Global research by the business school reveals that only one third of top teams are aligned and there are fundamental divisions within the top team concerning the future of the business.
When examining 12,500 top teams across 21 countries, 2,500 boards in 10 countries and ex-prime minister Tony Blair's last cabinet, Kakabadse told delegates at the CIPD annual conference in Manchester that one thing stood out. "All companies see what is going to happen 15 months before a collapse," he said.
This was notable in the recent financial meltdown. "In every bank in the UK, US and Germany general managers went to the boss and said there's a credit problem here, we are exposed to too much mortgage risk, some 15 months before the crisis hit," Kakabadse said.
"The insight was there. They all knew the problems and knew what to do. So what was the problem? Instead of having a shared vision there was division. This became the cultural norm. There is denial and paralysis."
Interviews with CEOs, chairs, executive directors and non-executive directors point to a continuous life of tension. Executive board directors have low trust of chairmen and non-executive directors. There are few penetrating insights and no shared view of competitive advantage and differentiation.
Kakabadse said the importance of the chairman was paramount. "In the overstretched shareholder value markets of today, the CEO is becoming the chief operating officer. They have to pay such attention to detail and can't stand back.
"The chairman has a much broader stakeholder view yet this is one of the most underpaid roles and often given to someone towards the end of their career."
