Who's in the Room?: How Great Leaders Structure and Manage the Teams Around Them

At the top of every organization chart lies a myth—that a Senior Management Team makes a company's critical decisions. The reality is that critical decisions are typically made by the boss and a small group of confidants—a "team with no name"—outside of formal processes. Meanwhile, other members of the management team wonder why they weren't in the room or even consulted ahead of time. The dysfunction that results from this gap between myth and reality has led to years of unproductive team building exercises. The problems, Frisch shows, are ones of process and structure, not psychology.

In Who's in the Room? Bob Frisch provides a unique perspective to this widely misunderstood issue. Flying in the face of decades of organizational psychology, he argues that the solution lies not in addressing behaviors, but in unseating the senior management team as the epicenter of decision making. Using a broad portfolio of teams—large and small, permanent and temporary, formal and informal—great leaders match each decision to the appropriate team in a fluid, flexible approach that you won't find described in management textbooks.

Who's in the Room? is based on interviews with CEOs at organizations ranging from MasterCard to Ticketmaster to The Red Cross.

• Understand and embrace the way decision-making actually happens in their organizations
• Use these "teams with no names" to best advantage
• Engage the Senior Management Team in the three critical tasks for which it is ideally suited

Organizations will get better decisions and superior results by unleashing the full potential of their Senior Management Teams. And bosses will see a dramatic drop-off in people coming into their offices asking, "Why wasn't I in the room?"

About the Author

Bob Frisch has twenty-nine years of experience designing and facilitating strategy offsites with executive teams and boards of companies ranging from Fortune 10 multinationals to family-held businesses. His work has been the subject of articles in publications ranging from Fortune to CFO Magazine to the Johannesburg Business Report. He is the author of three Harvard Business Review articles: "Who Really Makes the Big Decisions in Your Company?" (December 2011), "When Teams Can't Decide" (November 2008), and "Off-Sites That Work" (with Logan Chandler, June 2006). A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts, he earned his MBA degree at the Yale School of Management.

Bob founded his current firm, The Strategic Offsites Group, a decade ago. Previously, he held leadership roles in three of the world's most prominent consulting firms—Accenture, where he was a managing partner; Gemini Consulting, Europe's largest consultancy, where he headed the global practice in corporate vision and growth; and The Boston Consulting Group, where he was a founder of BCG's Los Angeles office.

In addition to his successful consulting career, Bob has twice temporarily taken on senior executive roles. He ran planning and business development for The Dial Corporation, going on to become the youngest division president of this Fortune 500 company. Five years later he led corporate strategy for Sears, Roebuck and Co., where he helped to guide what was at the time the largest voluntary restructuring in history.