Identifying Your Rival(s): It's Not Who You Think It is ...

Rivals are Everywhere -- Be Aware

Whether you’re being brought in from the outside or elevated into a new role, there’s a good chance you will work with someone who wanted your job. There may be people in the organization that were interviewed, had been asked to interview and opted not to, or were not asked to at all. And they think they're more qualified for the role than you are -- or at least resent you for being there. Their perception may not be based on logic, and it’s crucial to be aware of the dynamics of rivalry. It is important to understand what has happened, and how they feel about it, so that you can build effective working partnerships.

Rivals are important to your success in many ways. They understand the culture, other leaders, and “where the bodies are buried.” They have key historical, functional, and technical knowledge. Failure to bring rivals into the fold can result in missteps and missed opportunities, as well as incomplete or fragmented team formation. Strained relationships can lead to increased misunderstanding and misattribution of motive, and block essential communication. If your rival held an interim role in your position during the search for a permanent leader, the challenges may be compounded.

The Costs of Rivalry

While some think of rivalries as a normal part of office politics, they can be corrosive. Some of the costs include:

• Workplace warfare -- whether open or veiled -- is destructive in untold ways
• Failed initiatives
• Derailed Leaders -- if not attended to properly, rivals can unseat New Leaders
• Undermined trust
• Lack, or distortion, of communication (and insufficient knowledge transfer)
• Decreased team morale/engagement and overall effectiveness
• Reduced risk-taking and innovation
• Lost potential for collaboration

Rivalry Redefined

When asked to identify potential rivals for Newly-placed Leaders, Hiring Managers and HR Partners frequently say, “There are none -- no one else was qualified for this role.” With some gentle probing, they soon recognize that there may be several rivals in place. It is then that they see the need to expand their definition to accurately assess New Leaders’ risks associated with the presence of rivals.

In our work, we define a rival as “anyone who may be unhappy to have this New Leader in this role.” While logic may suggest that there were no viable rivals that met the requirements of the position, it is the emotional state of the would-be rivals that must not be ignored. 

Rivalry Has Many Faces 

There are very few rivals who announce themselves to New Leaders by publicly sending a “shot across the bow.” Though they may be unhappy with the presence of the New Leader, they also understand that being overtly hostile can be personally and professionally risky. 

In fact, it's often not what the rival does, but what they don’t do, that becomes problematic for New Leaders. And it can be a challenge to proactively recognize the presence of potential rivals. They may take many forms, but most fit into 5 categories:

1. The Interim Leader – if someone has been capable of “holding down the fort” while a search for the New Leader takes place, how could they not harbor negative feelings about being looked over for the permanent role?
2. The Upstart – organizations often make the mistake of publicly dubbing leaders as high-potential when they are, in fact, not ready for promotion. They may have natural leadership ability, but it takes experience and maturity (that they lack) to become properly prepared for high-level leadership roles.
3. The Technical Expert – it is common for technical experts to compare their own technical ability with that of a New Leader, and ignore the other skills required for success in the role. Failure to address their misconceptions means that New Leaders can have rivals lying in wait – from the moment their hire is announced or their bio becomes public.
4. The Feedback Deprived – unfortunately, in “nice” companies people can spend most of their career cut off from needed feedback. This self-awareness void can cause them to be out of touch with their own capability levels, and impact on others. These disconnects may land them in the would-be rival role. They often see themselves far more positively than others do, and have the potential to be hurt by their exclusion from consideration
   for the role.
5. The Culture Keeper – this is the person who understands the history and why the operation engages in certain practices. Many organizations respond to organizational challenges by hiring New Leaders to serve as change agents. If change-agency, or the transition itself, is mishandled, it can naturally cast some team members in the role of “culture keeper.” Well-intentioned but obtuse change efforts cause culture keepers to oppose those misguided New Leaders. And those New Leaders may need the support of those culture-keepers to gain credibility or become successful. 

In order to engage in a successful transition, every New Leader must identify and address the inherent challenges associated with workplace rivalries. Check back here next month, when we will explore New Leader strategies for heading off unproductive behavior and bringing various rivals into the fold.

Your New Team: Sizing Up, Investing In, or Trading Out

When New Leaders enter an organization, or advance by way of internal promotion, they often inherit a team to lead. Undoubtedly, stepping in as the New Leader can create a wave of concern – and even fear – among direct reports. Let’s face it, in the current business climate, it’s not unusual to see a new CEO or VP “clean house” and start over with a hand-picked team (often people already known to the New Leader). But is this personnel chess game really the best course of action?

While navigating through the onboarding process, New Leaders may need to address concerns about their assigned teams. Three typical approaches are:

1. The wait-and-see method – studying how team members react to the New Leader's direction.
2. Active involvement – connecting with team members, asking them about the organization, their internal partners, career aspirations and their opinions of current operations.
3. The trade-out approach – rapidly replacing most or all of the individuals on the team.

