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Attributes of the t3 framework:
the right stuff

The "right stuff" is about ensuring the right people are in place and ready to deliver. They feel strongly that they are working with a group of people they respect and can get the job done. The foundation of any team are the people who comprise it. The needs of any team go far beyond ensuring they "can do" the job itself (competence) and extend to areas that allow the team, and its individual members, to work effectively together in delivering the desired outcomes.

These include, for example, possessing a growth mindset, allowing people to adapt more effectively to adversity and solve problems that lead to a breakthrough (‘can do’ attitude). Openness to other’s ideas (a true team player), grit and positivity are other examples of traits of people that are important on any team.

Simply put, members of the team "can do, can do".

clarity & alignment

People and teams are clear on what they need to do and why it is important. High-performing team feel strongly that the direction is clear, and line-of-sight exists between their work and that of the teams or organization on the whole.

There is clarity in the vision, mission and objectives of the team and clarity in how such objectives cascade down to each and every member within it.

Clarity is nothing without alignment, at least over the longer-term. People who know what to do can certainly deliver some good results, within their own sphere of influence; however, alignment is vital for sustained execution excellence. Alignment suggests that people are committed to their role and what they need to do to produce good results.

Simply put, members of the team "know what to do."

empowerment

Empowerment is all about ensuring people have the freedom, support, and tools to deliver on what is expected along with the systems and process to work effectively together.

The nature of the way organizations are designed and the likelihood that most are populated by human beings leads to a natural dysfunction that often is referred to as silo thinking or behavior. Left alone, silo behavior and potentially relational-based conflict WILL arise. This calls for organizations to install a ritual that ensure these are outlined, clarified, and negotiated so that people can work effectively together in driving value for their customers, and the business.

Additionally, we find many teams that have too many priorities that are crippling the team’s effectiveness and/or leading to burnout. Typically, ad hoc demands from the business may be the culprit, and without a priority reconciliation process, frustration emerges.

Simply put, members of the team are "allowed and enabled to".

belonging

Belonging suggests that people fit within your organizational context—they "belong" here and are connected to the organization.

Organizations cannot afford to have disengaged employees—and yet, many in the workforce report being actively disengaged. Others are passively disengagement manifesting in some form of "quiet quitting." This results in lost productivity and an unhappy workplace in general.

While there are many factors that may be at play here, the most important one is a sense of connection people have with their company, a belief that they (the company) are doing the right thing (beyond making money) and that they are operating in a way that is consistent with making a real contribution to society. For newer generations of workers this is of particular importance. It all starts with purpose and values.

Simply put, members of the team "believe it's right to do".

agile execution

Agile Execution is all about how the team works together to adapt to dynamic conditions. It is our belief that no initial plan will survive for very long, placing a burden on the team to pivot consistently in order to deliver upon their strategic outcomes.

In today’s VUCA world, planning is taking on new forms as organizations recognize that within weeks after initiating any plan, it can be rendered, at worst case, useless, or in best case, intentions remain on track but how one gets there changes rapidly. The environment is simply too dynamic to invest months preparing, planning, and budgeting for a reality that may not exist in six months.

In our view, get the strategic intent right, plan on how to get there, and instill agile execution rituals that allow the team to adapt to the realities of executing against the plan.

Simply put, members of the team "will do what it takes with integrity".

togetherness

A sense of togetherness results when the teams do the other five attributes well, leading to sustained high-performance and lots of enjoyment working with fellow colleagues. No matter how remote a team may operate, leaders need to work to secure this sense of "togetherness" and, ideally, bring people together every so often.

In such teams, not only do you have exemplary engagement and behaviors from all constituent members but that final piece of "social glue" -- individuals motivated also by the very company of their team colleagues. This is the zone where intra-relationships are defined by shared levels of high professional respect and, indeed, deep friendships.

Team members bearing this attribute scale even greater heights (sometimes literally!) because not only are they passionate about what they do (as built on all the preceding qualities) but it is this comradeship that sits at the very nexus of this passion. There is no place they would rather be than with the companionship of their comrades and, with this fellowship, a sense of collective invincibility. For such teams, there is a mindset of "anything together".

Simply put, members of the team "build a legacy".

organizational health

AGILE EXECUTION: adapting under pressure

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Avatar photo

Steve Morrissey

Agile execution. The ability to execute. In today’s VUCA world, planning takes on new forms. Organizations recognize that within weeks of initiating any plan, it can become, at worst, useless. In the best case, intentions remain on track, but how one gets there changes rapidly.

The environment is simply too dynamic to invest months preparing, planning, and budgeting for a reality that may not exist in six months. At Perpetual, we call the team capability built to handle this dynamic agile execution, the fifth attribute in our t3® (Team-to-Tribe) framework.

agile execution in the t3® framework

Agile execution sits at level five, just below the summit of the model. Its position is deliberate. It assumes a team already has the right talent (the right stuff) and a clear strategy (clarity & alignment). It also needs the freedom to act (empowerment) and a genuine sense of connection (belonging). Only once those foundations are in place will a team adapt under pressure without fracturing. Get this attribute right and a team is one step from togetherness, the highest state in the t3® model. At that level, the enterprise’s needs consistently trump personal ones.

strategic intent survives, the plan does not

Our view is straightforward: get the strategic intent right, build a plan for how to get there, and instill agile execution rituals that allow the team to adapt to the realities of executing against that plan. In this scenario, everyone knows the plan may not survive in its original form. What matters is that the team remains committed to the strategic intent behind it, and that they regularly come together to re-evaluate the situation, even when business is good, to capture learning and address potential changes in how the plan gets operationalized.

rituals are the discipline, not the good intention

Rituals are fundamental to this process, along with a sustained commitment from the team, and ideally the organization as a whole, to follow them. Getting this right, or wrong, can make or break a business.

