Chapter 4: Secure Early Wins

Overview

When Elena Lee was promoted to head the telephone customer-service unit of a leading retailer, she was determined to change the punitive, authoritarian managerial style of her predecessor. In her former job, she had been responsible for a smaller group in the same organization, so she knew a lot about the problems her new unit had been facing with quality of service. Convinced that she could dramatically improve performance through more employee participation and innovation, she saw cultural change as her top priority.

Elena began by communicating her goals to employees. In a series of memos and small-group meetings, she laid out her vision for a more participative, more problem-solving culture. These overtures met with skepticism from frontline employees and outright dismissal by some supervisors.

Her next step was to begin twice-weekly meetings with supervisors to review unit performance and seek input on how to improve it. Elena stressed that the punishment culture is a thing of the past and that she expected supervisors to coach employees. Cases involving discipline, she said, should be referred (on an interim basis) directly to her.

Over time Elena learned which supervisors were adjusting to the new arrangements and which were continuing to be punitive. She then conducted formal performance reviews and put two of the most recalcitrant supervisors on performance-improvement plans. One left almost immediately. The other shaped up acceptably.

Meanwhile, Elena focused on a critical aspect of the business: evaluation of customer satisfaction and the quality of service. She appointed her best supervisor and a couple of promising frontline people to a process-improvement team and asked them to produce a plan to introduce new performance metrics and a nonpunitive monitoring and coaching process. After tutoring them on how to pursue this project, she regularly reviewed their progress. When they presented recommendations, she promptly implemented them on a pilot basis in the section previously overseen by the departed supervisor. Elena promoted the most promising person on the process-improvement team to supervise that section and to take ownership of the pilot program.

By the end of her first year, Elena had extended the new process throughout the unit. Quality had improved substantially, and climate surveys revealed striking improvements in morale and employee satisfaction. Elena Lee succeeded in quickly creating momentum and building personal credibility. Early wins are the key to proving yourself quickly, as Dan Ciampa and I stressed in Right from the Start . ^[1] By the end of your transition, you want your boss, your peers, and your subordinates to feel that something new, something good, is happening. Early wins excite and energize people and build your personal credibility. Done well, early wins help you to create value for your new organization earlier and therefore reach the breakeven point much more quickly.

^[1] See Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins, Securing Early Wins, chapter 2 in Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999).