Sizing Up: Know Your Team Before Making Any Moves

So, which tactic is most effective? To answer this, New Leaders must make a conscientious effort to accurately size up their teams. With our clients we promote the active-involvement approach, and suggest these 9 steps:

1. Communicate that they have been hired to maintain operations and generate results.
2. Paint a powerful picture of the future that doesn't denigrate past efforts.
3. Reassure team members that they are all invited to be part of the future, and invite them for the journey.
4. Determine the capability and capacity of team members individually, and as a whole.
5. Match up the organizational needs with what is available on the team – analyze strengths and gaps.
6. Research the organization’s culture and its existing expectations about developing or replacing team members.
7. Get advice from trusted colleagues (but avoid acting solely on another’s perceptions).
8. Determine the financial and operational impact of keeping or changing the team.
9. Gain support for decisions made about the team.

If told by others that their team is low-performing, New Leaders can be tempted to choose the trade-out approach. An organization may even “suggest” such a move, and request that it be done quickly. However, without examining these situations closely, the results can be costly -- on both financial and personal levels. New Leaders confronted with this dilemma should consider the following questions:

• Why is the team perceived as low-performing?
• Does the organizational structure support effective performance?
• Does the team have access to the needed tools, knowledge, feedback, and training?
• Has the team experienced multiple leadership changes (or even long gaps without a leader) over a significant period of time?
• Have their prior leaders explained and clarified performance expectations?
• Are there any documented issues related to individual or team integrity?

Investing In: Is it a Risk or Reward?

Taking time to answer the above questions can help New Leaders determine if performance issues emanate from the members of the team themselves, or if factors outside of their influence are the root cause of low performance. If it is the latter, then replacing the team will not improve effectiveness. In fact, the time and knowledge lost are likely to cost far more than the benefits offered by trade-outs. Knowing this, New Leaders can then focus on the best path for results – altering the structure and context in which they work.

Once New Leaders decide to invest in their current teams, they can start by creating or strengthening alignment. They also need to believe that they can make a significant positive impact on their existing teams’ performance, and identify behaviors that will lead to needed improvements. New Leaders can advocate for needed resources, define the work, distribute tasks in ways that make sense, and demonstrate that they value the team’s performance.

When New Leaders define the context for their teams' goals and explain expectations, they can work together more fluidly. New Leaders who foster a climate of transparency and open communication are better-equipped to build unity. Such cohesion is only possible through dialogue; and this process may require addressing and resolving past or present conflict.

Trading Out: When is it Necessary?

A new atmosphere of clarity and alignment is likely to expose poor performance by team members who are not on track with agreed-upon goals. These are often the people who display rigid resistance to needed changes. They may state how things “should” operate, or “how we used to do things around here,” not realizing that those methods may have been unproductive. These inflexible members of the team may (knowingly or inadvertently) hinder progress. Certainly, some do come around. But once New Leaders offer a fair number of attempts to gain team member buy-in and receive only opposition, a trade-out may need to be considered.

Removing someone from the team doesn't always require that this team member also leave the organization. It does mean, however, that this member has skills or behaviors that no longer synchronize with the needs of the team. Successful New Leaders help these team members see this misalignment for themselves, and then support them in finding other suitable opportunities, whether internal or external.

It Comes Down to Effort

Addressing a team’s viability is just one aspect in the multi-faceted onboarding process. How the New Leader approaches decisions about an inherited team can lead to either early success or delayed disaster. New Leaders should use caution when Hiring Managers disclose with them that the team "must go." Taking the active-involvement approach by evaluating, interacting and understanding the people (and the organization) will make a positive impact, strengthen the team, save valuable time and prevent disruption.

The Importance of Feedback - Early and Ongoing

The Window of Judgment Slams Shut for Many New Leaders

When we ask our clients how long it takes before their organization informally judges whether its New Leaders "get it" or not, they usually say somewhere between 60 and 90 days in the role. We call that the "window of judgment," and it is a source of great concern. Think about it. This means that before official nameplates are mounted on their office doors many New Leaders are already headed for the exit -- a distressing thought for those who significantly invest in recruiting the best candidates for these roles.

And we are finding that the window of judgment is closing much sooner than it used to. Ten years ago our clients indicated that the window stayed open for a comfortable 4 - 6 months. Since then many factors have conspired to speed up the judgment process. This demonstrates how important it is that organizations and leaders understand the implications of projecting negative opinions about New Leaders, and that they learn to identify and head off potential issues.

New Leaders Often "Fly Blind"

If we think about feedback in a mechanistic way, a system monitors some measure of equilibrium (for example, thermostats sense a change in temperature). When the balance is disturbed (the temperature rises), the system sends a signal to compensate for that disruption (feedback to provide more cooling). With that adjustment, things return to a stabilized state.

