Once a team has an established a strong container and the entire team feels more in flow, psychologically safe, and cohesive, it’s time to bring in the “plus ones.”
Bringing the direct reports of the leadership team or the Extended Leadership Team (ELT) accelerates clarity and cohesion throughout the organization. It’s time for this group to feel the same level of trust and cohesion with each other that the leadership team experiences.
The Plus-One Process consists of a shared Journey and allows the ELT to witness the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) acting with cohesion, handling conflict skillfully with one another, modeling vulnerability and transparency, and creating increased psychological safety and trust throughout the entire organization. As the ELT observes the SLT’s positive behaviors and team effectiveness in real time, they begin to shift their own behaviors and outlooks and a unified field of leadership is created.
Codesigned for Your Team
There are a variety of ways we can map your Plus-One Process. The Journey is codesigned with your senior leadership team, and here are some common options:
- Monthly or Quarterly SLT and ELT Meetings – These are two-hour sessions where the team learns and develops together, trust is built between the levels, and dialogues are designed and facilitated to create unique learning and bonding experiences that don’t happen anywhere else in their given month. These meetings can be used to solve the company’s biggest challenges to develop and grow together or to have dialogues that are timely and have meaning.
- ELT-Only Journeys – These are custom-designed Journeys for the ELT to develop team effectiveness and leadership skills and build their own container. As trust levels increase among all ELT members across the organization, clarity and cohesion increase and results are a natural outcome.
- POD Journeys – PODS are self-facilitated conversations using a predesigned facilitator guide (with timings, talking points, and questions to ask—no facilitation skills required!). PODS meet once a month for ninety days to share dialogue and explore topics like leadership, creativity, storytelling, purpose, values, facing fears, building resilience, and systems thinking—and the list goes on.
PODs are custom-designed for each client, so they can be about anything! PODS are created with a mix of SLT and ELT members, and “POD days” are calendared so all POD conversations happen at the same time. POD Journeys require a commitment from the SLT to show up and be present every month and a commitment to clear the team members’ calendars to make the Journeys a priority and easy to attend. POD Journeys are one of the fastest ways to build trust and strong containers.