Energy is key to building support for our ideas including major projects in organizations. I tend to look at energy on a continuum between resistance and support. It is always alive either working for us or against us.

Recently, I was exploring some ideas with an executive, and she said,  “low energy is a barrier even bigger than money, lack of time, system challenges, vendor problems or whatever obstacles that we may think influences the project.”

I am beginning a series of posts on ways to easily avoid unforced errors – and I could use your ideas. I’ll explain at the end of this post.

When we think about tough challenges company leaders are likely to face, we might think of slumping sales, falling stock prices, high turnover, or a public relations crisis. All of these issues can be detrimental to a company. I’ve been wanting to dig deeper to learn what else is keeping today’s leaders up at night. So, recently I gathered a group and planted a scenario to uncover what they were facing today. 

Here’s the scenario.

What do you do when you’re the leader of a company and a major capital investment isn’t turning out as planned?

If you’ve ever said, “Our executive team needs to be aligned, engaged, more focused on critical tasks, or just get along better,” you are probably talking about energy. It can be working for you or against you.

Any team needs energy moving in the same direction in order to do its work well. But, this is a special challenge for executive teams. In addition to all the things that can drain energy from a team’s work – competing priorities, lack of direction, personal issues, and so forth – an executive team has one huge additional challenge.