Now, imagine New Leaders as a part of an organizational system. While we hope they behave in ways that maintain equilibrium, New Leaders may, in fact, do just the opposite. They often lack knowledge about the organization, and interact in ways that can be viewed as disruptive. This increases the risk that they will:

• Make decisions that are inconsistent with organizational expectations or norms (or are just downright ineffective).
• Struggle in relationships with people who can either enhance or undermine their success.
• Overestimate their own capabilities and fail to deliver on important objectives.
• Exclude valuable sources of information from their thought processes and implementation.
• Lead their teams in ways that ignore their lessons of experience and take them down the wrong path.

In all five cases above, New Leader behavior creates a disturbance in the system. Unfortunately, our clients tell us that these same New Leaders are rarely given needed feedback in a timely and transparent fashion. In fact, many acknowledge that their New Leaders might operate feedback-free until their first performance review (which could be a year after their start date). It can be devastating for organizations and their New Leaders -- equilibrium and performance suffer, and New Leaders flail about.

Insufficient feedback often serves to rob New Leaders of their dignity -- experienced colleagues and direct reports already know where they fall short, but New Leaders have no real way to self gauge. This experience can be disrespectful, embarrassing, and pointless. We need to assume that all New Leaders come to their roles with a strong desire to perform in ways that are acceptable to their Hiring Managers and organizations. So, if a New Leader is proven ineffective, often it can be attributed to a broken feedback loop in the onboarding process. Someone is not sharing what is wrong and how to fix it.

Why They "Fly Blind"

There are several factors that can contribute to New Leaders operating without accurate insight into their effectiveness:

• People are too nice, and don't want to hurt a New Leader's feelings (this is especially true in Midwestern organizations).
• The prevailing organizational belief is that people who need feedback "don't get it," and are a bad fit for the organization and role.
• The pace of organizational life makes it inconvenient for others to deliver timely, direct feedback to New Leaders.
• New Leaders are in such a hurry that they don't foster transparent conversations.
• Someone that works closely with a New Leader may be unhappy about the appointment. We identify this person as a rival. Regardless of whether or not this rival was a candidate for the role, negative feeling can result in very destructive behavior.
• In some visible way a New Leader is different from those in the organization. Unfortunate, but still frequently true, some differences may make it difficult to connect and get honest, helpful feedback.

Without the information they need to effectively navigate, New Leaders can "crash and burn."

The Gift of Navigational Tools

You have probably heard someone say that "feedback is a gift." For the well-being of the organizations and their New Leaders, it is crucial to provide early, specific feedback about the effectiveness of their transitions. With that knowledge, New Leaders can effectively navigate -- make better decisions, gain needed support for change initiatives, and become firmly woven into the organizational fabric. Some options for feedback include:

• Helping New Leaders understand why they were chosen for the role, so they can reconcile how their strengths and weaknesses are viewed.
• Focusing on building strong relationships with key stakeholders, and asking them for feedback early and often.
• Providing New Leaders with a Culture Snapshot, so they can make accurate appraisals of the effectiveness of their operations.
• Facilitating a Team Alignment Process, where New Leaders receive anonymous, powerful feedback from their direct reports.
• Delivering data from LevelSet: Early Feedback when New Leaders have been in their role for only 6-8 weeks. Armed with this confidential and anonymous source of feedback, they can course-correct on one or more of over 30 behaviors that predict their success.

Seeking, being open to, and acting on feedback are essential elements of New Leader success. With a clear picture of how their actions and perceptions impact the organization, New Leaders have the tools to maintain their equilibrium, successfully navigate the organizational landscape, and avoid getting caught in the window of judgment as it slams shut.

Don't Underestimate the Importance of the Personal Transition

Landing a senior-level leadership position can be a momentous time in anyone’s career. And for senior leaders most job appointments include changes that impact their personal lives, such as moving to another city, state, or even country. Adding this component to the onboarding process requires adjustments by the New Leaders and their families. 

While many companies have relocation specialists who provide initial assistance, it is important to remain attentive to this largely invisible part of New Leader transition for at least six months. Almost all New Leaders encounter personal struggles in this scenario, but they may downplay the hardships they face while acclimating to their new role, organization, and geography. 

Our research with one large retail client demonstrated that the No. 2 predictor of New Leader turnover is the extent to which their personal transitions go poorly. (The No. 1 predictor is failure of New Leaders to achieve and maintain role clarity.) And clients in a variety of other market sectors have echoed this problem.

What are the Root Causes of Tricky Personal Transitions?

For most corporate leaders, moving for a job or promotion is nothing out of the ordinary. But in recent years we have seen some trends surface in New Leader relocations.