One example is the retrospective, to use agile terminology, or what most people call a debrief or after-action review. This example highlights the challenge and the discipline required: so many people and teams know rationally that they need to do it, after all, it is fundamental to success, and yet they don’t, typically bowing to time pressure or the energy of another leader eager to move on to a different project.

the way decisions get made

A second example is the way meetings where decisions are made are run. So often, teams make decisions, or fail to make them, and people break off without clarity, alignment, commitment, and accountability. As you can probably imagine, the success rate of executing against those decisions approaches nil.

Add elements of genuine inclusivity where the team captures the real value of diverse perspectives. Also include preparation and critical thinking tools that help the team harness collective intelligence, and the odds shift considerably. That is a meeting where teams are far more likely to follow through on the decision.

measuring agile execution: the t3® diagnostic

Perpetual’s t3® diagnostic measures agile execution through eight targeted questions, each mapped to a specific trait. Because the attribute is multidimensional, we look for a score of 7.2 or above across every underlying trait individually, not just the composite. A team can post a respectable overall average while masking a single trait, most often candor, that is quietly undermining everything above it.

Across engagements, the pattern is consistent. Trust and meeting discipline tend to score well. Candor is almost always the outlier; the trait leaders most consistently overestimate in themselves and underestimate the room’s willingness to exercise. A team that scores lower on candor than on trust has, in effect, built the safety to speak but not yet the habit of using it.

digging deeper: the seven traits behind the score

Agile execution is the most multidimensional attribute Perpetual measures. Each question in the diagnostic maps to one of seven underlying traits, and we look for 7.2 or above across every one of them individually, not just the composite. A team can post a respectable overall average while one trait, almost always candor or support, quietly undermines everything above it. The table below shows what each trait buys a team when it is strong, and what it costs when it is not.

the LE1 to LE14 problem

Here is where most organizations quietly get agile execution wrong. Budgets drift off course early in the year, and the response is a plethora of revised plans: LE1, LE2, LE3, sometimes climbing into double digits before the year is out. The number itself is not the problem. Revising a plan is exactly what agile execution asks a team to do.

The real problem is what those revisions replace. Too often, the discipline goes into producing a new set of figures rather than into the collective, critical thinking that should have produced them. Extreme ownership of the strategic intent, not the original numbers, is the trick. That requires a team to drill down to root cause together, and to do it without letting the loudest or most senior voice in the room quietly substitute for the wisest one.

what agile execution means for teams and organizations

Teams that score well on agile execution recover from disruption in days, not quarters. They treat a missed number as information, not a verdict. In Decision to Action meetings, teams actually execute their decisions. Everyone leaves aligned, committed, and clear on who owns what next. Retention holds up under pressure, because people trust that people name problems directly and support is real rather than performative.

Teams that score poorly look fine on paper until the environment changes. Then decision making slows, the same root causes resurface under new names each quarter, and functional protectionism starts to substitute for genuine collaboration. This is the difference between what Perpetual calls a first team, a group that owns shared outcomes together, and a group that merely shares a meeting slot. The strategy in the room is rarely the problem. The team operating system that has to deliver it, is.

how perpetual helps

No single training session installs agile execution. Teams build it through repeated, structured practice, the same way athletes build reflexes. Perpetual embeds it through mechanisms that make sure the practice survives past the first few weeks. Perpetual’s work here typically includes:

  • Decision to Action meeting redesign – rebuilding key meetings so every one ends in a clear decision with named ownership.
  • retrospective / after action review installation – designing the cadence, format, and facilitation to make debriefs a genuine, protected habit.
  • collective critical thinking tools – structured root-cause and facilitation methods that ensure quieter, wiser input reaches the decision.
  • candor and feedback culture building – direct, practical work on building a team that uses friction rather than avoiding it.
  • disciplined performance review cadence – regular team reviews of the gap between intended and actual performance, so revisions reflect real learning.
  • embedding and accountability architecture – named owners, scorecards, and a review rhythm that keeps new habits alive past the workshop.

the bottom line on agile execution

Success breeds confidence, and confidence leads to more success, bringing the team closer together. We know that the number one driver of engagement is being part of a high-performing team, and that feeling fuels this virtuous cycle. Agile execution is how a team keeps earning that feeling, quarter after quarter, disruption after disruption.

Steve Morrissey | steve@beperpetual.com | beperpetual.com

about perpetual:

Perpetual is a team effectiveness and organizational design consultancy working with leadership teams across consumer goods and beyond. Our t3® framework and diagnostic are trusted by organizations committed to building high-performance cultures that execute.

Perpetual:  •  Executive Search  •  Leadership Development  •  Advisory  •  beperpetual.com

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