An Excerpt from You're in Charge — Now What?
Whether you’re coming into a company from the outside or being promoted from within, you’ll undoubtedly have certain expectations about your new position. You’ll have impressions and ideas about your colleagues, the organizational culture, the quality of products and services, the relationships with shareholders and competitors, and your company’s operating processes. These ideas will help shape your agenda.
Each of your stakeholders also has an idea of what should be accomplished in the first 100 days, and how you should go about doing it. If these perspectives don’t align on fundamental points, you’re in for a rocky ride that is may end in failure.
Ideally, you would have had a chance during your candidacy to make sure there is common understanding regarding the important issues the company faces. In reality, that’s often not possible. There may not have been time for such agreement, especially if you’re entering a company in crisis.
That’s why it’s crucial that you align expectations. Failing to do so is one of the top ten traps for a new leader. Agreement on the main issues forms the basis of your future success.
Finding common ground
Managing a mass of expectations means reassessing your own expectations of success, getting a handle on your colleagues and how things work, and identifying problems and how to fix them. This takes skill, insight, and patience, as well as the ability to sometimes admit you were wrong.
You also have to align others’ expectations of you. Your reputation will have preceded you, and when you’ve come into a company from outside, others will be sizing you up and comparing themselves to you.
Internal promotion also creates tension. Just because you may have been the heir apparent doesn’t mean everyone will accord you credibility.
It’s not only colleagues and employees who’ll be watching you. The board will also be evaluating you, wanting to ensure that they made the right choice. Suppliers, too, will want to know how you will affect the status quo, while the financial community will vote with their trades. You have to set appropriate expectations for you and your employees, and align those expectations to the market.
Assimilation
Many companies provide formal assimilation for new leaders, which allows their colleagues and co-workers to exchange concerns and expectations. This offers the new leader a chance to discuss his/her background, leadership style and agenda.
Remember that first impressions lay the foundation for future interaction. You should take note, too, of four other precepts:
- You don’t have all the answers — and no one expects you to.
- You’ll need to address doubts and fears.
- You should neutralize lingering resentment.
- Don’t disrespect your predecessor.
At first, listen
When you assume a new role, you are in a state of temporary incompetence — you don’t have all the answers, and your responsibility is to help produce them. Your most important tool is a questioning mind. Learn about the issues people want you to deal with, the people who can help you and how things work.
Throughout this process, your colleagues will learn about you: how you work, how you make people decisions, how you communicate, your strengths and weaknesses, and how you can help the organization’s success.
Before you do anything, listen. The initial adrenalin rush makes this difficult, but it is important to process information, integrate it with your prior understanding and then cycle it.
Even in a crisis situation, take as long as you can to find out exactly what you need to be doing and to secure the commitment of the people you’re going to need.
Question others on what they think are the real issues — these will typically boil down to a few major concerns. While you listen, you also have the opportunity to build a rapport. Take your questioning outside the company to suppliers, customers, business partners, regulators, the financial community — and the board.
Your questions should cover the market, product, finance, people and processes. The answers you hear will help you refine your understanding of the issues the company faces, as well as what needs to be done.
Conclusion
It may be reassuring to note that studies show it is not so much what people do that leads to success, but rather that they create certain conditions that allow for the successful execution of that change.
The pace and sequencing of change is considered far less important than the creation of an environment in which change can thrive. In other words, assess your expectations, measure them against reality and then find the common ground that will create the conditions to nurture success.