1. Many New Leaders have spouses/significant others employed in professional roles. It is becoming increasingly common for trailing spouses/significant others to seek professional positions that are tough to obtain in the new geography. Searching for a job while staying in their pre-move role can lead to a drawn-out physical separation. New Leaders must balance the importance of their success with their spouses'/significant others' ability to secure employment.
2. Families of New Leaders stay behind for an extended time. Often New Leaders go it alone at the beginning so their children can stay to complete the school year before transferring to their new locale. Although the intentions are to help their children acclimate, some evidence suggests that the longer the family stays behind, the less likely they are to move. This, in turn, increases the chance that New Leaders will leave their new employers.
3. Sometimes New Leaders do not relocate their families at all. While this used to be “red flag” for HR partners concerned about retention, it is more common for New Leaders to take apartments in the new city and stay during the week. This seems to be particularly true when their offspring are adolescents or have grown up and left home.
4. New Leaders and their families often choose to ride out the process of selling their old home. In recent years the depressed housing market has extended the time it takes to successfully sell one’s home. Living in temporary rentals and delaying the purchase of a home adds time to the moving process and hinders a family’s ability to settle in and create a routine. If frustration hits a high point, New Leaders lack incentive to fully commit to their organizations.
5. New Leaders may experience greater resistance from children. As their children (particularly adolescents) become involved in high-commitment activities, such as travel sports teams, clubs and extracurricular activities, New Leaders might encounter some unexpected push back.
6. If families are anxious about the move, New Leaders might not lean on them as a source of social support. Our research demonstrates that the risk of New Leader turnover elevates when family satisfaction is low. With unhappy households comes discontent New Leaders. And they must mask their struggles so as not to compound the issues their families face.
7. The families of New Leaders may have deep roots in their existing community. Families may find their destination different enough to engender feelings of alienation. As well, the strong relationships left behind that were sources of support and enjoyment are now not as accessible.
8. New Leaders that are single may have less support. Repositioning into a community not known to them, single New Leaders may have a harder time creating relationships outside of work. The basic logistics of a move can be daunting, as well. Being on their own, they may need time off from their organizations to be present for cable and phone installation, or to accept delivery of appliances and furniture.
9. Global transfers and expatriate assignments can be fraught with unknowns. Language barriers, cultural differences, and conflicting beliefs about practices important to families (such as raising/educating children) can compound problems.

Some Solutions and Coping Strategies

The difficulties New Leaders and their families experience while negotiating an unfamiliar landscape are facts of life that cannot be avoided. Some ideas on how to respond include.

1. Work together on solutions. Before packing up your belongings, meet together as a family to identify potential pitfalls and develop strategies.
2. Allow family members to weigh in on decisions. Take children along to tour one or two area schools so that they can influence final decisions. Based on their feedback, families can opt to narrow their housing search to a preferred school district. Offspring can also be enlisted to help design and choose furnishings for their home.
3. Utilize resources available from employers. Many large organizations have trailing-spouse policies that can help secure employment. If they don't offer formal support, there are still many new colleagues eager to assist. They can recommend schools, neighborhoods, and community resources such as doctors, plumbers, tutors and veterinarians. More informally, they can advise New Leaders about local culture, community events, and include the families in their own social plans.
4. Draw on strengths from existing relationships while forging new ones. It is important to reach out to family and friends from the former location. Plan one or more trips to see them during the first year, include them in vacation plans, or invite them to visit. Employ communications tools such as Skype and email to preserve these connections. Good places to initiate relationships include local houses of worship, children's sports teams, and community events.
5. Leave right after the school year ends. If New Leaders’ families opt to stay behind to finish the school year, it is highly recommended that they depart right after school adjourns for the summer. It may be challenging for the children initially, but it can be a great way to meet peers in the neighborhood, summer camp and sporting events. When the school year rolls around in the fall, they will already have strong foundations in building relationships.

International Moves and Expatriate Assignments

Being offered permanent roles in a different country (or shorter-term expatriate assignments) can present exciting opportunities for New Leaders and their families. Importantly, perhaps more than any other kind of relocation, it can be fraught with uncertainty and complexity. Some suggestions to manage these situations.

1. Start learning the language. As soon as you know of an assignment to a foreign land immerse the family in lessons. When possible, practice at home over dinner and in other conversations. 
2. Familiarize yourselves with the history, habits and customs of the destination locale. Research together as a family and discuss what these changes will be like. Keep it positive as you share ideas. Identify local restaurants that serve authentic versions of the country’s cuisine, and go experience it first-hand.
3. Think carefully about where you want to live. Many New Leaders and their families prefer expatriate communities where amenities are familiar and their neighbors speak the same native tongue. These families often send their children to international or American schools. Others specifically choose to live outside of those buffered neighborhoods to have an immersion experience.
4. Figure out what to do with your “stuff.” For some families, having familiar surroundings that include their own furnishings is important. For others, it may not matter as much. If you need to pare down, take selected items that are symbolically important such as framed photographs, artwork, bedding, stuffed animals, or sports trophies.
5. Develop strategies to decrease homesickness. Spend time together as a family, and maintain special traditions, routines and schedules where possible. Given time, many expats overcome the longing for their old lives and capture the excitement and adventure of their new-found country.

