Who's in the Room?: How Great Leaders Structure and Manage the Teams Around Them

The result is that, hopefully, better decisions get made, and tension among staff reduces. If everyone is aware that decision-making teams are always small and select – and crucially, different for each decision – there will be no cause for resentment when people are excluded.

The author uses case studies and interviews from leaders at MasterCard, the Red Cross, and other global organizations to make the case that this strategy really can work. He looks at how this concept plays out in both small and large teams. And, he uses a common-sense approach when talking about this strategy.

Because the book addresses specific issues faced by leaders, especially senior leaders and CEOs of large organizations, it's going to be most relevant for people on a leadership team, or heading up a departmental team on their own. You don't have to be a CEO to get value out of this book. But you do need to be in a leadership role.

It will also help if the kind of decision making described so far is familiar to you. All organizations are different, and this book focuses on conventions and processes that are most widely used in very large corporations. If you lead a team in a small non-profit or run a start-up, this information may not be relevant.

That said, if you've ever asked, "Why wasn't I in the room when that decision was made?", then you'll be interested in what this book has to say.

Bob Frisch is an organizational consultant with 29 years' experience working with some of the world's largest companies. He's the managing partner of The Strategic Offsites Group. His work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal.

So, keep listening to find out one fundamental problem of senior leadership teams, why you should start ignoring your organization's hierarchy when you need to make a team decision, and when it's best to use a large team versus a small one.

"Who's In the Room?" is divided into two parts, with 11 chapters in all.

The book begins by addressing a myth about senior leadership teams. This is that everyone on the team is involved in every critical decision that's made. The truth is that often, some members are involved only on a superficial level. The team's top leader, along with his or her closest confidants, ends up making a lot of the decisions.

The author has spent decades working closely with the leaders of some of the world's biggest organizations. Based on that experience, he believes this is how many large organizations really operate, even though it's rarely discussed.

So, what does this kind of decision making really look like?

Imagine the entire senior leadership team of a multinational corporation is meeting next week to discuss an expansion into China. Although everyone has been told the issue will be discussed then, you know your CEO is having lunch today with the CFO and Director of HR. They're likely already talking about the expansion, and making a decision about which way to go.

When next week's meeting comes around, the CEO asks for everyone's opinion. As Director of IT you speak up about the strain the expansion will put on your team, who already have conflicting priorities and a shortage of personnel. The CEO waves off your concerns, saying he doesn't want to get bogged down in the details. He wants a broader look at the move. He asks again if anyone else needs to speak up. No one does, and the CEO announces the expansion is going forward.

It seems as if today's meeting was for appearances only – an illusion. Last week's lunch is when the real meeting took place. You, along with many other department heads, feel like you're just there to nod your head in agreement. And, all of you feel confused and resentful that your concerns about the expansion won't get heard at all.

Does this sound familiar?

The real problem with the way senior management teams are run is the gap between the illusion and the reality. In this gap lies frustration, turf wars, wasted skills and expertise, and a chance to avoid serious problems down the road. And, this is the gap that "Who's In the Room?" tries to fix.

When a leader consults with a small group of trusted advisors, the author calls this group a kitchen cabinet. And, this kitchen cabinet concept is a good idea. Kitchen cabinets use precisely the right mix of advisors for each situation. They preempt problems that can come from uneven qualifications in a larger group, endless discussion, and office politics. In this small group, communication is open and honest. And, it's just a more efficient way to make decisions.

The problem is that most leaders don't use their kitchen cabinet wisely. They consult their group secretly, and keep other members of the team out of the loop about what's happening. Sometimes, people who do need to be in the room are excluded. This destroys morale, makes honest communication difficult, and causes serious problems in the group's overall effectiveness and potential.

So, what needs to happen? Well, in chapter two the author first goes into what doesn't need to happen. What we don't need is more team building. Team building exercises and away days don't really solve this problem.

Team members might come away from a team offsite understanding each other a little better. But team building doesn't change people's decision-making processes. Only a change in strategy does that.

The real problem, which the author starts to address in chapter four, is the assumption that the senior management team should be a decision-making body. The reality is that it's ill-suited to such a task.

According to the author, a senior management team has four fundamental conflicts. One of these the author calls "The team versus the legislature."

Senior management teams are called teams, but they really resemble a government body, like the United States' legislature. Each team member represents a "constituency," usually a department. Each member of the team is an expert in one particular area, such as HR, IT, or Finance. Meanwhile, the CEO expects team members to act in the best interest of the overall enterprise. He or she often wants the people on the senior team to be generalists. This is a major conflict of accountability.

