Adopting Structured Learning Methods

Once you have a rough sense of what you need to learn and where to seek it ”whether from reports or from conversations with knowledgeable people ”the next step is to understand how best to learn.

Many managers inclination is to dive in and start talking to people. You will pick up much soft information this way, but this method is not efficient. Why? Because it can be time-consuming and because its lack of structure makes it difficult to know how much weight to place on various individuals observations. Your views may be shaped excessively by the first few people (or last few) with whom you talk. And people may seek you out early precisely so they can influence you.

Thus, you should consider using a structured learning process designed for new leaders . To illustrate the advantages of a structured approach, imagine that you plan to meet with your direct reports to elicit their assessments of the situation. How might you go about doing this? Bringing them together right away might be a mistake, because some will hesitate to reveal their views in a public forum.

Instead, you decide to meet them one-on-one. Of course, this has its drawbacks too, because you have to meet people in some order. You should therefore expect that the people who are later on your schedule will be talking to the earlier ones to try to get a sense of what you are after. This may both reduce your ability to gain a range of views about what is going on and allow others to interpret your messages in ways you might not intend.

Suppose that you decide to meet with your direct reports one-on-one. In what order will you meet with them? And how will you avoid being excessively influenced by what the first couple of people say to you? One approach is to keep to the same script in all your meetings. Its format might consist of brief opening remarks about yourself and your approach, followed by questions about the other person (background, family, and interests) and then a standard set of questions about the business. This approach is powerful because the responses you get are comparable. You can line them up side by side and analyze what is consistent and inconsistent about the responses. This helps you gain insight into which people are being more or less open .

When diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your direct reports one-on-one. (This is an example of taking a horizontal slice across an organization by interviewing people at the same level in different functions.) Ask them essentially the same five questions:

What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face) in the near future?
Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges?
What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth?
What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities?
If you were me, what would you focus attention on?

These five questions, coupled with careful listening and thoughtful follow-up, are certain to elicit many insights. By asking everyone the same set of questions, you can identify prevalent and divergent views, and thus avoid being swayed by the first or most forceful or articulate person you talk to. How people answer can also tell you a lot about your new team and its politics. Who answers directly and who is evasive or prone to going on tangents? Who takes responsibility and who points fingers? Who has a broad view of the business and who seems stuck in a silo?

Once you have distilled these early discussions into a set of observations, questions, and insights, convene your direct reports as a group , feed back your impressions and questions, and invite some discussion. You will learn more about both substance and team dynamics by doing so, and will simultaneously demonstrate how quickly you have begun to identify key issues.

You need not follow this process rigidly. You could, for example, get an outside consultant to do some diagnosis of the organization and feed back the results to your group (see New Leader Assimilation Process ). Or you could invite an internal facilitator to run the process. The point is that even a modest amount of structure ”a script and a sequence of interactions such as meeting with people individually, doing some analysis, and then meeting with them together ”can dramatically accelerate your ability to extract actionable insights. Naturally, the questions you will ask will be tailored specifically for the groups you meet. If you are meeting with salespeople, for example, consider asking: What do our customers want that they are getting from our competitors and not getting from us?

New Leader Assimilation Processes

One example of a structured learning method is the New Leader Assimilation Process originally developed by GE. In this process, each time a manager enters a significant new role, he or she is assigned a transition facilitator. The facilitator meets first with the new leader to lay out the process. This is followed by a meeting with the leader s new direct reports in which they are asked questions such as: What would you like to know about the new leader? What would you like him or her to know about you? about the business situation? The main findings are then fed back, without attribution, to the new leader. The process ends with a facilitated meeting between the new leader and the direct reports.

Other structured learning methods are valuable in particular situations. Some of the methods described in table 2-1 may increase the efficiency of your learning process depending on your level in the organization and the type of business situation you are in. Effective new leaders employ a combination of methods, tailoring their learning strategy to the demands of the situation.

Table 2-1: Structured Methods for Learning
Method	Uses	Useful For
Organizational climate and employee satisfaction surveys	Learning about culture and morale . Many organizations do such surveys regularly, and a database may already be available. If not, consider setting up a regular survey of employee perceptions.	Useful for managers at all levels, if analysis is available specifically for your unit or group. Usefulness depends on how granular the collection and analysis is. This also assumes the survey instrument is a good one and the data have been collected carefully and analyzed rigorously.
Structured sets of interviews with slices of the organization or unit	Identifying shared and divergent perceptions of opportunities and problems. You can interview people at the same level in different departments (a horizontal slice) or bore down through multiple levels (a vertical slice). Whichever dimension you choose, ask everybody the same questions and look for similarities and differences in people s responses.	Most useful for managers leading groups of people from different functional backgrounds. Can be useful at lower levels if the unit is experiencing significant problems.
Focus groups	Probing issues that preoccupy key groups of employees , such as morale issues among frontline production or service workers. Gathering groups of people who work together also lets you see how they interact and who displays leadership. Fostering discussion promotes deeper insight.	Most useful for managers of large groups of people who perform a similar function, such as sales managers or plant managers. Can be useful for more senior managers as a way of getting some quick insights into the perceptions of key employee constituencies.
Analysis of critical past decisions	Illuminating decision-making patterns and sources of power and influence. Select an important recent decision and look into how it was made. Who exerted influence at each stage? Talk with people involved, probe their perceptions, and note what is and is not said.	Most useful for higher-level managers of business units or project groups.
Process analysis	Examining interactions among departments or functions and assessing the efficiency of a process. Select an important process, such as delivery of products to customers or distributors , and assign a crossfunctional group to chart the process and identify bottlenecks and problems.	Most useful for managers of units or groups in which the work of multiple functional specialties must be integrated. Can be useful for lower-level managers as a way of understanding how their groups fit into larger processes.
Plant and market tours	Plant tours are opportunities to meet production personnel informally and to listen to their concerns. Meetings with sales and production staff will help you assess technical capabilities. Market tours can introduce you to customers, whose comments can reveal problems and opportunities.	Most useful for managers of business units.
Pilot projects	Gaining deep insight into technical capabilities, culture, and politics. Though these insights are not the primary purpose of pilot projects, you can learn a lot from how the organization or group responds to your pilot initiatives.	Useful for managers at all levels. The size of the pilot projects and their impact will of course increase as one rises through the organization.