The world’s frenzy stopped for two months. We paid a high price in lives and livelihoods that were lost or affected. For most of us, fear, frustration and confusion were intertwined with self-reflection, hope and plans for a new way of living, working and performing. As executive teams go back offline to leading their organisations, they will need more than ever to achieve clarity, alignment and engagement on how they plan to successfully adapt their business to the new post-pandemic reality.

No matter how wisely crafted, the vision, mission, strategy or culture of an organization will not produce high performance unless every member of the top team shares a similar understanding on them.

All leadership teams are full of highly successful people. But sometimes, a new challenge or a new aspiration requires a new leadership vision and behaviour. Results can be achieved in many ways, but some are more productive than others. Choosing the right way as a team requires clarity on what it is, what it should be and how to get there.

High-performing teams are a kind of mantra of the corporate world that goes mainly unquestioned. But when we talk about the top level of an organization, in many cases, the organizational structure is not designed for a team, but for a working group. Not seeing and acting on the difference makes being in charge together more confusing than rewarding.

Executives spend most of their time in individual or team meetings. Do they get the value for the time and energy they put in? When not, the main reason is that participants could not engage in a way that created a valuable result. Constructive dialogue is not a polite search for the best compromise. It is a set of specific practices and patterns that creates the best outcome from every interaction.