Summary
The actions taken, results generated, and relationships formed by a manager in his first 90 days in a new role arecritical to his success, career advancement, and the effectiveness of the organization. Yet, despite the frequency and importance of managerial transitions, organizations invest minimal organizational effort to assure success. The success of transitions can be improved and accelerated through the creation and-implementation of systematic learning plans tailored to each new manager's specific experiences and situation, as well as the particular business situation at hand (i.e. startup, turnaround, etc). Learning plans should include diagnosing the business issues, understanding the organization's culture and politics, initiating a dialogue with the new boss, assessing one's team, building relationships with key stakeholders, and creating momentum through earl wins.
- Transitional periods are frequent, important, and short-lived.
- Frequent. Each year, roughly 25% of the managers in an organization transition into anew job or role. High potential managers may face a personal transition every 2 1/2to 3 years.
- Important. On a personal basis, a manager's actions in her first 9o days in a new role go a long way toward determining her overall success or failure in that role, and can have far reaching career implications. Transitions are a time of opportunity and growth as individuals take on new responsibilities and challenges. A McKinsey study showed that senior executives' most important developmental experiences involved major transitions into new roles. At the same time, transitions are a time of vulnerability based on encountering new, unfamiliar situations; interacting with new people, including a new boss; and encountering high expectations.
- Transitions are also important, yet disruptive, for the entire organization. A survey indicated that every mid-level managerial transition negatively affects the performance of more than one dozen people throughout the organization.
- Short honeymoons. "The President of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get go." Historically, new managers received a six-month honeymoon. However, based on the speed and competitiveness of business today, go days is now the standard. Illustrating this is a survey among 210 CEOs and presidents showing that by month six in a new role, they expect leaders to have already reached their "break-even point," where they have contributed as much value as they have consumed. This places great pressure and high expectations on new managers to make immediate contributions.
- Despite the importance and frequency of transitions, most organizations have no systemic processes in place to help managers deal more effectively with them.
- Few organizations provide any training or assistance to assist managers in their transitions. Most approach transitions with a Darwinian "sink or swim" approach based on the belief that effective leaders will find a way to swim. Some managers do figure out how to swim; however, many fail who could have succeeded with the right transitional training and tools. An organization that provides a systematic framework can accelerate the transition process, producing better results for the individual and the organization. If an organization fails to assist in the transition, it is in the manager's best interest to take the initiative to create such a framework to accelerate his own transition.
- New leaders often focus on learning the business, but fail to learn the organization. The key to an accelerated transition involves creating a systematic learning plan that provides broad organizational and people-related learning. The learning plan should include:
- Coming in with a point of view. Starting with a "prepared mind" helps a leader get off to a fast start. One approach is to think like an outside analyst. Develop a set of hypotheses that lead to questions and areas to explore. One's point of view will change over time, but starting with well-formed thoughts helps to speed a transition.
- Diagnosing the organization and environment. This involves; digging beneath the surface to understand the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; gaining knowledge regarding the competitive environment; and understanding the culture and politics.
- Assessing key people and relationships. Most important is to establish a dialogue with one's boss to understand her persona communication style, expectations, and the scope of authority the boss wants the new manager to exercise. It is essential to reach alignment with the boss on the business situation and key priorities and to begin negotiating resource commitment.
- Also necessary is to assess one's team to determine the "keepers," to determine the desired organizational structure, and to put processes in place to guide and measure the team. A new leader must also determine which stakeholders are critical to success, and begin building relationships with them.
- Assessing personal vulnerabilities. It is important for leaders in new roles to assess their own vulnerabilities and weaknesses so that the learning plan can address them. A personal vulnerability may be a "comfort zone" related to a prior position, a lack of technical knowledge, lack of relationships, or difficulty extricating oneself from a previous position. Leaders must understand and overcome their vulnerabilities to perform well in their new role.
- Finding the best sources of knowledge. New leaders should seek out those with deep organizational knowledge who can help them get up to speed and learn from previous organizational mistakes. Excellent sources include the informal "company historians" who have been there for years and know "where the bodies are buried." Also, cross-functional project managers have broad perspective across the organization.
- Identifying places for early wins. Good leaders seek to create positive momentum through early successes. They find areas to achieve quick success and put plans in place to deliver.
- Personal Situations. The emphasis of the learning plan will differ based on each person's background, experience, previous roles, and specific transition. For example:
- External vs. internal transitions: An external transition requires more focus on learning the new culture and politics.
- Line vs. staff transitions: Changing from a line role to a staff position requires more building of coalitions due to less direct authority.
- Functional vs. general managerial transitions: Moving from a functional role such as finance or marketing to a general manager requires leaving one's comfort zone, broadening technical skills, and building trust among people in areas different than one's background.
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Business Situations. Some business situations are clear, while others will not be obvious and may spark disagreement. Is it important to achieve clarity and alignment on the business situation. In some circumstances, leaders will assume roles having elements of multiple business situations. The most common business types are:
- Startup: The key transitional challenges are marshalling resources and creating the right team.
- Turnaround: Due to problems with the business, there is clearly a need for action, with transitional emphasis on focus, technical skills, and fixing the fundamentals.
- Realign: This is a going business with underlying problems. Realigns are difficult as some in the organization may not see the problems and perceive the business as healthy. The key challenge is building consensus around the underlying problems.
- Sustain: This is a business where the challenge is to sustain success. Learning challenges involve defining future success, filling the shoes of a successful leader, and earning the trust of an established team.
In some situations, new leaders believe they are entering sustain situations that are actually realigns, or think they are facing a minor realign that proves to be major. Without alignment on the situation, expectations will be unrealistic and there will be ongoing friction. The new manager must present a compelling case, and build consensus around the specific business situation.
- The traps new leaders fall into are remarkably consistent.
- Communication traps. Examples include becoming isolated and not tapped into the formal and informal informational flows, coming in with "the answer" which can appear arrogant and hurt morale, and setting unrealistic expectations.
- Cultural and political traps. This involves making cultural missteps and alienating some in the organization. A political trap is getting "captured" by the wrong people and creating waves. In a transition, be an impartial mediator.
- Other common traps. These include attempting to do too much, and sticking too long with the existing team due to aversion to conflict or through hubris, believing that with you as the manager underperforming team members will excel.
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There are clear benchmarks for where a new leader should be after 90 days.
- In 90 days, a successful leader should have: completed a diagnosis of the business and organizational situation; had a broad dialogue with his boss to reach alignment on the business situation, understand communication styles, clarify expectations, and begin negotiating resources; assessed his team and determined the "keepers;" begun to build relationships with important stakeholders: and identified where anti how to achieve early winds.
- You can recover from a bad start, but it's hard. "You are not necessarily terminal if your first 9o days go badly." Try a restart to buy yourself a new chance. Have open discussions with your manager and other key individuals to address the situation. Act consciously to rebuff negative stereotypes. If after another 9o days things haven't improved, consider a change.
- Bad bosses are unchangeable; focus on yourself. In response to a question about a bad boss, Watkins advised, "you are not going to change your boss." He suggested not confronting the boss, especially during a transition, but rather building coalitions, forming relationships with other key individuals, and focusing on the specific business challenges and your own situation. This may not reduce frustration, but it will increase effectiveness.
- To learn a new culture, read its fiction. Watkins advises those facing the cultural challenges of a new country to read the fiction of the country's best known writer for invaluable insights.