I’ve noticed a pattern this year across several good teams that have truly become great teams. Conversely, there are other teams that just remain mediocre. Why is that? It all comes down to having a great Integrator in place who owns their role.
In any entrepreneurial organization, two essential seats are the Visionary and the Integrator™. A great Visionary is driven by creativity and passion, which fuels his or her vision for the company. A great Integrator takes that vision and makes it happen throughout the organization. Without these two leaders working side by side, your company will never see the success it’s capable of achieving.
While the Integrator contributes value in many ways in a business, their primary function is to harmoniously integrate the other leaders in the organization to execute the plan and achieve the vision. A great Integrator helps the leadership team to become their best.
1. Achieving 80%+ Rock Completion
An Integrator isn’t only accountable for their own Rock completion, but also for the entire leadership team achieving 80%+ Rock completion. The buck stops with the Integrator from the moment Rocks are established. The Integrator ensures that everyone on the leadership team is signing up for the right Rocks and that they are truly the most important use of each person’s time. They also make sure that the Rocks are on track during the weekly Level 10 Meetings™ and quarterly 5-5-5™ conversations with each direct report.
2. Consistently Hitting Your Numbers
I’ve seen too many companies where no one (or everyone) owns their numbers. When everyone is accountable, no one is. The Integrator must take ownership of hitting both the Quarterly and Annual Goals for Profit, Revenue, and your other key Measurable(s).
The best way to do that is to keep the leading indicators on your weekly Scorecard on track. Somebody, ideally the Integrator, needs to be fanatical about keeping your numbers on track. The Scorecard gives your team an absolute pulse on the business on a weekly basis. It’s vital that the Integrator makes sure the team has the correct handful of Measurables and that they’re being reviewed on a weekly basis. They also own the evolution of the Scorecard, making sure the Measurables being tracked are the right ones. The Integrator should also make sure you are keeping the Scorecard simple with 5 to 15 weekly activity-based numbers so it doesn’t get out of control and overwhelming.
Keeping the weekly activities of the team on pace ensures that the team will achieve its Measurable goals by the end of the quarter. If the Scorecard numbers are not consistently in the “green” – if they aren’t achieving the weekly goal – the Integrator should obsessively “drop down” off-track numbers to make sure the team is proactively addressing issues before they become big problems.
3. Completing 90%+ of Weekly To-Dos
The secret to gaining traction is completing your To-Dos every single week. The rule of thumb is to aim for 90%+ weekly To-Do completion across the entire leadership team. Great Integrators are intolerant of NOT getting commitments done from one week to the next. They know that if your team isn’t keeping commitments on a weekly basis, your quarterly priorities and financials will not be achieved. If you don’t get your quarterly priorities done, your annual goals and financials won’t happen either. It’s all rooted in executing your To-Dos weekly!
Your Integrator is also the person responsible for making sure that To-Dos are created by applying IDS™ to issues, and that the To-Dos being assigned truly solve the issue! It’s tempting to cruise through the To-Do assignments to keep your Level 10 Meeting moving, but the most effective Integrators slow down to make sure that the To-Do is S.M.A.R.T. so that everyone is on the same page with what has to be done by next week’s meeting.
4. Functioning as a Healthy Team
While harmoniously integrating the major functions of the business, the Integrator must help remove obstacles, resolve issues, and make sure everyone is laser-focused on making decisions for the greater good of the organization. All of this needs to happen – not at the expense of team health, but because of team health. That means the Integrator needs to promote open and honest communication between team members, hold people accountable, and be willing to have the tough conversations so that the leadership team becomes its best.
Are You Operating at Your Best?
If you can’t check each of the four boxes above, your leadership team isn’t hitting on all cylinders. The place to start that conversation – to identify the root cause or causes, and to start solving the issues – is with your Integrator.
Next Steps
- Learn more about the role of Integrator by downloading a free chapter of Rocket Fuel, a book by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters.
- Explore more resources for Visionaries and Integrators to help you understand the power of this essential combination in entrepreneurial companies.
This post originally appeared on the GPS For Small Business Blog on February 28, 2018.