Leaders who ignore the risks of personal transitions in the onboarding process do so at their own peril, leaving employment and personal relationships to hang in the balance. If New Leaders proactively evaluate and address the risk factors involved, they increase satisfaction in their role. And taking the steps necessary to ensure their families’ physical and emotional needs are met further stabilizes the home front, which really is their most valuable source of support and success.

  

Managing Change: How to Include the Team and Gain Support

The world around us is rapidly changing, and in reality, businesses that don't adapt won’t survive. One common response to the frenetic pace of change is for organizations to hire New Leaders from the outside, expecting them to make massive alterations to their teams, operations, and organizational outcomes. Sometimes these organizations provide New Leaders with specific expectations around change. But often, New Leaders are given a vague order to "make things better” -- as soon as possible. And an often-troubling onboarding paradox may take place: organizations desire to see different results, but tend to resist the changes needed to drive desired outcomes. So a balance needs to be found. But how?

Determine the Timing of Change

New Leaders often encounter a dilemma while initiating change in an organization. On one hand, taking too long to introduce new initiatives can pull New Leaders into a limbo state where opportunities are missed and people lose patience. On the other hand, doing too much too soon can alienate others in the organization and negatively impact relationships and New Leader reputation. Many New Leaders are so intent on taking rapid action that they misunderstand the business culture, skip the learning curve and forget to invite others into the process. Such missteps can lead to derailment, which can be costly to an organization and its New Leaders.

Ideally, New Leaders should hold off on introducing major change until they have observed a significant period of due diligence -- commonly until at least 90 days in role. The key focus of the first 2 - 3 months should be sizing up their operation, learning about people, process, customers and best practices. Before taking action on findings, New Leaders should first tee up their proposed changes with Hiring Managers, who can then gauge the appropriateness of such efforts and provide needed support.

New Leaders need to remember that changer can be scary. Even though many in the organization may agree that improvements are needed, for some the word “change” implies that something is wrong, and that the current processes are broken. This realization can make people who have authored and maintained existing practices feel defensive. They may react negatively because they assume they don't have the freedom to express their feelings about pending changes, or they cannot foresee the long-term value of proposed changes.

Inspire the Team to Join the Cause for Change

During times of restructuring, those closest to New Leaders are their team members (direct reports). The impact of change on their roles and accountabilities can be significant. New Leaders need to remember to include their teams in all aspects of operational adjustments. Successful Leaders know how to inspire their team members to step up and participate when changes are taking place. This involvement promotes mutual ownership of deliverables and the eventual outcomes.

To engage team members in the process, New Leaders should consider these 5 steps:

1. Motivate their team by explaining the long-term vision in ways that help them see the positive end results. 
2. Gain the team’s perspective on what is working in the organization and what they think can be improved. 
3. Ask the team members about the corporate culture, how things get done and who to consult during a time of change.
4. Get advice from the team on how to most effectively identify and introduce new practices and procedures.
5. Involve the team in the roll-out, giving them significant visibility and support. 

If encouraged to act as key contributors to this process, team members have the opportunity to shine and be recognized for their efforts. Importantly, New Leaders can use the suggestions listed above as a way to demonstrate respect for their team members’ knowledge and experience.

Also key to this entire process is transparency. Being open with the team and sharing information about the organization’s direction and business challenges fosters confidence and increases trust. How can New Leaders enhance a climate of trust and action in the face of change?

• Communicate about initiatives with the team, and explain how they can deliver on these new objectives. 
• Provide continuous guidance to the team, and keep them apprised of organizational context, as well as the condition of the external business climate.
• Make sure that the team has the right tools and resources to accomplish their goals. 
• Work with peers and other stakeholders to remove organizational barriers.
• Recognize the team's work, celebrate milestones and major achievements.

Continue the Conversation

Team member contributions are vital to any change initiative. New Leaders should keep in mind that their campaign for improvements will need support from multiple areas -- and not just from their immediate team. They should develop relationships across the organization, and initiate conversations that encourage positive attitudes and beliefs about the transformations they see as needed. To do this, it is important to identify individuals who are vital to the success of targeted change efforts. This should include key stakeholders and informal opinion leaders from different levels of the organization. With backing from their teams and individuals throughout the organization, New Leaders can build the case for needed change, and reassure those impacted that the end-result will be worth the effort.

