40 percent of new leaders fail.
This can be devastating for those having to look for another job – and for their hiring manager who is inevitably tainted by the failure. The key to reducing that failure rate is identifying, assessing and managing the risks of onboarding.
IDENTIFY
- organizational, role & personal
- learning & relationship
- delivery & adjustment
ASSESS
- Low level of risk: Do nothing out of the ordinary.
- Manageable risk: Manage in the normal course of the job.
- Mission-crippling risk: Resolve before trying to do anything else.
- Insurmountable barriers: Walk away.
The critical judgment call here is whether the risk is manageable or mission-crippling where somebody else has to resolve the issue.
MANAGE
- strengthening the organization’s sustainable competitive advantage
- coordinating role interdependencies with others
- leveraging own strengths in the right role in the right organization
- investing in learning both broadly and deeply
- building productive relationships with the most important stakeholders
- accelerating the development of a high performing team to deliver
- adjusting to the inevitable surprises along the way
The critical judgment call here is what help the new leader needs: a mentor to share information, a coach to help them think things through, or a transition accelerator to play a more active role in helping them and their team deliver better results faster.
There is more on all of this in our book: The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan (Wiley, 2006 and 2009)
George Bradt
PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration
