Translating CEO Forum Phases to Teams (Part 2) 

Building on what we covered in Part 1, let’s examine Phases 3 & 4, including where this model excels, where it falls short, and practical insights for leaders committed to applying what high-performing CEO Forums do so effectively to their teams. 

Phase 3: Integration & High Performance  
In the forum model, this phase occurs when members build trust and challenge into consistent behavior: they support each other, proactively surface issues, practice peer accountability, and create value beyond individual contributions. For teams, Phase 3 means the team is functioning at a higher level: members speak up early when there’s risk, collaborate smoothly, and, through their example, model behaviors that elevate everyone. Accountability extends horizontally, not just vertically. Therefore, it’s not a burden; it’s a shared understanding that each team member matters.

Possibilities:

– The model fits well: once trust and dialogue are established, teams are much more likely to perform at higher levels. Psychological safety and accountability are not opposing forces; they are essential partners.
– Internal teams already share goals, so moving from dialogue to performance takes less time.
– The leader can deliberately shift from “establishing safety” to “expecting high performance in a safe environment,” signaling that challenge and accountability are normal.

Limitations:

– In organizations, external pressures, changing priorities, resource limits, or hierarchical interference may pull the team out of this integrated state. Maintaining this phase is much harder than entering it.
– Intentional effort is essential. If psychological safety is assumed, it can decline quickly.
– Teams that see psychological safety as a destination rather than a fragile state may also risk causing its breakdown.

Phase 4: Renewal & Resilience 

In a CEO‑forum setting, the fourth phase is about renewal, where their capacity to excel still exists, but a lack of intentionality weakens their performance. To address this phase, the group updates norms, adapts to new members, responds to changing external conditions, and gradually restores their psychological safety. In teams, this means periodically reviewing how they work, re‑building trust, embracing new challenges, adding new members or functions, and ensuring their commitment to excellence stays strong.

Possibilities:

– For organizational teams facing ongoing change (such as new priorities, new members, changing markets), implementing a renewal routine fits well with the forum model. Teams can hold “how are we doing?” retrospectives, invite new perspectives, and update their working agreements.
– This phase provides a transformational opportunity: teams can become even more resilient and adaptable.

Limitations:

– Many teams never intentionally go through this phase; they assume that once they perform well, they will continue to do so. Without renewal, complacency, groupthink, or outdated routines can weaken performance and safety.
– Renewal within teams might be blocked by organizational inertia, lack of facilitative roles, competing operational demands, and the absence of a “peer facilitator” similar to CEO forums. The team leader must manage both operational and renewal leadership.
– Lastly, the forum model requires a level of permission, confidentiality, and independence that many internal teams do not possess (for example, teams are subject to broader organizational governance, compliance, and metrics), which limits the renewal phase.

Where the Model is Effective and Where it is Not 

The four‑phase model (Entry/Trust → Dialogue/Challenge → Integration/Performance → Renewal/Resilience) translates well from CEO forums into organizational teams. The potential is strong: teams can become significantly more effective when they intentionally progress through these phases; leaders can speed up trust‑building, create challenge spaces, foster safety and accountability, and establish renewal routines. The model aligns nicely with the broader leadership frameworks many of us use in organizational development (for example, aligning with the trust‑productivity‑accountability discussed in “The Triple Threat -Trust, Produce, Matter”). However, the limitations are notable:

– Internal teams operate under different structural constraints than peer advisory forums (power differentials, performance metrics, hierarchical accountability).
– Psychological safety inside organizations may be harder to sustain because of external pressures and operational imperatives.
– The facilitative infrastructure that peer forums enjoy (experienced moderator, safe space, confidentiality) is rarely replicated inside a team, meaning the team leader has to “perform” and “facilitate.”
– Many teams think once they are high‑performing, they can stop paying attention, and that’s when decline often begins.

Practical Takeaways for Leaders

1. Don’t skip Phase 1. Even experienced teams benefit from a “reset” of norms, working agreements, and trust-building, especially when there are changes, such as new members or a new mission.
2. Design for Phase 2: Create regular safe mechanisms (e.g., “what aren’t we saying?” or “who sees things differently” sessions), ensure the leader models vulnerability, and promote challenging the process and the leader from a caring perspective.
3. Make Phase 3 standard practice: Once safety and open dialogue are established, clearly set expectations for performance, collaboration, and accountability by reminding the team that high safety combined with high challenge leads to high performance.
4. Plan for Phase 4: Regularly gather the team to reflect on their work, revisit norms, adapt to changes, onboard new members intentionally, and renew the team’s social contract.
5. Recognize limitations: While this process is effective, it needs discipline, skilled facilitation, trust in the leader, and safeguards against external pressures. Be mindful of how your organizational environment supports or hinders psychological safety.

Summary

The bottom line: If we treat our teams more like peer forums and less like “command and control units,” we give ourselves a chance to unlock a much deeper level of collaboration, innovation, and resilience. The four‑phase model offers a roadmap for harnessing and leveraging the power of peers, but as always, the journey is in the doing.

Have you read?
Best Countries for Retirement.
Best countries for hiring freelancers.
World’s Best Public Relations Agencies (Top PR Firms).
World’s Most Valuable Companies Ranked by Profit Per Employee.