Leading with the Right Skills

The management skills necessary for success vary among the four ST _A RS situations. Start-ups and turnarounds call for hunters, people who can move fast and take chances . In turnarounds, for example, the premium is on rapid diagnosis of the business situation (markets, technologies, products, strategies) and then aggressive moves to cut back the organization to a defendable core . You will need to act quickly and decisively, often on the basis of incomplete information.

The skills that contribute to success in realignment and sustaining -success situations, by contrast, are more akin to farming than hunting. More subtle influence skills come into play: Skilled farmers focus on understanding the culture and politics of the organization. They also painstakingly cultivate awareness of the need for change, by promoting shared diagnosis, influencing opinion leaders , and encouraging benchmarking.

To put it another way, in turnarounds the problems teach the people about the need for major changes. In realignments, by contrast, you must teach people about the problems. Turnarounds are also ready-fire-aim situations: You make the tough calls with less than full knowledge and then adjust as you learn more. Realignments (and sustaining-success assignments) are ready-aim-fire situations. Time urgency is less extreme, but it is more important to understand the organization, get the strategy right and build support for it, and make some good early calls.

Because of their differing imperatives, it is easy for hunters to stumble in realignment and sustaining-success situations and for farmers to stumble in start-ups and turnarounds. The experienced turnaround person facing a realignment is at risk of arriving with the answer and moving too fast, needlessly causing resistance. The experienced realignment person in a turnaround situation is at risk of moving too slowly, expending energy on cultivating consensus when it is unnecessary to do so, thus squandering precious time.

This is not to say that people who are good at hunting cannot farm or vice versa. Good managers can succeed in all four of the ST _A RS situations, though no one is equally good at all of them. But it is essential to think hardheadedly about which of your skills and inclinations will serve you well in your particular situation and which are likely to get you into trouble. Don t arrive with your spear if you need to be plowing.