I mentioned to a friend that I was helping  the people who run  a large organization become a team. His response was, “Isn’t the team at the top an oxymoron or a joke depending on how you look at it?” His comment is validated over and over in research. People who wind up running functions and business units are exceptional and conscientious leaders of their own teams. But what happens when they are all put in a room and one person is technically in charge?

The word is team is often used to describe the group of people who run the staff functions and the business units. Katzenbach’s work clarified that the word is often misused with that group of people as my friend so eloquently pointed out.   The team at the top tends to be a group that exchanges information and humors one another.  However, a lot has happened in the workplace since Katzenbach eloquently addressed the struggles of teams at the top. First and foremost, the level of ambiguity and change in the marketplace is such that the brilliance of one person is not enough. Second, whether it is simple dysfunction or human nature, it is very difficult to get honest feedback by the time you reach a high level of responsibility. Without honest feedback, we humans digress twoard negative behaviors, stupid mistakes, and become our own worst enemies over time.

As a result, doing the work to help the top of the organization practice as a team on a regular basis is of critical importance in driving decision making that takes into account multiple and conflicting variables. But there is another reason that we don’t often think about. Where is that group of individuals likely to get honest, fair, and challenging feedback. You got it. The only place that the team at the top is likely to get helpful developmental feedback is from each other. Without feedback, we humans regress into our own unique and creative self deception traps.  Top leaders need to maintain the ability to get over themselves regularly.  What happens when top leaders lose the ability to get over themselves? Oh my. . .

Think about the last time someone said I have some feedback for you.  What was your emotional reaction? Emotional reactions fall into one of four categories: mad, sad, glad, or afraid.  What was your emotional reaction? If the honest truth is that your emotional reaction was unadulterated gladness, stop reading now.  But if like most of us, the emotional reaction was bit less positive, keep reading. 

I notice the non-verbals as my clients recount feedback conversations.  Here is a very common behavior pattern.  As they say they appreciate the feedback from Mr. X, the non-verbals are usually similar to what you would see as someone discusses a route canal or a colonoscopy.  I am starting a movement to replace feedback sessions with learning conversations. Here is how a learning conversation works:

1.  Positive and negative dimensions of performance are discussed in balance.  This is hard for all of us.  There is a natural human cognitive error.  We tend to see things as overwhelmingly positive or negative in regard to the performance of ourselves and others.  Reality is always grounded somewhere between perfect and horrible. 

2.  Learning conversations take place regularly and are not specially scheduled.  The lead in can be something like do you want to know what I think? Think of the difference between the regular local news versus President Obama breaking in to tell us Osama Bin Laden was dead.  Less drama makes for a learning conversation. 

3.  Both parties learn something.  It is not a one way deal.  If only one person is learning or attacked, that is feedback not a learning conversation.  There is an exploratory, curious tone.  That sounds esoteric, but it is not.  How many questions were asked versus declarative statements made.  If they were a written transcript, a learning conversation would have at least 10 question marks. 

So, go have a learning conversation today.  You may want to try it at home too.