What can your leadership team learn from the financial meltdown?

"Why did no one foresee the recession?" That was the seemingly simple question posed by the Queen when visiting the London School of Economics. The answer, as devised by a group of eminent economists, boils down to a lack of 'systems thinking'. They place the blame for the recession on "a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people". In other words, each individual was performing their own role effectively, hitting their success targets. "The failure was to see how collectively this added up to a series of interconnected imbalances" - no-one had the overview to understand the risks as a whole, they were only concerned with their own individual part.

This 'silo' thinking frequently happens within organisations too. Each department or functional team pursues their own targets, failing to anticipate the ripple effect across the rest of the organisation, resulting in distracting conflicts and turf wars.

The most effective way to overcome this situation, in our experience, is to bring together functional leaders to see the entire interconnected picture, and the part they play in its success. This means leaders can plan to be more effective individually - and collectively.

Right now, many organisations are focusing their people on 'future-proofing' their organisations by developing new strategies - and more power to them. But having bright people developing great ideas is not on its own a guarantee of success (the current situation is testament to that). The real differentiator is how those bright people interconnect to produce a dazzingly 'whole'.

Talk to us to find out more about how you can achieve the full potential of your management team.