                                                       

The #1 "Killer" of New Leaders: Failure to Achieve and Maintain Role Clarity

It should be simple: Company hires a great candidate, and its New Leader comes in and does a fantastic job without stumbling or making a wrong turn, delighting key stakeholders and performing at a high level.

Now for reality: New Leaders struggle, often mightily, to become effective in their new roles. They all too frequently fail, and then pay a high personal and professional price. The employer is out hundreds of thousands of dollars (even millions, for certain key hires). And the team endures mis-steps and setbacks, moving more slowly and less effectively than needed.

Our client research indicates that the #1 predictor of New Leader derailment is the failure to establish and maintain role clarity. Here's what's sad -- that failure could have been avoided. Most often when a New Leader fails in a role it is not about "fit," it is about them not being aligned properly in their role.

Lack of Role Clarity Can Take Many Forms:

• The role fundamentally changes between hire and start date, and is either not recognized or communicated.
• Hiring Manager expectations are unrealistically high, and the New Leader doesn't "rightsize" them.
• Different important others have too many, inappropriate, or contradictory expectations, and the New Leader fails to bring them into alignment.

There are a Number of Potential Barriers to Role Clarity:

• A failure to create a realistic understanding of the role through the selection process (sometimes, unfortunately, this is an intentional act).
• Changing circumstances demand an evolution of the understanding of the role.
• A New Leader may fail to identify key stakeholders and their needs/expectations.
• Organizational changes can lead to restructuring and a new funding model, without changing expectations for deliverables.

How can a New Leader Establish and Maintain Role Clarity?

• Recognize that every role ends up being different than communicated in the selection process, and accept that adaptation will be key to future success.
• Ask the Hiring Manager about expectations and deliverables -- frequently.
• "Ride the circuit" with key stakeholders, and explicitly request their understanding of the role as well as their operation's expectations.
• Listen for disconnects and evidence that others' understanding of the role role isn't as you expected.
• Get feedback -- both formally (using a tool such as Culture Snapshot or LevelSet: Early Feedback) and informally, to learn how others perceive your operation as well as your transition efforts.

In short, New Leaders need to understand that they don't have fixed job descriptions -- that their roles continually evolve and they must readily adapt. Priorities and expectations will be in conflict, and New Leaders must recognize the contradictions and manage them. Strong relationships and frequent communication will help New Leaders stay aware of others' expectations and gain crucial feedback and knowledge.

And while New Leaders need support from others in order to establish and maintain role clarity, it is ultimately their own fundamental responsibility. Why leave it to chance?

Culture and the New Leader

It is commonly acknowledged that success (or even survival) in a new role depends on a Leader's ability to understand and successfully navigate the operational culture. Edgar Schein, a recognized authority in the field of organizational culture, has said, “The bottom line for leaders is if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them.”

In our experience an accurate understanding of the culture is one of the most important aspects of Leader transition, but it comes with significant challenges:

• How is the culture described?
• Is it the same for top leaders as it is for others deeper in the organization?
• Did the organization "tell the truth" about the culture to the New Leader, or describe how it hopes to function someday?
• What about the discrepancies between how the culture is broadly described by its inhabitants and how its subcultures really function?

There seem to be as many definitions of culture as there are people observing these transitions -- and without a common understanding, it becomes impossible to provide a consistent approach to successful culture navigation. 

What is Culture?

Organizational culture has been described as:

• “The way we do things around here.”
• “Lessons learned that are important to pass on to the next generation of employees.”
• “What we do when no one is looking.”

Of course, those are the ways people describe the culture of an organization from their own unique perspectives -- sort of an anthropological view. Many experts on culture, including Dan Denison (Chairman of Denison Consulting), agree that some things about culture are visible, including the behaviors and norms. Some other aspects of culture are talked about and less visible -- like values and attitudes. Finally, there are those components of culture that are part of the organization’s subconscious, and therefore rarely discussed or questioned. 

Importantly, all aspects/levels of culture inform and impact the performance of an organization. Research performed by Denison Consulting clearly demonstrates that organizational culture drives financial (and other measures of) performance. For our purposes, “culture” is defined as the performance climate of an operation -- measured on four key traits:

• Mission -- the organization's direction, and means of accomplishing it.
• Adaptability -- the extent to which the operation can respond to the need to change.
• Involvement -- how the people connect with the work and each other.
• Consistency -- the ability to predictably work together to deliver results.

 
Culture is at the root of many of the paradoxes for those onboarding into new roles (see our January 2013 post). New Leaders are hired to make changes, fix broken things, “take us to the next level,” have early impact, etc., and they must act in the context of the organizational culture in order to accomplish those imperatives. In addition, not only is there a corporate culture that New Leaders must navigate, but there is also a culture in their own operations that New Leaders have to “get.”

