Many organizations invest in team building events where games are played and discussions facilitated but little is actually accomplished to address fundamental improvements in how the team functions.   Many of these approaches are actually effective AFTER a proven method for improving self and team awareness is executed, but this is not common.  

In most leadership teams, many  think they are great communicators, conflict resolvers,  influencers, problem-solvers,    empathizers,  decision makers, coaches and on and on.  And, yes in each team,  some have these strengths  and some clearly don't and often they don't realize it. This overall lack of self awareness causes people to feature, and often lead with their weaknesses, which causes new problems, more conflict, lack of trust,  lack of buy-in - all, of which, have repercussions throughout the organization. The root cause of many of the team issues is simply a lack of self awareness which is really a sign that there is poor actionable understanding of each other.

And then,  and this is always the case for those with limited self awareness,  there is poor team awareness.   If you are NOT self-aware it is nearly impossible to be accurately aware of each other's  styles, motivations, natural tendencies, preferences etc… In addition, the fire-fighting crisis management mentality leaves little time for reflection and understanding..    SO  if a  team does not have an actionable understanding of each other, this  greatly reduces engagement, causes the team to work at cross-purposes, causes waste and all kind of negative outcomes.  

And then largely because of these two reasons, lack of team awareness and fire-fighting- there is little awareness and consciousness about what's really going on in the organization below the executive team.  This causes a whole set of additional challenges.   Not having an actionable understanding of what's going on in the organization, especially in the informal networks, where the real work gets done makes it impossible to effectively solve many problems and effectively pursue opportunities.

Greatly improving team member self awareness will then enable you to improve team awareness and that will enable you to get a handle on the overall organization and make better decisions for it.   It will also lead to far greater clarity to better achieve your purpose and goals and consequently enable you to execute far more effectively.    

Sounds deceptively  easy because its common sense BUT it WILL take some rather INTENSE effort over a considerableperiod of time to develop the actionable understanding of self, team and organization that isessential for a high performing executive team. Self awareness is the foundation.