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Celeritas Analysis

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CELERITAS ANALYSIS

Introduction

I believe that highly functional leadership teams must be clear about their mandate

towards the vision of the organization. Their performance and adherence to the common goals

and values of the organization are actively managed. They demonstrate mutual accountability for

decisions and results and most importantly, they invest efforts in building trusted relationships

with each other and exercise care, respect, and candor at all times.

In this paper, I will first define the issue or problem regarding the Celeritas case study

and explain its background. I will then identify how the Celeritas senior team was dysfunctional.

In addition, I will examine the possible causes of the dysfunction and explain how CEO Dr.

Phillip Boyer’s leadership style contributed to the team’s dysfunction. In order to effectively

describe the dysfunction, I will also spend some time describing how Boyer's leadership style is

different from Organizational Consultant Carla Reese's leadership style and why Sales and

Marketing Senior Vice President (SVP) Dave Lloyd was ineffective in influencing his boss and

colleagues during the SVP leadership offsite. I will then outline how Lloyd could have handled

the offsite meeting differently and describe what actions he could have taken to effectively work

with his colleagues and get his career back on track. Finally, I will review the previous team

building efforts at Celeritas and describe how effective those efforts have been, in addressing the

dysfunction of the leadership team.

Problem

Since its inception in 2003, Celeritas has been growing at a fast pace establishing itself as

a leader in the network optimization industry. Celeritas is recognized by various industries and

its customers for the quality and innovation of its products. Like most companies experiencing

rapid success, Celeritas’ CEO, Boyer, has kept his focus on sustaining continued growth by

CELERITAS ANALYSIS

establishing an increasingly larger sales that target the growing workforce and this has almost

doubled over a period of eight years. With Celeritas’ rapid growth, came some organizational

complexity, like concerns relating to decision-making and lack of coordination and alignment

between the different segments of the organization.

As a result, in 2008, growth started to steadily slow down, and in 2011 Celeritas missed

its sales target for the first two quarters of the year. At that point, Boyer’s focus shifted to

identifying and addressing the factors contributing to the continued slowdown in growth.

Celeritas’ decline in growth was a clear indication of the growing dysfunction within the

executive team. “The number one reason why companies hit the wall is that their leadership team

has hit a wall” (Rahim, 2017). As organizations become larger and more complex, internal

dysfunction becomes the main barrier to continued profitable growth. I believe this could explain

Celeritas’case.

Although Boyer had identified that the early success of Celeritas was to a certain extent

due to the strong teamwork among the founders and first employees, he did not recognize the

increasingly dysfunctional interactions among his leadership team members and the gradual

creation of silos. As stated in the Celeritas case study description, he believed that high employee

turnover, low morale across the company, and lack of cooperation among divisions were

responsible for slowing the growth of the organization (Beer & Vargas, 2011). He failed to

understand the impact that his decision-making style had on his team and employees,

contributing to the dysfunction. When there is poor health with the top team, it jeopardizes the

success of the organization.

CELERITAS ANALYSIS

After a failed attempt at addressing the issues with the help of an expert in organizational

effectiveness, Boyer asked organizational consultant Reese to help. She determined that the following

problems created Celeritas’ leadership team’s dysfunction:

 Lack of clear vision, values, and common goals; some of the main ingredients of

effective leadership as described by Jack and Susy Welch (2005);

 Lack of clear accountabilities in achieving these goals;

 Lack of trust and clear antagonism among the leadership team resulting in a lack

of alignment and coordination between divisions;

 Inconsistent and unclear decision-making processes and follow-through.

Analysis of the Problem

CEO’s Leadership Style

In my view, Boyer’s leadership style played a leading role in the problems and

dysfunction of his team. Boyer retained all decisional power. He was unable to operate the

business through his team, despite the growth and size of the organization. As described by

Goleman (2017), “Effective leaders are able to motivate a team while simultaneously listening to

the team's suggestions”.

Boyer’s behavior is reflective of a “D” DiSC style, which we can infer would probably

have been part of his DiSC profile (Everything DiSC Workplace, 2012). He failed to create an

environment of candor which according to Welch (2005) “blocks smart ideas, fast action, and

good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.” He did not trust his team to see

the whole picture when it came to the interests of Celeritas.

As a result, I conclude that he did not understand the need for transparency for

articulating the vision and common goals to his team. As described in the Celeritas case study,

the team was operating in silos and lost focus on the overall results (Beer & Vargas, 2011), and

CELERITAS ANALYSIS

started missing sales targets. Furthermore, Boyer’s style created a power struggle among the

SVPs, fueling the dysfunction and entrenching the organization deeper into silos.

According to Goleman, (2017), it is difficult to act like an owner and be focused on

results in the absence of decisional power. I believe the absence of decisional power played a

significant role in the Celeritas leadership team’s dysfunction.

In addition, Boyer’s leadership style was indecisive despite him retaining decisional

power for all main decisions regarding Celeritas. This is indicative of some characteristics of an

“S” DiSC style (Everything DiSC Workplace, 2012). Because his decisions were not transparent

and were based on incomplete information, Boyer created an environment where decisions were

frequently reversed, which created confusion and inefficiencies.

Boyer appeared to be incapable of following through with his decisions. He lacked

courage, and that is considered as lack of commitment to the organization and its success. It

created ambiguity and lack of buy-in into the decision and the direction. These major flaws lead

to lack of results. Boyer was not self-aware and should have started by looking at his own

leadership behaviors rather than blaming the team for the dysfunction. In my view, Boyer

breached all the Welches’ foundational principles and key rules of effective leadership (Welch &

Welch, 2005).

