Time and timing in top management teams

Abstract

Executive Summary Key predictors of the success of top executive teams are the speed at which executives make decisions, the timing of those decisions, and the ability of the top team to mesh its behavior with the cycle of the CEO and with key cycles in the environment. Time and timing are so pervasive in the lives of top managers that they are often unaware of their effects. Yet phrases such as "window of opportunity" and "time to market" coupled with the ever present rhythm of the fiscal year and business cycle, provide evidence that time and timing play a major role in organizations. But how does one talk about these ideas? How does anyone do systematic analysis of them? And, most importantly, how can these ideas be useful to top management teams, and to the people responsible for the training and development of the executives on those teams? A new concept called entrainment helps answer these questions. Entrainment examines the meshing of pace, cycles, and rhythm across individuals, groups, organizations, and environments. Entrainment is a particularly useful tool in helping top management teams. The 1980's brought increased competition and complexity resulting in teams at the top. These teams of executives report directly to the CEO and collectively assume the role of the COO, while simultaneously helping the CEO with strategic and external issues. Time and timing are critical to explaining the success or failure of these teams. From a training standpoint, entrainment should be taught, and the benefits of managerial action, as well as analysis, need to be stressed. Analyses of speed and cycles should be carried out through simulations and exercises, and the pitfalls of entrainment examined. 2 III There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures,-William Shakespeare from Julius Caesar, Act IV Scene iii Time and timing are so pervasive in the lives of top managers that they are often unaware of their effects. Yet phrases such as "window of opportunity" and "time to market" coupled with the ever present rhythm of the fiscal year and business cycle, provide evidence that time and timing play a major role in organizations. But …