  

Navigating the Corporate Culture 

To navigate the corporate culture, New Leaders must figure out both “the way we do things around here” and “the way we don’t do things around here.” While Leaders are hired to lead their operations, the organization will (directly and indirectly) signal to the New Leader what they can and can’t do to drive success. Leaders who take the time to observe and ask questions about the best ways to operate, and then follow that advice, are ultimately more successful.

Leaders also have diagnostic tools such as Culture Snapshot available to them that give them an early view into the performance climate of their own operations -- the culture that will make or break their results.

  

"Getting" the Operational Culture

In order to figure out the culture of the operations they lead, New Leaders must step back during their first months on the job and focus on learning rather than working to change things and make an immediate impact. New Leaders sometimes mistakenly assume that “because people downstream report to me, they will follow my direction.” They then move forward with in a manner that runs counter to their operation’s culture/performance climate. The outcomes can range from lack of communication, to frustration and complete failure. New Leaders who work with their Hiring Managers to construct deliverables that:

• Facilitate learning about the corporate and operational culture,
• Demonstrate that they have incorporated that knowledge, and
• Start moving the New Leader’s operation toward desired goals and performance levels will ultimately be more successful in both the short- and long-term.

Working with (and within) the operational culture that existed before New Leaders came on board will help smooth their transitions, balance the paradoxical nature of onboarding, and deliver results.

The Myth of the Flawless Outsider

Why is it that so many companies exhibit a strong preference for recruiting external hires to fill key leadership roles? Are these rational, data-based decisions, or are the decision-makers falling prey to hidden biases that could prevent them from placing the right person in the role? If so, then at what cost?

Much has been written about the challenge and complexity facing today's leaders. Emerging technologies, aggressive competition, rapid change and escalation of consumer expectations all combine to make leadership a riskier proposition than ever before. The pressure on leaders to drive results can be extreme, and it is magnified when those leaders are stepping into new roles.

Filling these roles can present a daunting challenge, as circumstances demand breadth of leadership capabilities, depth of technical skills, and the wisdom required for successful navigation of an entirely new landscape. As companies explore the pool of candidates for these crucial roles, they often make the mistake of overlooking the internal talent they have cultivated.

We call this oversight "the myth of the flawless outsider," and it has several components:

1. There is a natural tendency to cast a tough role with a heroic figure -- someone who can be placed on a pedestal by the organization.
2. This focus on the need for significant talent and thought leadership can make us overlook the strengths of those already familiar to us and concentrate on their relative weaknesses.
3. All other things being equal, a lack of familiarity with candidates means their resumes tend to look "rosier" than the facts known to us about existing colleagues. We are very familiar with the career ups and downs (and personal idiosyncrasies) of our colleagues -- information that we may not gain about external candidates until well after their start date.
4. Finally, we tend to devalue available information and fail to dig deeper in the interview process. Why do so many companies perform pre-hire assessments, only to disregard (or significantly under weigh) the data gained? A number of Hiring Managers have told us how much they have come to regret ignoring pre-hire assessment reports as those hires eventually stumble in their roles.

How do we create a more balanced approach, so that we don't overlook the talent right under our noses?

1. First, develop a rigorous, feedback-rich talent-management process that truly prepares your internal leaders for big roles.
2. Next, use a multivariate/multi-faceted approach to selection, with rigorous and structured interviewing and assessment for all candidates --whether external or internal to the company.
3. Strive to select humans over superheroes. Remember that brilliant interview skills do not equal leadership effectiveness (and may conceal flaws and lack of experience that will ultimately lead to their failure).
4. Do something that most companies don't: Use pre-hire assessment and interview data to get New Leaders on the right developmental paths as they enter their roles (instead of waiting until their development needs become obvious to all).
5. Finally, work to establish realistic expectations for New Leaders so they don't fall into the heroism trap ("I'm here to change the culture," for example). Humans, not heroes, deliver sustainable results. And they don't have as far to fall as those perched atop inappropriate pedestals.

If, as do many humans, we prefer the new and shiny over the old and reliable, we need to follow the steps above to avoid falling into the trap set by the myth of the flawless outsider. It may be less exciting, but will be better for us and our companies in the long run.

 

The Myth of New Leader "Fit"

We often hear clients talk about how they want Newly-placed Leaders to "fit" their organizational culture. And if New Leaders derail, it is often attributed to a "poor fit." Rather than have "fit" be a throwaway explanation for derailment, doesn't it make sense for us to have a better understanding of what is happening and why?

