My name is Brad Margolis, welcome to my research home page. I am a PhD candidate with the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management currently engaged in dissertation research to identify new insights into Top Management Team (TMT) effectiveness and would like to explore with you the potential for you and your team to participate. Information about the project follows.

What is the proposed work?

This work is designed to identify best practices of how executive teams hold one another accountable to implement strategic priorities and achieve performance results while dealing with real world complexity and change. There are two areas of focus. The first is how executives adapt when they find themselves in situations where internal or external factors change suddenly, such that the previously agreed upon priorities need to shift. The second is to look at the approaches used by team members to gain alignment to a new direction. In addition to best practices, this work will identify pitfalls and challenges that impede execution. The results will include a specific set of recommendations for action for each team. The process will also provide immediate feedback to each TMT on what it does well and potential risk areas where the team may not be in sync on cross-functional initiatives. I will conduct this research across a variety of different companies, so that the findings can be compared across organizations.

Benefits anticipated from your participation in this study include the following:

· Learn the extent of your team’s current alignment on strategic priorities.

· Gain insights into how effectively your team is working together to implement strategic priorities.

· Discover opportunities to build on team strengths by identifying (1) effective processes that create alignment and
(2) effective adaptive actions which maintain alignment in the implementation of strategic priorities.

· Build shared perspective with other team members on what is and what is not working for your team as it responds/adapts to current market and business challenges.

· Increase your team’s ability to accelerate implementation of key strategic initiatives.

· Identify challenges, problems, and traps that erode the level of alignment and impede execution.

· Pinpoint possible risks to alignment on strategic priorities.

· Receive an analysis of comparative best practices across organizations.

· Planning meeting with Senior Executive Sponsor to review process and confidentiality agreement (30 minutes)

· Administer online electronic surveys to TMT members

o First survey: Surface list of strategic priorities and assess team effectiveness (30 minutes/person)

o Meeting with Executive Sponsor; Review and narrow list to top five priorities

o Second survey: assess team member alignment on strategic priorities (30 minutes/person)

· Administer survey of TMT members’ direct reports for third-person perspective of TMT alignment (30 minutes/person)

· Conduct team member interviews to clarify survey findings and identify TMT alignment mechanisms (90 minutes/person)

· Conduct preliminary feedback meeting with all team members to validate findings and identify potential risks and growth opportunities (after all interviews are complete) (1 hour)

(Total duration of all activities above spans 2-3 months)

What feedback will you receive?

· Immediate feedback on the level of agreement among team members on strategic priorities

· TMT Preliminary Feedback Meeting – following TMT member interviews

o Site specific data on alignment and TMT adaptive action(tm)

· Results Report for Direct Reports

o Each TMT member’s direct reports receives a summary report they can review with their manager

· Results and Recommendations Meeting with TMT – after completion of research across all sites

o Comparative data from across all sites

o Best practices disclosure – what works best across organizations

o Recommendations for increasing your team’s effectiveness on strategic priority execution

After reading the above, are you interested in exploring the potential value and benefits of this research to you, your team, and your company? If so, please let me know and we can discuss this in greater detail. I can be reached at Brad@AdaptiveAction.com or at 415-420-7224.

I appreciate your time and consideration.

Brad Margolis