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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".

leadership

Why every board and leadership team should get in a room together, at least once a year

back to all insights leadership

Reflections from Perpetual’s Paris board meeting and working sessions, April 2026

There is something that happens when a leadership team stops communicating through screens and gets into the same room. The conversations are different. The decisions are faster. The commitments are real.

In early April, the Perpetual board and team came together in Paris for three days of structured working sessions, strategic review, and genuine connection. It was one of the most productive gatherings we have had as a firm — and a reminder of why this kind of work cannot be replicated on a video call.

This article is not a press release. It is a reflection on what we worked through, what we learned, and why we believe every board and senior leadership team should make this a non-negotiable part of their annual rhythm.


the intent

We set three rules for the three days before a single session began:

  • Clarity over complexity
  • Discussion over presentation
  • Decisions and ownership over theory

These sound simple. They are not. Most leadership off-sites fall into the trap of over-presenting and under-deciding. Beautifully designed decks get shared. Important topics get “parked.” People leave energized but unclear on what actually changes on Monday morning.

Our intent was different. Every session had a named owner, a clear objective, and a required output. The conversations were designed to generate alignment and action – not just awareness.


what we worked through

The agenda covered six areas that we believe every leadership team needs to address regularly and honestly.

business performance and financial health

We opened with a frank review of where we stand. Profitability, pipeline health, revenue by practice, and forward outlook. The world is more uncertain than it was twelve months ago – client decision cycles are slower, the global economy is creating caution in some markets – and a leadership team that is not looking at this together, with full transparency, is navigating blind. We left with alignment on priorities, clear ownership of the risks, and a shared view of what the next quarter needs to look like.

culture and team health

Financials tell you where you are. Culture tells you whether you can sustain it. We reviewed team health honestly: what is working, where the pressure points are, and how we protect the environment that makes Perpetual the kind of firm people choose to build a career in. We have a strong, cohesive team. That does not happen by accident and it does not stay that way without attention. Identifying where burnout risk exists and addressing it before it becomes a retention problem is not a “nice to have” – it is a leadership responsibility.

go-to-market strategy and commercial model

We spent significant time on how we operate as a single, integrated firm rather than a collection of capable individuals. The shift from individual-driven revenue to a structured, team-based commercial model is one of the most important transitions a growing advisory firm can make. We designed our go-to-market teams, aligned industry priorities, and committed to the behaviors and cadence that will drive it. The output was not a slide deck – it was a set of clear decisions, named owners, and a timeline.

the impact of ai on our industry and our firm

We gave a full session to artificial intelligence, not as a technology briefing, but as a strategic question. What does AI mean for executive search, leadership development, and advisory consulting? Where is it already changing the landscape for our clients? And critically: how do we build AI-enabled capability inside Perpetual in a way that is practical, principled, and genuinely differentiated?

We aligned on a core principle: human first, AI enabled. From that starting point, we launched three structured 90-day projects – focused on talent development delivery, go-to-market intelligence, and leadership program design – each with a named lead, a small team, and a clear product to showcase at the end of the sprint. We are not experimenting for the sake of it. We are building.

capability investment and development

Growth requires choices. We reviewed our core capabilities — our proprietary diagnostics, our CRM infrastructure, our consulting offer — and made deliberate decisions about where to double down, where to simplify, and where to stop. Saying no to things that are not working is one of the hardest disciplines for a leadership team. It is also one of the most important.

the annual retreat – planning with purpose

We designed the 2026 firm retreat, a gathering of the full Perpetual team in the south of France in the autumn. But more important than the logistics was the intent: to reconnect, to realign, and to celebrate. As firms grow and become more distributed, the moments that build genuine culture – where people know each other, trust each other, and commit to something together – do not happen automatically. You have to design them.


what three days together actually produces

We came away from Paris with something that is genuinely hard to manufacture: alignment. Not surface-level agreement on a shared slide. Real alignment, where every board member understands the priorities, owns a piece of the plan, and knows what the others are counting on them to do.

The firm also came away with momentum. Decisions that had been sitting in ambiguity were made. Projects that needed a starting gun were launched. Structural questions about how we operate and who leads what were resolved.

And beyond the outputs, the Paris team and the board spent three days actually working together, in sessions, over lunch, across dinner tables. That kind of integration does not happen on a quarterly call. It happens when you are in the same building, navigating the same problems, for long enough that the guard comes down and the real conversations start.


why most leadership teams don’t do this – and why that is a mistake

The most common objection is time. Leaders are busy. Pulling a board or a senior team out of their day-to-day for two or three days feels expensive.

The question worth asking is: what is the cost of not doing it?

Strategic misalignment is expensive. Delayed decisions are expensive. Culture drift is expensive. A leadership team that is technically functional but not truly integrated will underperform relative to one that has taken the time to build genuine trust and shared clarity. The compounding effect of that gap over twelve months is significant.

The other reason teams avoid it is that they do not know how to design it well. A poorly run off-site – too much presentation, not enough challenge, no clear outputs – can do more harm than good. It is not enough to get people in a room. The design, the facilitation, and the follow-through matter enormously.


what good looks like

Based on our own experience and the work we do with leadership teams across consumer goods, beauty, food and beverage, and beyond, a well-designed leadership gathering shares a number of characteristics:

  • It is built around decisions, not presentations. Every session has a named owner, a clear question to answer, and a required output.
  • It creates space for honest conversation. The topics that are genuinely uncomfortable are on the agenda, not parked.
  • It integrates the team socially as well as professionally. The informal time matters as much as the structured sessions.
  • It ends with clear actions, owners, and timelines, not a summary document that no one reads.
  • It is followed up: the momentum generated in the room is protected and accelerated in the weeks that follow.


a final thought

Paris reminded us of something we already knew but needed to feel again: the quality of a firm is not just a function of the capability of its people. It is a function of how well those people work together.

That does not happen in a TEAMS or Zoom meeting. It happens when you are willing to get in a room, be honest about where you are, make the hard calls together, and leave with something you could not have built apart.

Every board and leadership team deserves that. Not as a reward. As a discipline.

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

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