• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

JP Cornerstone

Just another Cornerstone Accelerator site

  • JP Cornerstone
  • About
    • About JP Cornerstone
    • Code of Ethics
    • Professional Practice Guidelines
    • External Privacy Notice
  • Offices
    • Stockholm
    • Helsinki
    • Oslo
    • Copenhagen
  • Services
    • Executive Search
    • Board Search
    • Leadership Consulting
    • Interim Management
    • JPC Selection
  • Insights
  • News
  • Contact

Archives for September 2018

A Wise Decision Trumps A Quick One

September 21, 2018 by Cornerstone International Group Leave a Comment

a new leader faces risks when he or she moves too fast

 

(Ed: Part 2 of a recent HBR article “Why a new leader should be wary of quick wins” by former CEO Dan Ciampa.  Read Part One here )

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman explores the intricacies of judgment and argues that different tempos of decision making are better for different challenges. Fight/flight/freeze decisions must be intuitive and quick. But actions that are complex and require careful judgment must be made more slowly and deliberately.

In order to build coalitions, a new leader must recognize that a handoff at the top is unsettling for everyone. Employees wonder how expectations of them will change, and executives worry about the effect on their power bases. It takes months for a new leader to allay concerns and win loyalty — a reality even for a leader who is promoted from within and is therefore a known quantity.

Subordinates will follow a leader they can count on. Decisiveness is an important factor, but more important is wise judgment in the face of complex, important challenges. Followers want the leader to listen to their ideas and merge them with her own, and they want to see her handle difficult problems carefully. This requires controlling the action and slowing down the pace.

 

How to Slow Down in a High-Speed Job

There are a handful of techniques that allow the new leader to do this. They fall into five categories: control the flow, reflect, repeat, question, and use silence.

Control the flow. Because a new leader inherits their predecessor’s administrative system, the mismatch between the rhythm of the new office and their decision-making style can slow progress toward early successes. Managing the flow of information into your office and into your brain is critically important for the judgment required by the most important issues. That can happen much more quickly with a structural step: creating a senior aide position, such as a chief of staff, who is responsible for making sure the right information reaches you at the right time and in the right format.

Reflect. Controlling the flow should offer more time for reflection so that you can better grasp subtleties of relationships and the underlying meaning of information coming at you. It’s enormously helpful to have trusted advisers — both inside and outside — who are dedicated to your success and have expertise in areas important to your agenda. If there’s no one to talk with confidentially when you first take over, the next best option is to talk to yourself; that’s where keeping a personal journal comes in (see “The More Senior Your Job Title, the More You Need to Keep a Journal”).

The next three tactics help to control the pace of interactions.

Repeat. Even if you understand perfectly what has been said in a meeting or one-on-one discussion, repeat what you heard. Similarly, when you want to verify that you’ve been understood, ask the listener to repeat what you said. In addition to allowing confirmation of what is intended, repetition momentarily halts the discussion’s forward motion and gives you a chance to think about where you want to take the conversation next.

Question. From time to time, ask summing-up questions such as, “What did we just do?” “What just happened here?” and “What should we learn from that?” Questions such as these force a pause, preventing a discussion from rushing to a premature decision or blocking a group from coalescing around what may be the wrong conclusion. Unlike declarative statements, which only require listeners to be polite, questions require them to “go active” as they think of an answer and try to figure out why the boss is asking.

Use silence. A pause before responding has a double benefit. It offers the leader a chance to weigh alternatives and decide the best way to respond, and it pushes others to wonder what’s going through the leader’s mind, which may cause them to think more creatively.

All of these steps would have helped Greg immeasurably (in the first article,(LINK) new leader Greg moved fast  but lost loyalty). They would have slowed the pace of his interactions and decisions so that he was more aware of how he was being perceived and so that he could have carefully assessed the consequences of his decisions. He would have elevated above the action to a position where he could have exercised better judgment. He would have been more likely to realize that how he achieved early successes was as important as achieving them. If he had slowed things down, Greg would be CEO today.

Dan Ciampa (DC@danciampa.com) is a former CEO, an adviser to boards and chief executives, and the author of five books, including Transitions at the Top: What Organizations Must Do to Make Sure New Leaders Succeed (with David L. Dotlich, Wiley, 2015) and Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (with Michael Watkins, Harvard Business Review Press, 1999).

Filed Under: Cornerstone Blog

The Hidden Danger in Quick Wins for a New Leader

September 18, 2018 by Cornerstone International Group Leave a Comment

Risks for a new leader include movcng too fast

 

(Ed: Ginger Duncan (Cornerstone Nashville) is at the leading edge of new integrated onboarding strategies to get a new leader up and running quickly. But there’s a downside. Ginger sends along this curated article from HBR on the danger of quick wins. 1st of 2 parts.