This is an important conversation to facilitate for a variety of reasons:

1. "Fit" could mean "be just like us." And for most companies who want to perform better, that could be a mistake. Too many similar people = too many people who think the same way. Too many people who think the same way = under-representation of new ideas or a failure to challenge existing ideas. It also implies something unpleasant for those of us who are somehow different -- that as people with different work styles, genders, sexual orientations, experience bases, ethnicity or skin color, our contributions could be marginalized or completely ignored.

2. Perhaps "fit" is more about New Leaders behaving in ways that are acceptable to their new peers and colleagues. If the Leaders respect their colleagues and their ways of doing things, perhaps they will be allowed to be more accepted by others, voice opinions sooner, or be more influential. That suggests a more dynamic, situational way of thinking about leader transition.

3. Or, you could adopt our perspective (in addition to #2 above) and believe that it's also the job of the organization to engineer the "fit" of the Newly-placed Leader. If you accept the notion that companies do a pretty good job of hiring people with the "potential to fit," why wouldn't employers want to seal the deal by ensuring their new hires are truly set up for success?

If we can make the failure to fit be seen as what we really believe it to be -- a failure to cause the fit of the New Leader, wouldn't everyone win? Companies retain valued leaders. New Leaders not only keep their jobs, but also ramp up faster and less painfully. Employees have more effective bosses. And HR people get to attend to what they most want to do: develop and retain talent to cause the organization to be more successful.

The Paradox of Leader OnBoarding

The major books on leader transition (Right from the Start, The First 90 Days) have lots of great content in them, but tend to ignore the paradox(es) faced by Newly-placed Leaders. In our work with clients, we have found it essential to identify and balance each paradox as it is encountered.

Some New Leader Paradoxes:

1. Make changes, but don't change anything -- what the organization most often wants is changed outcomes without having to increase investment or implement, and adhere to, new processes.

2. Fix broken things, but do so without causing pain, discomfort or disruption -- a corollary to #1, above. By definition, when something is broken, it means that something is not working. And there is a reason for that. And if you tackle the reason, you are likely to be tackling a person. Exercise caution and respect.

3."Take us to the next level" without devaluing existing employees and practices -- best practice in leader transition is for the new leader to honor the team for its accomplishments, and then quickly focus the team on signals from the world around them that suggest the need for developing "what's next." Worst practice is wiping out the New Leader's team and supplanting them with people brought from the leader's former employer.

4. Be heroic, but just like the rest of us -- companies often bring in outsiders to accomplish outcomes they have failed to achieve through previous internal attempts. As you listen to how you and your role are described be sensitive to, and dispel, any notion that you are there to "save the day." If the day truly needs to be saved, it first needs to be understood, and then turned into a team effort to be merely facilitated by the New Leader. This approach will lead to the broader acceptance and support required for New Leader success (and longevity).

5. Have early impact, but don't do anything until you completely understand us -- many New Leaders make the mistake of having a one-way dialogue with their team and colleagues. In fact, the best way to "prove yourself" is by demonstrating your understanding of the organization and context you are entering. And that is best done by asking good questions, and then truly listening and learning. That interpersonal due process is what will later cause others to allow you to take action with their support.

6. Beware if low-hanging fruit -- they are tempting, but are hanging there unharvested for a reason. If you spot an obvious issue, it is likely that others are already well aware of it (and for some reason have chosen not to take action). Let them tell you why it hasn't been solved already, whether it is important to address, what has been tried in the past, and their thoughts about when and how (and if) to take it on. And understand which key people in the organization have a vested interest in keeping things as they are (or not having their mistakes exposed).

7. We like you because you worked at (Company XYZ) and we admire them -- just don't tell us what you did, or how you did things, while you worked there -- a corollary of #5 above. While the books on onboarding focus on demonstrating early impact, they may fail to recognize that doing so can alienate others and short-circuit change initiatives. We always suggest a search for best practices that begins inside the new company, and extends broadly (and generically) to other companies. If you had a winning practice in your old role, perhaps you could tee it up by saying something like "Am not sure if this could work here, but I am familiar with an approach that has seemed to work well in other industries..." We also suggest resisting explicit invitations to share best practices from your last organization, at least until you've been in role long enough to be seen as understanding and valuing your new employer and team.

8. When we ask you what you think about us, we don't really mean it and/or want to know only the good things -- this can be a classic trap for New Leaders. People want to be liked, and often feel anxious when New Leaders arrive. New Leaders want to be seen as "getting it" and moving quickly. Sharing the things you like and appreciate -- about the company, your team, the way you have been welcomed, your excitement about future possibilities - is a great strategy. Additionally, allowing your team members to share their best work with you will increase their comfort and trust -- especially if you can find the good in their work. It goes without saying that asking for others' perspective on the organization helps here as well -- so when you may be in a position to pass some form of judgment, you will be seen as having done a fair and thorough search for information.

Again, the popular onboarding books can be very helpful -- as long as you remain aware of what they don't tell you.