Contrasting Consultant and CEO Leadership Styles

In contrast to Boyer, Consultant Reese displayed strong leadership skills (Welch &

Welch, 2005). She was very clear and transparent with the methodology and objectives she

adopted to go through her investigation of the organization. She valued candor throughout the

investigation, which Boyer did not leverage. More importantly, she displayed courage and

remained focused on results, which Boyer was unable to do. Reese’s courage and focus were

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clearly manifested in the consultation process she adopted to determine the best way to intervene

with Celeritas. She focused first on defining the problem and building trust with the SVPs. She

also displayed some characteristics of the “C” DiSC style by adopting an effective and

thoughtful consultation approach. She asked all the right questions in a series of one on one

meetings with the team. She was clear about the objectives of each meeting and focused on

gathering the right insights to ensure success. Reese used an appropriate consultative

methodology to draw insights. She also followed Welch’s principle of leadership around voice

and dignity by giving the SVPs a larger decision-making role and asking for their input (Welch

& Welch, 2005). She was firm and clear with what needed to be achieved.

As a result, she was able to build trust and credibility with the team. That credibility

enabled her to gather key pieces of information that helped clearly define the problem. She

subsequently structured an offsite, bringing some of what she had heard in a very transparent

way to the team. That allowed for a robust dialogue, and the offsite concluded with a series of

commitments and objectives defined by the leadership team.

SVP Lloyd’s Ineffective Influence

Effective leaders have the ability to influence others. As indicated by the description of

the offsite in the Celeritas case study, SVP Lloyds had a poor ability to influence his peers (Beer

& Vargas, 2011). His behavior and communication style created an antagonistic and toxic

environment for the team and was responsible for a lot of dysfunction. As I read the case study,

Lloyd appeared to be more focused on his own success than that of the organization as a whole.

Lloyd self-centered focus is described by statements from Shawna Davis, Celeritas’s CFO at the

SVP offsite: “It seems like Dave is more concerned with promoting his ego than what is best for

Celeritas. He is like the big man on campus who needs to show off in front of clients by proving

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that he can make things happen” (Beer & Vargas, 2011, p.4). Lloyd’s egocentric approach

contributed to maintaining the silos observed throughout the organization.

On the second day of the offsite, Lloyd held back, speaking only when directly asked for

his input, which was indicative of his disengagement and lack of commitment to constructively

solve the current dysfunctions and issues raised. As a result, he lost the confidence of his

colleagues and that of his manager. Executives tend to overestimate their own credibility within

an organization. I believe Lloyd overestimated his credibility with Celeritas.

Handling of SVP Meeting and Suggested Future Actions

How could Lloyd have handled the SVP offsite differently and better presented his point

of view to the rest of the team with an increased ability to influence them? In my view, Lloyd

could have paid greater attention to building authentic relationships with his peers. By focusing

on building trust, he would have gained the ability to be more direct and at times be influential to

his colleagues without losing his ability to make an impact. With trust clearly established, I

believe the other SVPs would have taken the view that he was operating for the benefit of the

team and the success of the organization, as opposed to leaving the perception that he was

looking solely after his own interests.

In future, Lloyd should try to practice radical candor. Rahim (2017) describes radical

candor as “the ability to challenge directly and show you care personally at the same time.”

Radical candor a significant investment of time in building relationships with peers, but also

across the organization. Lloyd could also invest in becoming more vulnerable and authentic as a

leader.

The ability of a leader to build trust and credibility with his or her peers and employees in

order to effectively influence and deal appropriately with conflict is critical to his/her ability to

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succeed (Thomas, 2008). In order to build trust, executives need to be able to demonstrate the

vulnerability. Lloyd could have shown some vulnerability by apologizing for getting upset and

losing his temper and could have tried to reach out to his colleagues and create a better dialogue.

Unfortunately, he chose to stay set in his ways and, by not allowing himself to be vulnerable and

authentic, he lost credibility with the group.

Previous Team-Building Efforts

Boyer described only one previous organizational effectiveness team-building exercise

facilitated by an outside consultant. He described it as having been ineffective in addressing the

dysfunction in his team and putting sales back on track. It is clear that Boyer did not think his

team took the exercise seriously. “Nothing had come out of it” (Beer & Vargas, 2011, p.2). The

consultant at the time made some recommendations, but none was implemented or followed by

the leadership team. That explains the subsequent effort and engagement with Reese.

It is surprising that Boyer did not invest in building his leadership team over the years.

The most functional leadership team will spend regularly scheduled time focused on team -

building and strategic planning offsite. Again, I attribute this to poor leadership on the part of

Boyer. Unfortunately, as a CEO, he waited for a slowdown in growth before making the

investment in building his leadership team. Team-building should have been a regular exercise

done at least once a year.

Boyer did not set clear expectations at the onset of this first team-building exercise with

his team. It was never clear what the team was expected to do. It is not clear if they have been

consulted. In addition, Boyer did not appear to have followed up on ensuring that these

recommendations were being implemented. He did not lead. He left it to his dysfunctional team

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to implement a set of changes they did not ask for in the first place. That exercise was bound to

fail from the start.

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References

Beer, M. & Vargas, I. (2011, Nov 9). Celeritas, Inc.: Leadership challenges in a fast-growth

industry. Harvard Business Review.

Everything DiSC Workplace (2012). New York, NY: Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard

Business Press. Humanity. St-Martin’s Press, New-York.

Rahim, M. A. (2017). Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge.

Thomas, K. W. (2008). Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode. TKI Profile and Interpretive Report, 1-

11.

Welch, J. & Welch, S. (2005). Winning. New York, NY: Harper What Bosses Gain by Being

Vulnerable

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