Common Executive Team Challenges
If any of these sound familiar,
you’ve lost one or more of the
five foundational team disciplines.
Find yours below.
We Keep Having the Same Conversation
You hear yourself saying:
- “Didn’t we already decide this?”
- “I thought we agreed last week”
- “Why are we revisiting this again?”
What you’re seeing:
- Decisions get re-opened in new contexts
- Different executives give different answers about what was decided
- Meetings feel like Groundhog Day
What’s actually broken: Lost Decision Discipline → Your team hasn’t installed decision rights, criteria, or a “no re-litigation” norm.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Fix Decision discipline first, then install the other four.
Everything Lands on My Desk
You hear yourself saying:
- “Why can’t they make decisions without me?”
- “I’m the bottleneck for everything”
- “My calendar is endless meetings and I still can’t keep up”
What you’re seeing:
- Every decision escalates to you by default
- Managers wait for your approval on small choices
- You’re in every meeting because “we need you there to decide”
What’s actually broken: Lost Decision Discipline (executive team) + broken Hire/Perform systems (organization).
Where to start: → Both — 5LD to fix executive decision rights, then FPO to build delegation infrastructure.
We Start Strong But Nothing Finishes
You hear yourself saying:
- “We have 40 projects going and I can’t name 4 that are done”
- “Everything is 80% complete”
- “We’re always starting new things but never shipping”
What you’re seeing:
- Strategic initiatives die in the “last mile”
- New priorities keep bumping old ones
- Team celebrates kickoffs, not completions
What’s actually broken: Lost Execution Discipline → No WIP limits, no protected focus time, no finish rhythm.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Install Execution discipline: cap WIP, finish before starting.
My Execs Can’t Agree on Priorities
You hear yourself saying:
- “If I asked each exec our top 3 priorities, I’d get 8 different answers”
- “Sales, Product, and Ops are all working on different goals”
- “We agree in the meeting, then everyone goes their own way”
What you’re seeing:
- Functional silos pursuing competing objectives
- Resources pulled in multiple directions
- Energy scatters instead of compounds
What’s actually broken: Lost Alignment Discipline → No shared north star, no unified priorities, no common language.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Install Alignment discipline first (foundation for the other four).
Meetings Are Endless and Go Nowhere
You hear yourself saying:
- “We meet all week and nothing gets decided”
- “I spend 30+ hours in meetings and still can’t move the business forward”
- “Every meeting needs a follow-up meeting”
What you’re seeing:
- Meetings without agendas or outcomes
- Same people, same topics, different day
- No one leaves with clear commitments
What’s actually broken: Lost Decision Discipline + Lost Execution Discipline → No decision process, no follow-through mechanism.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Install Decision + Execution disciplines together.
High Performers Leave, Low Performers Stay
You hear yourself saying:
- “I keep losing my best people”
- “The ones who should leave somehow never do”
- “I can’t figure out why our stars quit”
What you’re seeing:
- Top talent frustrated by lack of progress
- Underperformers coasting without consequences
- No feedback loops or performance accountability
What’s actually broken: Lost Accountability Discipline (executive team) + broken Perform/Retain systems (organization).
Where to start: → Both — 5LD to install executive accountability, then FPO to build performance management systems.
Every People Issue Lands on My Desk
You hear yourself saying:
- “I’m still approving every hire”
- “HR issues eat my whole week”
- “I can’t scale because I’m stuck in people problems”
What you’re seeing:
- No hiring process (ad-hoc recruiting)
- No performance management system
- Founder doing HR’s job
What’s actually broken: Broken People Systems (FPO) — You need infrastructure, not executive discipline.
Where to start: → FPO (People Systems) — 100-day sprint to build Attract, Hire, Perform, Retain, Grow systems.
We Can’t Execute What We Already Know We Should Do
You hear yourself saying:
- “We have the strategy—we just can’t execute it”
- “We tried [EOS/OKRs/4DX] and it didn’t stick”
- “Everyone knows what to do, but it’s not happening”
What you’re seeing:
- Good frameworks installed but not followed
- Scorecards ignored, meetings skipped
- Tools work on paper, fail in practice
What’s actually broken: Lost All Five Disciplines + possible Capacity Gaps (CQ) → Tools installed on people who can’t use them.
Where to start: → 5LD Full Transformation — Diagnose which disciplines are missing, measure capacity, install all five.
We Repeat the Same Mistakes
You hear yourself saying:
- “We keep stepping on the same rake”
- “No one does post-mortems”
- “We launch things, they fail, and we never figure out why”
What you’re seeing:
- No after-action reviews
- Lessons learned aren’t captured or applied
- New initiatives ignore past failures
What’s actually broken: Lost Integration Discipline → No learning loops, no knowledge capture.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Install Integration discipline: build after-action review cadence.
Standards Have Slipped
You hear yourself saying:
- “We used to have higher standards”
- “Missed commitments are just accepted now”
- “No one holds each other accountable anymore”
What you’re seeing:
- Deadlines slide without consequence
- Quality gaps tolerated
- “Good enough” becomes the new standard
What’s actually broken: Lost Accountability Discipline → No explicit standards, no peer accountability, no consequences.
Where to start: → 5LD (Executive Team) — Install Accountability discipline: define standards, build consequence loops.