enfr

talk
to us

New York
250 Park Avenue,
14th Floor New York City, NY 10177

Connecticut
22 Thorndal Circle,
3rd Floor Darien, CT 06820

Paris
23 rue du Mail
75002 Paris – France

info@beperpetual.com
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".

change, commitment & transformation

Perpetual: Reads | Outrageous Empowerment

back to all insights change, commitment & transformation

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands.

Outrageous Empowerment

Why Perpetual recommends it

Outrageous Empowerment, by Ron Lovett, tells the real story of how he grew a small Atlantic Canadian security company into a national player by handing genuine decision-making power to frontline employees, rather than concentrating it at the top the way most companies in his industry did. The subtitle, giving employees their brains back, captures the book’s core provocation directly.

Lovett is candid about how uncomfortable this was for him personally as a founder. Empowerment meant tolerating decisions he wouldn’t have made himself, and resisting the urge to swoop in and fix things every time an employee’s call looked risky. He argues that most companies claim to want empowered employees while actually building systems, approvals and hierarchies that make empowerment functionally impossible.

The book is at its most useful when Lovett describes the specific mechanics of how he built this into the business: clear guardrails rather than open-ended freedom, transparent financials so frontline staff understood the real trade-offs of their decisions, and a genuine tolerance for the mistakes that come with real autonomy.

We like recommending this book because it makes empowerment concrete rather than aspirational, showing exactly what leaders have to give up, and build instead, to make it real.

  • Most companies claim to want empowerment while building systems that quietly prevent it
  • Real empowerment requires clear guardrails, not just an absence of rules
  • Leaders have to tolerate decisions they personally wouldn’t have made
  • Transparency about the business helps frontline employees make genuinely good calls

A useful audit is listing the last five decisions frontline employees had to escalate upward, and asking honestly whether they actually needed to.

We give this book three and a half out of five stars.

See more insights
change, commitment & transformation

Perpetual: Reads | Turn the Ship Around!

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands. Why Perpetual recommends it L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around! tells the story of his command of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear submarine he inherited with the...

change, commitment & transformation

Perpetual: Reads | The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands. Why Perpetual recommends it The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp, is a more introspective entry in the leadership canon, built...

change, commitment & transformation

Perpetual: Reads | Going On Offense

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands. Why Perpetual recommends it Behnam Tabrizi’s Going On Offense argues that most large organisations default into a defensive posture, protecting existing revenue and processes, when the leaders who actually...

change, commitment & transformation

Perpetual: Reads | The Power of Habit

Our series of book recommendations to empower talent and fuel brands. Review by Duke Maines Background We already know that change is difficult for a variety of reasons.  Even the most adventurous and flexible of us humans have, at a...