As soon as a new leader steps into a top position at a company that needs to significantly improve the way it operates, there’s pressure to get off to a quick start.

Yet the best way to succeed, paradoxically, is to slow things down.

Forces pushing in the other direction are powerful, of course. You must prove you are the right leader by getting the organization to deliver better results, and soon. That’s why you were brought in.

So, you set out for early wins in what seem like obvious areas to fix — on the cost side, perhaps the speed of processes within production, and on the revenue side, the size of the sales force.

But rushing toward early wins, even in areas that seem uncontroversial, can be unexpectedly hazardous. That’s because when a new leader takes hold, changes aren’t just about efficiency or revenue; they are also about people’s feelings of vulnerability and uncertainty about what the changes will mean for them.

No matter how sophisticated and mature he or she may be, rushing too quickly toward early wins can deprive the new leader of the insight needed to understand the culture and build relationships. As a consequence, quick wins may soon be undone, or they may beget new leadership problems.

Deliberately slowing down allows you to clarify what the people around you want most, the effects of your behavior, sources of resistance, and the ramifications of your decisions. The result: You will have more control over the pace of your transition to new leadership responsibilities and the company’s transition to its new era.

The New Leader Who Starts Too Fast

For an example of the importance of controlling pace, let’s look at the case of Greg. Although talented and competent, he allowed himself to enter a negative cycle of activity after being hired into a large consumer goods company as the COO, and the presumptive successor to the CEO, who planned to retire in 24 months.

Greg rolled up his sleeves and worked harder than he ever had, pushing the organization and himself. To be responsive, he studied each presentation deck and answered each email right away. To be accessible, he said yes to each meeting and one-on-one drop-in. All of this took time, but he wanted to do everything possible to prove to the board — and to others in the company who had been passed over — that he was the right choice to be the next CEO.

His projects redesigned the supply chain for significant cost and time savings, created a new structure to quicken decision making and increase flexibility, and improved the new-product process. Managers grumbled, and the CEO wasn’t as enthusiastic as he should have been, but Greg assumed these were consequences of the inevitable resistance to change. What mattered was that people were following his plan and responding to his direction, and the results were good.

To make sure he was being clear, Greg had a habit of using a sort of double-barreled communication approach, following up each request with a here’s-what-I-mean explanation. And it worked: Subordinates listened, nodded, and rarely pushed back.

At his 16-month mark, as he prepared for his performance review, Greg wondered how big his bonus would be and when he’d be named CEO. Instead, he was told that the CEO would stay until the CFO developed the capabilities to succeed him, and Greg would be allowed to resign. The CEO acknowledged that Greg’s changes had improved performance, but he hadn’t won people’s loyalty and his style was mismatched with the company’s culture.

Greg learned the hard way that people at the top rarely fail because of strategic or operational problems; usually it’s because they have poor self-awareness and mismanage relationships.

In going full throttle, Greg had misinterpreted the CEO’s reactions and missed signals that direct reports saw his intensity as a way to get promoted rather than to help them or the company. His behavior blocked him from getting feedback and cost him the support necessary for success. And that double-barreled explanation technique backfired: People quickly learned that they didn’t have to ask questions, give feedback, or even think creatively.

(Thursday:  the five key steps to controlling new leader development)

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is Dan Ciampa, a former CEO, an adviser to boards and chief executives, and the author of five books. These include Transitions at the Top: What Organizations Must Do to Make Sure New Leaders Succeed (with David L. Dotlich, Wiley, 2015) and Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (with Michael Watkins, Harvard Business Review Press, 1999).

Filed Under: Cornerstone Blog

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • PRESS RELEASE: Cornerstone Kansas City Expands Midwest Market
  • PRESS RELEASE: Cornerstone International Group Launches New Logo 
  • Leadership Academy: In Your Corner- Emotional Intelligence: An Important Leadership Skill for 2023 and Beyond
  • The Cornerstone Eagle – December 2022 – Pause, Reflect, Learn and Take Action.
  • Making Certain Your Organization is Resilient  

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • February 2018
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • July 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • October 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • October 2014
    • June 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • December 2013
    • August 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • May 2012
    • March 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • July 2011
    • May 2011
    • March 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • August 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
    • December 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • June 2007
    • April 2007
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • August 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • April 2004
    • March 2004
    • February 2004
    • January 2004
    • December 2003
    • November 2003
    • October 2003
    • September 2003
    • August 2003
    • July 2003
    • June 2003
    • May 2003
    • April 2003
    • March 2003
    • February 2003
    • January 2003
    • December 2002
    • November 2002

    Categories

    • Cornerstone Blog
    • Uncategorized

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

    Copyright © 2023 · JP Cornerstone · Sitemap

    Website Development by LimeCuda