How to create bonding top leadership teams? An unexpected role model

A New Year has started and fresh inspirations are coming in. At Hive17 we focus on facilitating effective teams, and that is particularly important on the top (also check our recent CxO Team post). Just yesterday, the Embassy of Switzerland in Singapore shared a post about the Swiss Federal Presidency and the Swiss Federal Council. An example I like to share as it is a high-level model for a self-organising team.

CxO Teams are in similar situations; they have broad and deep responsibilities; they have the tendency to focus the majority of their time on their own department; they tend to work less as one team. The Swiss government puts a structure in place to counter these tendencies. A structure that any company can learn from and become more effective in delivering change.

Here are some suggestions to look out for:

• Create common, shared goals that all team members commit to
• Establish job rotation so that every CxO team member has exposure and experience in all the functions and business units across the organisation
• Define shared initiatives that are accomplished as a joint effort across multiple departments; they strengthen the cross-departmental understanding, collaboration and alignment
• Build strong personal bonds among all the team members that are based on fellowship, win-win, and consideration
• And you might want to consider the CEO's position as the key person to drive transformation and acting as the glue to bring all the different parts of the organisation together under one vision and one direction

How do you build a more effective and self-organised CxO team?

Source: Swiss Federal Presidency, LinkedIn