I recently visited a company whose senior leadership team was in great conflict with its board of directors. Once a month the board and the senior leadership team would meet for two days to talk about the business. Why every month and not once a quarter?

Because the board did not trust the senior leadership team and the leadership team thought some of the board members had hidden agendas. The senior leadership team spent 3-4 days a month preparing for the board meeting instead of being strategic and growing the business which would bring value to its share holders.

After hearing all this, I determined the missing link was clear behavioral expectations between the two sides. Expectations that are defined, discussed, negotiated and documented on a piece of paper signed by both parties.

I facilitated a Behavioral Expectations Session recently between two groups at a bio tech company. Here are a few of the expectations that were agreed to by both parties.
• Refrain from dwelling on the past, look to forward solutions
• If you don’t understand something, say so
• Provide timely feedback and recognition
• Provide clearly stated goals and objectives with timelines, allow people to do their job

Most of the time, we are so focused on conflict not what we have in common. At the end of the day, the only thing we have in common is the business. Behavioral Expectations reduces conflict between groups because both sides have agreed on how they will work together to support the business.

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