A global petrochemical company struggling to create a coherent strategy after a merger with a very different kind of firm. A small advertising and design house trying to manage itself during a time of rapid growth. A public agency facing a series of budget cuts that threaten core services and deeply held values. An established bank losing market share to new boutique players coming into its market and cherry-picking high-margin products. As diverse as the challenges facing these organizations seemed, when my colleagues and I looked closely, we recognized that they shared two closely linked underlying causes: chronic communication problems within the executive team and a lack of shared accountability.

When communication is stifled and turf protection the order of the day, an organization’s senior leadership team is less than the sum of its parts and cannot grapple with strategic and operational challenges most effectively. Expertise and energy go untapped: less than frank communication sometimes means that team members do not know the full extent of one another’s issue; and a lack of shared accountability leads some to think, “Hey, that’s his problem and he’s got to fix it.”

In contrast, two qualities characterize high-functioning leadership teams: (1) hard conversations happen—difficult issues move quickly from people’s heads to the conference table; (2) accountability is shared—individuals on the top team feel a responsibility to the organization as a whole, not just for their piece of the action. To take senior teams to a new level of leadership, we have put together a model of top team communication that we call The Morning Meeting (TMM). It’s a deceptively simple name for an intricately ritualized event that has delivered significant payoffs to the organizations that have put it into practice: Backbiting and turf protection are dramatically reduced. Tough problems are addressed while they are still manageable. Issues cannot be covered over, and people can no longer hide. Ownership increases.

What TMM looks like
The genesis for the TMM model was an organization we worked with where the top team met every morning, every day, at the same time. Because this meeting was where the big decisions got made, admittance was a highly valued privilege. Executives who were on the road called in, unless time-zone differences made such virtual attendance impossible.

Here’s how TMM in its purest form works: Every day, at the same time, the top team—numbering between six and 15 people, both staff and line—assembles around a conference table, either in person or virtually. Also at the table are one or two others who either are responsible for an important current initiative or are valued for their area of expertise. There’s no preset agenda. While the CEO sits at the head of the table, if there is such a spot, he does not run the meeting, and everyone sits in the same place each day.

Around the conference table on folding chairs, in a sort of gallery, are a handful of deputies and executive assistants to the principals at the table. Sometimes the CEO will have an issue or two to begin the meeting. More often, the CEO defers to the person seated to his left, the No. 2 person—the chief of staff, deputy CEO, or COO—who starts things off and runs the meeting. When No. 2’s issues are fully discussed, the person seated to the left raises any issues of concern, and so on, clockwise around the table, full circle to the CEO. Once everyone at the table has had an opportunity to speak, everyone in the gallery leaves and the top team gets a chance to go around the table again. In this second phase of the meeting, executives discuss highly sensitive issues, such as legal and personnel matters, that demand a higher level of confidentiality. Depending on the size of the group and the complexity and number of issues, the entire meeting can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as two hours.

The ground rules:

• Anyone can put anything on the table for discussion; it doesn’t have to be related to one’s own area of responsibility. All are expected to be willing to comment on every issue raised, even those that lie beyond their technical expertise or area of responsibility.
• These are decision meetings, but issues do not just get raised and resolved. Implementation plans are broadly outlined and agreed upon, and internal and external communication strategies often are considered. Sometimes, with particularly sensitive issues, the exact language that everyone around the table is going to use is hammered out.
• Once an issue is fully vetted, the CEO determines the decision rule that will govern it. He decides whether he’ll be the one to make the final call, whether a particular individual or subgroup will make it, or whether it will be made by group consensus.
• Changing one’s mind, even in the middle of the conversation, is OK, even respected. Not having an opinion is not.
• There are no arguments about fact questions. Participants are to get the facts and raise the subject at the next meeting. Keep in mind, however, that fact questions are sometimes masks for deeper value-laden issues. An argument about the cost of opening a remote office might mask strategic concerns about whether expansion is a good idea.

Making it work in your organization
When we try to introduce some variant of TMM into an organization, there is often resistance: “We can’t do that here.” “We’re too busy.” “How can so many senior people keep their schedules so flexible every day?”

Our experience, however, is that the resistance is often a mask for anxiety about leaving a familiar if dysfunctional mode of operating. (Being “too busy” is a way of feeling valuable.) Members of the top team have grown comfortable with the autonomy they have, with their one-on-one relationship with the CEO and with other team members, and with not having the responsibility of worrying about the organization as a whole. Having those conversations around the coffee machine sometimes feels safer than having them in a formal meeting.

That said, the TMM model is a flexible one. Not all executive teams will need to institute it daily to see benefits; one firm we worked with has had considerable success with a weekly meeting. During a crisis or during organization-wide change initiatives, we advise holding the meeting daily. When things are running smoothly, meeting less frequently can deliver positive results.

Of course, complexity and challenge do not exist solely within the upper reaches of an organization. Division and unit heads can adapt the model to foster better decision making and execution within their teams.

On the surface, TMM is about communication, but imbedded within it are norms and values that are critical for organizations that must deal with difficult issues and adapt nimbly to new situations: an openness to considering multiple perspectives, a willingness to share responsibility for finding creative solutions, and the discipline to move consistently from strategy to execution.

Not Talking About It Doesn’t Make It Go Away
My colleagues and I were asked to sit in on a meeting of the top team of a petrochemical company that was undergoing a merger. As the meeting got under way, the only member of the team not in attendance was the CEO, who was supposed to join us for the second hour. About a half-hour into the meeting, during a conversation about external challenges, one of my colleagues asked the group how the merger was going. A torrent of frustration and concern poured forth, revealing the tension at the table between folks who had come from the parent firm and those from the acquired firm. It quickly became clear that the two companies had different values and distinctly different ways of doing business.

Halfway through the meeting, the CEO made his baronial entrance. After some polite preliminaries, we asked him how the merger was going. He responded without a moment’s hesitation: “All of that is way behind us,” he said.

We turned to the group. “Everyone agree with that?” we asked. No one spoke. We pushed. “Is there any way in which the business challenges you’re facing are related to postmerger relationships?” Nothing.

This experience illustrates what happens when communication and cultural issues are deemed, by executive fiat, not to exist. Without license to speak openly about internal issues and resolve them, an executive team cannot hope to meet external challenges successfully. If the members of the top team cannot challenge the CEO’s interpretation of reality, and can only deliver good news, those challenges will not go away. They will live in people’s heads and in the conversations around the coffee machine, until a full-blown crisis finally brings them into the open.

The Payoffs
Here are some of the most significant benefits that Cambridge Leadership Associates has seen in different organizations that have adopted some version of TMM:

• Backbiting, intrateam conflicts, turf protection, and second-guessing are dramatically reduced. Everyone owns every decision made in the meeting.
• Competition for face time with the CEO goes away.
• “Crises” can be addressed with detachment. When a VP rushes into the CEO’s office looking for help with a decision during a crisis, the CEO can say, “Bring it up at the meeting tomorrow” or “OK, let’s get the group together right now.”
• Team members feel a responsibility for the organization as a whole. Any problem that one team member has becomes a team problem, and thereby everyone benefits from the experience and insight of the entire team.
• Miscommunication is minimized. Everyone is quickly and clearly on the same page.
• Difficult conversations are the norm, and tough issues do not fester until they explode but are addressed while they are still manageable.
• People, and issues, can no longer hide.
• Top team members do their homework better. When “you stay off my turf and I’ll stay off yours” rules apply, executives often feel their obligation ends with providing information. But when group accountability is the norm, executives are motivated to more fully prepare for discussions of business challenges.

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