotion.
Finally, Jan asked the question that everyone was thinking. “Jeff quit?”
Kathryn seemed a little surprised by the question. “No.”
Martin then followed. “You didn’t fire him, did you?”
Suddenly it occurred to Kathryn what everyone was thinking. “No, of course not. Why would I fire Jeff? It’s just that he’ll be reporting to Nick from now on. Given his new role, he and I both agree that it makes a lot of sense.”
As much as everyone was relieved that their worst fears had been allayed, there was still something bothering them.
Jan couldn’t hold back. “Kathryn, I can certainly see that it makes sense. And frankly, I’m sure that Nick is glad to have Jeff on his team.”
Nick nodded to confirm this, and Jan continued. “But don’t you think he’s disappointed about not reporting directly to you anymore? I mean, I know we’re not supposed to be concerned with status and ego and all of that, but he is a board member, and a founder. Did you really consider what this means to him?”
Kathryn smiled proudly, delighted that they had forced her to explain what she had been wanting to tell them all along. “You guys, this was Jeff’s idea.”
That thought had not occurred to any of them. Kathryn went on. “He said that as much as he wanted to stay on the team, it made more sense for him to be part of Nick’s group. I actually gave him a chance to change his mind, and he insisted it was the right thing to do for the company, and for the team.”
Kathryn let her team enjoy a silent moment of admiration for their former CEO.
And then she continued. “I think we owe it to Jeff and everyone else at this company to make this work. Let’s get started.”
