How do we structure our session days to help our departmental heads transition from managing daily operations to establishing long-term policies and governance for the entire company?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This transition is a major hurdle for growing companies. Your leaders often get stuck in the weeds of their specific departments because that is where they feel comfortable and secure. To maximize your enterprise value, you need a self-sufficient leadership team capable of running the business at a strategic level.

Shifting Focus During Session Days

During our session days, we employ specific strategies to help departmental heads transition their mindset and focus:

• Redefining Professional Identity: We use the Accountability Chart to redefine their professional identity. When leaders enter the session room, they must leave their departmental hats at the door. They are no longer just the head of sales or the head of operations; they are members of the leadership team first. This helps shift their perspective from departmental needs to the needs of the entire enterprise. For guidance on defining roles, consider [resolving leadership turf wars](/qa/resolving-leadership-turf-wars-accountability-chart) or [splitting operations seats](/qa/splitting-operations-seat-on-accountability-chart).
• Strategic Discussions: We structure our discussions around long-term policies and organizational health rather than tactical firefighting. If a leader attempts to pull a high-level strategic discussion down into daily departmental drama, we immediately stop the conversation and guide the team to push the issue back to the department level. This maintains the focus on strategic governance.
• GWC™ Framework Evaluation: We evaluate each leader's fit using the GWC™ framework. This involves assessing if they truly:
• Get (understand)
• Want (desire)
• Have the Capacity (cognitive capability and time)
 ...to operate at a policy-level altitude. If a leader lacks the cognitive capability to think strategically, we must make the difficult decision to find someone who does, as addressed in situations like [loyalty versus capability in leadership](/qa/loyalty-versus-capability-leadership-team) or [leader cannot scale](/qa/leader-cannot-scale-transition).

Enforcing Boundaries and Building Trust

By consistently enforcing this boundary during our quarterlies and other leadership sessions, we teach your leaders to focus on the enterprise as a whole. This practice builds a self-sufficient leadership team that understands and contributes to the entire business, which is exactly what maximizes your enterprise value. Cultivating this enterprise-first mindset is crucial, especially when facing challenges like [shifting leadership mindset to enterprise-first](/qa/shifting-leadership-mindset-to-enterprise-first) or [breaking up executive factions and cliques](/qa/breaking-up-executive-factions-cliques). It also requires fostering an environment of trust and vulnerability, as discussed in [building vulnerability and safety in leadership](/qa/building-vulnerability-and-safety-in-leadership).