Creating Leadership Teams with Shared Vision and Purpose

1. Creating Leadership Teams with
Shared Vision and Purpose
Inspired by: The Advantage from Patrick Lencioni
Warren G. Dietel
Puff ‘n Stuff Catering & Events
1

2. WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
• The ability to influence a group
toward the achievement of goals
• The process of providing direction,
energizing others and obtaining their
voluntary commitment to the vision
• A LEADER creates a vision and
goals, and influences other to share
the vision and work toward the goals
2

3. OLD PUFF
• Opened in 1980 as family-owned
business
• Positive reputation in the community
• Purchased in 2003 at operational limit
• Infrastructure required improvements
to enable growth
• Leadership meant something different
• Complete immersion
• Relearning market and business
• Strategy for future
3

4. PUFF TODAY
• Diligent focus on efficiencies, people, process and products
• Building and strengthening the team
• Transitional leadership
• Right people, right seat. Keep ‘em engaged
• Evolving number of staff members
• Hiring and firing for the right reasons
• Onboarding, training and retention
• Diversifying offerings and location
• Expansion to Tampa with New Commissary
4

5. 5

6. FUTURE PUFF
• Hyper-focus on internal people, process and product
• Leader empowerment
– Ownership of the vision
– Cascading approach to leadership
• Continue to grow, train and inspire staff members
– Key external hires + promoting from within
• Growth offerings: cuisine, service and locations
• Product and market expansion
• Partnerships and rapid growth
6

7. A GAME CHANGER
• Discussed as a team
• Worked through exercises together
• Created positive conflict
• Continue to revisit principles
• Not an overnight fix
7

8. “When an organization’s leaders are cohesive, when they
are unambiguously aligned around a common set of
answers to a few critical questions, when they
communicate those answers again and again and again,
and when they put effective processes in place to
reinforce those answers, they create an environment in
which success is almost impossible to prevent. Really.”
8

9. ESTABLISHING TEAM #1
• Focus and devotion FIRST to the team that runs the organization then to
the team (department) run by the individual
• Leadership must be aligned, otherwise direct reports in different
departments are left to fight battles
• Come together and make decisions for the good of the entire
organization, rather than the needs of one department
• Until the leaders unite and come together as one there will be
dysfunction
• Place higher priority on leadership team than the team they lead
• TRUST IS AT THE CORE
9

10. OUR PARADIGM SHIFT
• Strategy
• Marketing
• Finance
• Technology
• Minimal Politics
• Minimal Confusion
• High Morale
• High Productivity
• Low Turnover
Smart
Health
10

11. THE FOUR DISCIPLINES
11

12. DISCIPLINE #1. BUILDING A COHESIVE TEAM
• Building Trust: Team members who trust one another are
comfortable being open, even exposed, to one another about their
failures, weaknesses and fears.
• Mastering Conflict: When trust is present, teams are able to
engage in unfiltered ideological debate around ideas, issues and
decisions that must be made.
• Achieving Commitment: The ability to engage in conflict and
provide input enables team members to buy-in or commit to
decisions.
• Embracing Accountability: After commitment is established,
team members must be willing to hold one another accountable and
remind each other when actions are counterproductive to the team.
• Focusing on Results: Collective team results must supersede any
departmental or personal objectives or pursuits.
12

13. DISCIPLINE #2. CREATING CLARITY
The leadership team must agree on the answers to six simple
but critical questions
1. Why do we exist?
2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is most important, right now?
6. Who must do what?
13

14. DISCIPLINE #3. OVER-COMMUNICATE CLARITY
• Employees are skeptical about what they’re told unless they hear it
consistently over time
• Need to be CROs – Chief Reminding Officers
• Buy in to the direction even if there is initial disagreement. Avoid the
“meeting after the meeting”
• Leaders need to tell ‘true rumors’
• Cascade a consistent message through the company
• End leadership meetings answering the question: What are we going
to go back and tell our people? And make sure there is agreement
• It is difficult to gain credibility with your team if the message shits
frequently or is inconsistent between members of the leadership team
14

15. DISCIPLINE #4. REINFORCE CLARITY
• Every process that involves people needs to reinforce the answers
to the six questions
• Institutionalize culture without bureaucratizing it
• Hire for cultural fit
• Orientation needs to be built around the six answers and leaders
need to take an active role in design and delivery
• Performance management needs to be simple and stimulate the
right kinds of conversations on the right topics
• Leaders give recognition and personal
appreciation, and be quick to take out employees
who don’t fit the values
15

16. OUR JOURNEY
• Group of cohesive leaders, with unique
talents
• Balancing act between momentum and
the growth culture of PnS
• Everyone supports healthy growth
• Focused on growing leadership team
and personal leadership
• Genuine belief that we are doing
something good, there is a passion and
it’s personal for our leaders
16

17. WE ALL DESERVE RESPECT AND SHOULD HAVE A VOICE. THE
CULTURE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION DEPENDS ON YOU.
EMBRACE THE RESPONSIBILITY!
“We all deserve respect and should have a
voice.”
Stay tuned for the next chapter…
17

18. THANK YOU!
18
Warren Dietel
http://www.slideshare.net/warrendietel
warren@puffnstuff.com
407-227-5697
Puffnstuff.com
Chefscommissary.com