Another major problem is what the author calls Mission Control versus Knights of the Round Table. He illustrates this with an insightful comparison.

If you lived in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, you're probably familiar with the NASA Space Program. You know that in Mission Control, there were men with headsets, each sitting at a desk. Each of these men was an expert in his field like medical, meteorology, or telemetry.

From 1965 to 1974, the NASA flight director was Gene Kranz. Before each lift off Kranz would turn to each field leader for a final check before the decision was made to go for launch.

The author states that NASA's Mission Control is the perfect example of a functionally-oriented senior management team. Each leader on the team focuses on the issues that pertain to his or her area of specialization. After consulting with each leader, the team's top leader makes a final decision.

Many leaders today want their senior leadership team to be generalists, and look at issues from a holistic, company-wide perspective. They want a team that's more like the Knights of the Round Table, where each knight's opinion on every topic had equal value, even compared to the King. In the author's view, this doesn't make best use of the unique perspectives in the room.

The author covers the other two fundamental conflicts deeply in this chapter. These are spot on, and if you're part of a leadership team you'll likely be nodding your head in recognition.

So, what do you need to do about all this? Well, top leaders need to accept the reality that different decisions call for different groups of people. They need to stop seeing themselves as leading from the top of a pyramid. Instead, they should envision themselves at the center of a series of circles.

If you're wondering if this can actually work, you might want to read chapter five first. This chapter is a case study of Allstate corporation. This company's CEO reshaped his entire senior management structure along these lines. This is how the kitchen cabinet theory looks in a real organization.

In chapter six, the author gets to the heart of the issue. He suggests that CEOs and other top-tier leaders get rid of as many permanent groups and committees as possible. Instead, they need to replace them with objective-based teams.

This might sound a bit confusing, but it's actually quite simple. When a project calls for the involvement of a team, the leader shouldn't automatically put it in the hands of the existing team that the organizational hierarchy indicates. Instead, the leader should first think about the desired outcome, and then create a team that will support that particular outcome.

This approach is fluid, and can be targeted to each specific situation.

The author makes a good point here. He states that process, hierarchy, and structure don't disappear from the organization. Using this approach simply means that process, hierarchy, and structure aren't the primary determinants of how the leader uses teams. The selection of the people in the room depends on what the boss wants to get out of the room. That is, the primary outcome.

Now this might sound like it would take a lot of work to implement. But it really doesn't. To start with, in very large organizations there are often already three sub-teams in the top leadership team: the kitchen cabinet, the senior management team, and the larger all officers group. If you don't have an all officers group, then the last team would include the senior team's direct reports.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these three naturally-occurring teams, and the author goes over these in detail. But what you should take away is this: you already have these three teams in place. The combination of who's on these teams for any given decision or situation can be changed by the top leader, depending on what they need or the outcome they're looking for.

There's a great piece of advice from the author here. When you're putting together a team for a specific purpose, pay careful attention to the size. If you need to make a decision, keep the group small. If alignment is your goal, a medium sized team will be the best. If you need to generate ideas or implement a plan, then a large group is often best.

We thought this was an insightful bit of advice that any leader could use when putting together a team, even an informal one.

Part two of the book looks at the senior management team in greater detail. If this team is no longer going to continue working under the illusion that they're making every critical decision, what are they there for?

Well, the author makes one point very clear. The senior management team will now have the time and energy to do what they do best, and that's align the organization in critical areas such as the vision, allocation of resources, and execution.

Part two focuses on this team exclusively. Here, you'll learn how to best engage your senior managers and start leveraging the skills and knowledge that got them to this senior level in the first place.

Chapter eight focuses on how to start a conversation with your team to realign their vision of the organization, and their role in it. Here, you learn how to get your senior team to challenge common assumptions about the way you do business, embrace trends that could help drive new changes in your organization, and redefine the opportunities you look at.

Chapters nine and ten are devoted to prioritizing initiatives and managing dependencies.

So, what's our last word on "Who's In the Room?"

We liked the book because it encourages leaders to reassess how they look at their senior team, and offers help for when senior teams and committees seem ineffective. Yes, some top leaders might think the book is a bit provocative. But it takes an honest look at the way decisions really get made in most organizations. It shows leaders how to embrace this decision-making strategy openly, and use it even more effectively within their organization.

And, while it isn't a page turner, it's friendly and easy to read.

What's most important is that the author keeps the implementation of his ideas simple. It's clear he knows how busy senior managers are, and he has an insider view of the reality of top teams. His strategies are easy and relatively quick to implement, and he offers some good insights on how to readjust the roles of senior teams so they're more effective.

"Who's In the Room?," by Bob Frisch, is published by Jossey-Bass.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.