麦肯锡-揭秘顶级团队绩效：每个CEO都需要知道的事情（英）

October 2025People & Organizational Performance PracticeDemystifying top-team performance: What every CEO needs to knowBuilding a healthy, high-performing top team doesn’t happen by accident—it’s a deliberate, ongoing process. CEOs who commit to this priority can build a sustainable competitive advantage over time. This article is a collaborative effort by Fabrice Desmarescaux, Gautam Kumra, Joydeep Sengupta, and Mukund Sridhar, with Jennifer Chiang, representing views from McKinsey’s Center for CEO Excellence; Aberkyn, a McKinsey company; and McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice.Imagine an executive meeting room. The topic at hand is the company’s international growth strategy. Several paths lie ahead—acquisitions, joint ventures, or organic entry into new markets. Each offers advantages but also significant risks. When the CEO finishes speaking, silence fills the room. After a lengthy pause, the CEO offers his perspective. Heads nod. A few polite murmurs of agreement. At first glance, it seems that the CEO has hit upon the best path forward—but maybe not. A polite discussion about an important, difficult decision often signals a deeper issue: an underperforming top executive team. Perhaps the artificial harmony is a sign that the team does not feel safe enough to share their perspectives or debate the required trade-offs. Or perhaps they are unsure of their role in the decision. Whatever the reason, the CEO has a serious problem.Building and managing a high-performing team is a high-stakes endeavor for every CEO and organization. In today’s increasingly complex business landscape, teams are the catalyst that propels organization-wide transformation. McKinsey research indicates that transformations anchored in team-centric approaches can deliver lasting impact and improve organizational efficiency by up to 30 percent.1 At the very top of an organization, the stakes are even higher: Companies whose top executive team members are aligned and working effectively together are almost twice as likely to achieve an above-median financial performance.2 Through the McKinsey Center for CEO Excellence, we have engaged with nearly 200 current and former CEOs around the world (see sidebar “About the McKinsey Center for CEO Excellence, Aberkyn, and McKinsey’s People & Organizational Performance Practice”). Most of these leaders view team building as a burning platform: Over 70 percent of the CEOs in our CEO Excellence program choose building, retaining, and growing effective top teams as their number-one development priority as leaders.But what factors really matter in building a stellar top team? And, crucially, what concrete actions can CEOs take to get there? This article draws on new data—covering close to 30 global companies, 1 “All about teams: A new approach to organizational transformation,” McKinsey, December 9, 2024.2 Scott Keller and Mary Meaney, Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, Bloomsbury, 2017.The McKinsey Center fo