Facilitating the Journey


Ideally, organizations recognize that people need assistance when they join up, especially if they’re experienced executives who have been successful at companies with strong cultures. Ideally, they offer recently hired executives coaching, as well as transition programs that make them aware of the challenges they’ll face. Perhaps most significant, companies are now expecting leaders to assist their direct reports with problems they may have and intervene if they seem closed to acquiring new and necessary values and skills.

The odds are, though, that bosses won’t do much to help because of the pace of business, the difficulty of giving feedback to senior colleagues, and the expectation that someone successful elsewhere must know what he’s doing. People in senior leadership positions, especially, struggle with finding the balance between trying to extinguish culturally inappropriate behavior in new hires and valuing it. Senior executives, in particular, tend to assume that other senior executives appreciate autonomy, control, and noninterference in order to succeed, and they expect a new senior-level hire will learn the ropes on his own.

Organizations change this assumption, though, when they discover the real costs of failing to help newcomers with this passage.

In Brad Smart’s book Top Grading, he examined senior hires at fifteen organizations and found that 50 percent of them had departed within the first two years. The cost of losing senior people is enormous. Not only are the losses financial (from money spent recruiting them) but they cause mounting anxiety and frustration within the company. When top people are heavily recruited and offered significant salaries and bonus packages, and then proceed to initiate new projects and create expectations among people who work with them and depart within two years, it affects morale as well as business results.

Companies therefore need to be proactive in helping their new executives deal with this passage; the first thing they should do is counsel them on the implicit rules of the culture and how to maximize the impact of their entry and minimize the cultural upheaval. We have been asked by many companies such as Dell, Washington Mutual, Avon, and Novartis to help accelerate the transition and learning of newly hired executives through intensive coaching and assessment. The financial investment in identifying, recruiting, rewarding, and terminating a senior-level executive in most companies today easily warrants an investment in accelerating their adaptation and learning. In designing and delivering senior-level executive programs for many global companies, CDR International has compiled a list of the top ten most common cultural mistakes executives make, which we have observed in advising and teaching hundreds of executives around the world. We’ve found this list to be an awareness-raising tool, spotlighting the behaviors and attitudes that prevent learning and growth in each passage. Here is the list:

  1. Staying too isolated from customers, colleagues, and the market

  2. Attempting too much, too fast

  3. Having unrealistic expectations for performance

  4. Coming in with “the answer”

  5. Failing to develop good sources of information and political intelligence

  6. Not aligning with the boss or his priorities

  7. Not taking action quickly enough

  8. Not dealing with resistance

  9. Not recognizing individual differences in transitioning from one era to another

  10. Failing to understand “the way things work around here”

Failing to understand the way things work and coming in with the answer are two mistakes particularly relevant to this passage. Overconfident, successful people are especially vulnerable to these mistakes, and they often believe their skills are such that they don’t need to worry about how things work. Because they had the answer at their previous company, they believe they have the answer at their new one.

If you find yourself thinking this way, take stock immediately. Remind yourself that you really don’t know how things work or what the answers are in this particular situation. Reflect on and talk about what you don’t know. During the first few months on the job, most people will give you leave to ask dumb questions and admit you don’t have a clue—this is often referred to as “idiosyncrasy credits”; you are given a limited amount of credit at the beginning to be different, stand out, and make change happen. Take advantage of this brief period of transition to be open about your lack of knowledge or skills.

More specifically, follow this five-step method to learn and grow as you move through the passage:

  1. Identify the gap between the company’s intention and your experience. During the recruiting process, senior management or a recruiter may have painted a picture of your job responsibilities or objectives that does not jibe with reality. Determine the elements of this gap and what you need to do to close it. Is your budget too small to get the job done? Do you lack the people you need? What is your real mandate for change? Is your background and skill set poorly matched to what the company wants you to accomplish?

  2. Focus on your boss and learn to read him accurately. When you join a company, your boss can be your lifeline, connecting you to the learning you need. Let him know if you’re struggling and engage in conversations with him about why. Instead of trying to impress him with your ideas and experiences, listen to what he requires of you and how he thinks you can achieve it. Most important, recognize that your boss also has priorities and a leadership agenda, and work to help him fulfill it.

  3. Build a coalition that stretches throughout the organization. No matter how smart you are or how experienced, you can’t navigate this passage alone. This network will not only help you get things done but will provide you with rich sources of learning. (See Unnatural Leadership by David Dotlich and Peter Cairo for more hints on “connecting” rather than “creating everything yourself.”)

  4. Diagnose the culture yourself. Don’t rely on the informal grapevine or what you’ve read about your new company (or what the recruiter told you). If you do, you’ll make assumptions that will probably be faulty. More than one executive has failed because he arrogantly assumed he “got” his new company when in reality he hadn’t taken the time to reflect on what it really was all about. Reflect, talk to others, and then diagnose what makes the culture tick. Quickly developing sources of insight and information, especially about the culture, determines success for newly hired leaders.

  5. Create a time-focused vision of what you want to accomplish. As a newcomer, you’re on probation. Although your bosses will cut you some slack initially, they’ll expect you to perform within a reasonable timeframe. Therefore, identify what needs to be accomplished and determine when it’s best to demonstrate that you’re learning, growing, and producing.

Thomas Ebeling, the CEO of Novartis’s pharmaceutical division (and one of our colleagues), put many of these actions into practice as he moved from consumer-products companies like Pepsi-Cola to Novartis. Thomas arrived at Novartis with a reputation for being a driving, ruthlessly focused leader. In consumer-products companies, his approach was highly effective. Novartis, however, is like most pharmaceutical companies—a conservative and compassionate culture combined with scientific decision making. If Thomas had joined Novartis and implemented the same gung-ho style and tactics, he certainly would have failed. Instead, he has been highly successful, with four straight years of outstanding results. His success is attributable to his willingness to unlearn and learn. He transformed himself into a better listener, a more team-oriented and empathic leader; after intense study of the business, he realized that this was the type of leader the business called for.




Leadership Passages. The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader
Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
ISBN: 0787974277
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 121

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