When it comes to building the ideal executive leadership team, it can help to take a few lessons from the multibillion-dollar film industry.
In the “industry,” Hollywood magazines are chock full of stories of “A-list” actors and directors whose collaboration should guarantee movie success but instead, their misaligned relationships tanked hundred-million-dollar films.
In the corporate world, building an incorrectly aligned executive leadership can be an equally costly mistake. As a strategic coach who has worked with companies in a diverse set of industries with diverse teams, I’ve seen mishires in key senior roles cost companies hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of dollars in lost revenue.
Your first step in building the ideal leadership team and attracting a cast of “A-list” players is fully defining your company’s core values. Although there aren’t necessarily any “right” or “wrong” values, at PFD Group we find that our most successful clients define their core values, setting a vision around those values, and then implement a strong communication strategy to repeatedly share those values.
Setting the Vision
To ensure that everyone is moving in the same direction, it is critical that your team understands the vision for the company.
Back to the movie analogy, if you’re filming a comedy but a few cast members come to the set expecting to shoot a horror film, a horror scene is probably exactly what will happen.
It is equally important that all executive team members understand the corporate vision to ensure everyone is heading in the same direction. Understanding only comes with communication, however, which is why a strong communications plan is so important.
Communicating the Vision
As a leader, it is crucial that you clearly and effectively share your corporate values on a daily basis. An effective communication strategy ensures your leadership team knows what’s expected of them. It can also help you measure if your executive team is meeting its performance metrics.
In a more tangible example, one of Hollywood’s all-time “A-List” actors, George Clooney, is notoriously known for his less-than-stellar performance in the 1995 movie Batman & Robin. Even Clooney admits he was “terrible” in the film.
Clooney attributes his poor performance to a Hollywood technique known as looping, in which an actor sits in a booth and narrates dialog over a scene he’s previously filmed. Clooney has said he hates looping because it makes his scenes feel lifeless.
Core Values
For Batman & Robin, the issue of looping highlights the importance of a CEO having a clear vision for the company and a communication plan for implementing that vision. In this case, the production might have been better served by understanding the core values (looping), communicating them, and most importantly, understanding how the “A Player” was not aligned with that culture.
George Clooney, who is without question a stellar performer, was not enough to save the film, as his values were not aligned with the production’s core value.
This is a challenge faced by many of the corporate leaders I meet. Sometimes your “A List” leader is simply not the right fit for your corporate culture.
When I tell partners and colleagues this, I’m always met with the same question: how exactly can I attract the type of game-changing talent I’m looking for? A creative and regimented talent sourcing plan can put your company in a position to attract great talent.
If the idea of finding and keeping your own “A List” cast of characters resonates with you, we’d love to support you and your senior team. Please contact us and we’d be happy to schedule a call to discuss your strategic leadership plan for the coming year.