Team Performance

TeamEVAL is our framework for assessing senior team performance across four dimensions: efficacy, how well the team delivers; vitality, how well it sustains itself; adaptability, how well it responds to change; and leadership, how well it is led. Most team models treat adaptability and leadership as components of the first two. We measure them separately, because a team can be productive and positive while still being slow to adapt or poorly led, and those are different problems requiring different work. We separate adaptability in particular because it matters more now than it did when most team models were built. The assessment produces a profile of where the team is strong, where it is not, and what to address first.

A facilitated offsite is one tool in team development. Offsites are useful for building shared context, making strategic decisions, and accelerating relationships. Lasting team change requires ongoing reinforcement: new operating norms practiced in real decision-making situations, accountability structures that persist after the offsite ends, and regular feedback loops. CLA designs engagements with a sustained arc rather than single events.

Initial diagnostic work, the TeamEVAL assessment and findings presentation, typically takes two to four weeks. A full engagement designed to shift how the team operates runs three to nine months, depending on scope and the team’s starting point.

Recurring conflict at the top usually points to something unresolved elsewhere in the organization. Perhaps two executives are incentivized on metrics that pull against each other. Or a strategic goal has not been made specific enough to settle competing priorities. Many consultants focus on what happens during an executive team meeting. And while those interventions can be helpful, we start with understanding the root causes of a disagreement to design solutions that lead to lasting resolutions.

Yes. In private equity portfolio company contexts, sponsors look to us for help answering the urgent question of whether a particular leadership team can deliver against this value creation plan on the timeline required. Our Senior Team Performance Navigator is designed to answer exactly that question, evaluating the team against the specific investment thesis rather than against a general standard. It identifies where the team’s capability, structure and operating rhythm match what the plan demands, and where they do not, on a timeline that fits the deal.