The Pain in Stretch Assignments

Stretch assignments are often humbling. Even if you actively lobby for a key job with the European office or are eager to obtain a general manager position, once you’re there you’re likely to be blindsided by what you don’t know. The sheer magnitude of what you need to learn and the pressure to learn it quickly can create all sorts of counterproductive reactions. Let’s look at one person who handled a stretch assignment poorly and one who handled it effectively.

For a period of almost eight years, I had a new job almost every year. Sometimes it was just a switch in responsibility; sometimes it was a change in function; sometimes it was about a change in the company. I think this high frequency of change and the need to face new uncertainties led me to where I could master special assignments. All of these assignments concentrated my thinking in doing something new, and ultimately being really stretched.

Thomas Ebeling, CEO, Novartis Pharmaceuticals

Curtis: Dealing with Overconfidence

Curtis was brilliant at business development. He had thrived as the top business development person at one of the country’s largest corporations. He had the perfect pedigree—a top-tier-school MBA, a great track record at a top consulting firm—and was a high- performing, high-potential individual with ten successful years at the corporation. It would be fair to say that Curtis had never failed in any significant way in his business career, and when he was appointed to head the major division of this corporation, he went into the job with arrogance bordering on hubris.

Although the assignment was a stretch for Curtis, he didn’t see it that way. Curtis probably would not have viewed being elected president of the United States as a stretch. He was supremely confident and certain he possessed all the skills and knowledge he would ever need to handle any job. What he didn’t have, though, was the ability to focus on the details, and his new job required this focus. It was the type of business that was highly regulated, and any company that wasn’t vigilant about record keeping and statements made to analysts and the media could easily get in trouble. Curtis’s company did indeed get into trouble within a year of his appointment, and it was due to his exclusively big-picture perspective. He was great at coming up with strategies for exploring and expanding markets and telling the company’s story to analysts and the press, but he couldn’t be bothered with the nitty-gritty details of budgets, financial reports, legal documents, and operational plans, and he wasn’t interested in learning how to master these details, which were crucial to his position as a division head. After some time, his division was facing regulatory investigations and missing forecasts provided to corporate.

Amazingly, Curtis solved his problem by being appointed CEO of another company shortly thereafter that also required him to stretch in a similar way because, as CEO, the capacity to move back and forth between the big picture and operational details is a requisite for the role. Curtis told us he valued his big-picture style. He also seemed closed to learning or expanding his repertoire. In fact, he had built a logical case for why details were “other people’s expertise.” Not surprisingly, his new company also faced regulatory reviews and challenges, and Curtis was soon fired.

Charles: Managing a Short Attention Span and Volatility

Charles was named CEO of a major corporation before he turned forty. A superb consumer-marketing executive, Charles had a reputation for driving others the way he drove himself. Charles had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. He had a limited attention span and was also volatile—sometimes erupting in outbursts more suitable to a child than a business executive. His supervisor coached him in how to manage his derailers, but he was often left in position until he could prove his maturity while others around him were promoted. Despite these flaws, Charles delivered business results—growing revenue and profitability of his company. This ability prompted the board of a major public corporation to take a chance on Charles. This company, though, was different from any of the ones Charles had worked for or led in the past. Not only was it primarily a business-to-business organization but it produced highly technical products and services. When Charles’s appointment was announced, many of his new company’s employees questioned the selection.

From the start, Charles was stretched in a number of directions. It was his first time being the CEO of a public company. It was his first position with a business-to-business organization. It was the first company where the focus was on technical products. Fortunately, Charles did not attempt to impose his consumer-marketing approach on his new company. Despite his temper and attention span, he knew he had to monitor his impulses, and he didn’t become angry or impatient about what he didn’t know. Instead, he recognized he had a lot to learn if he was going to be successful, and he brought a fierce concentration to this learning. He spent part of each day absorbing all the technical knowledge he needed to grasp to be a leader of the business. He wasn’t afraid to admit to his team that he didn’t know something, and he relied on them to educate him about the business. Though Charles still drove himself and other people hard and pushed for results, he was open to adapting his approach. As a result, he’s done extremely well as CEO and so has his organization.

Different People, Different Outcomes

Both Charles and Curtis had tremendous self-confidence going into their stretch assignments, and both had earned that self-confidence through their extraordinary effectiveness in previous positions. Both had a certain amount of arrogance and a temper; they both drove their people hard. How is it possible that two leaders who are similar in certain ways can react so differently to a stretch assignment? Why was Charles open to learning and Curtis wasn’t?

One explanation might be that Curtis had never failed before, and Charles had experienced some failure; Charles had already discovered that he didn’t know everything. It may also be that Charles came from a blue-collar background, whereas Curtis grew up with advantage. Charles had learned how to overcome setbacks and obstacles in his personal life; Curtis had not. Curtis, though, might have handled his stretch better if he had been prepared for what a stretch assignment entailed.