Formal New Leader Assimilation

Most existing new leader assimilation processes trace their roots to original research conducted by John Gabarro first published in 1985. Gabarro studied the succession of 14 general managers to understand the challenges of taking charge of a new organization. Using longitudinal studies and historical case reviews, Gabarro examined successions covering:

• Functional and general managers
• Organizations ranging in annual sales from $1.2 million to $3 billion,
• Turnarounds and normal situations
• Successions that failed as well as those that succeeded.

In Gabarro’s work, he found that it typically takes 13 to 18 months of learning before a new leadership is ready to significantly impact the organization. Given the amount of time and resources invested in finding and placing a new leader, waiting a year or more to see a return on that investment is a daunting proposition for most organizations. As such it is no surprise that Gabarro’s work spawned tremendous interest in finding ways to significantly reduce that timeline.

Addressing Common Causes of New Leader Failure

Despite this proliferation of intentional assimilation programs, research by Carruci found that between 50% and 60% of executives fail within their first 18 months in a new role. While the reasons for failure are varied, research by the Center for Creative Leadership (as described by Jacoby) identifies three common reasons that result in failure for newly transitioned leaders:

• Failing to build key relationships
• Being too slow to learn the organization’s culture
• Neglecting to clarify role expectations

To combat these typical points of failure, intentional efforts are required to connect new leaders with individuals, their team, and the organization. I recommend any new leader consider the following key activities to accelerate your impact and set yourself up for long term success.

1. Start by focusing on vision. Get clear about the value your team creates for the agency and your customers. And help each member of the team understand how they individually create value in alignment with that vision.
2. Invest heavily to understand the expected outcomes and impacts you need to deliver. In Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the ability of successful organizations (and leaders) to deal with the brutal facts and not lose hope. Chances are that as a new leader you’re joining a team that has some gaps or areas where they need to improve. It’s essential that you work quickly to get a clear picture of where those gaps are so that you can develop a strategy for maintaining hope in the face of what may be daunting obstacles to overcome.
3. Find high-quality sherpas to guide you on the assimilation journey. As Gabarro observed, it can take a long time for leaders to understand the hidden dynamics of an organization. So, work to establish relationships with key stakeholders at various levels in the organization who can help you navigate these complexities. Look for members of your team, peers, and more senior leaders who have been successful in operating within the organization’s culture and ask them how they’ve managed to succeed.
4. Get the incentives right from the beginning. Driving performance is really all about aligning incentives to generate desired behaviors. New leaders must spend time getting to know their teams to understand what motivates them to contribute to the success of the organization. Then put incentive systems into place to reinforce desired behaviors and discourage counter-productive ones. Often new leaders believe they are “stuck” with the incentive systems they’ve inherited – and when it comes to monetary incentives they may be right. But, focusing more broadly on meaningful rewards and recognition and negative reinforcement from the get-go can accelerate your impact.
5. Be an engaged leader from day 1. Being an effective new leader means you have to model the engaged behaviors you want to generate in your team. As Andrew Reitmeyer explains, consistently adopting a few key behaviors can help improve morale, build better relationships, and improve the performance of your team. So, focus on modeling the most important behaviors early and often to demonstrate their importance and the impact new ways of interacting can have on the organization.

Taking on a leadership role in a new organization can be tough in the best times and even tougher when things are uncertain and volatile. But, with a focused and intentional approach, you can make a significant positive impact that sets the stage for long term success in your new role.

This article originally appeared on GovLoop.com.

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Discover gothamCulture’s approach to New Leader Assimilation.

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Imagine the impact you could have on your client’s business if you resolved these challenges. In this recorded webinar, we discuss HOW you can advise on talent and strategy to bring value to your engagements.

Learn from Tim Bowden, Partner at gothamCulture and Russ Thomas, Regional Director of Partnerships at The Predictive Index:

• Practical tips for diagnosing people problems
• How to use people data to drive solutions
• How to align your client’s talent to their strategy
• Lessons from the field

Access the webinar recording here.

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“Employ your Marines in accordance with their capabilities.”

These are two leadership principles the Marine Corps instills into its leaders at all levels, regardless of rank or seniority. These principles are taken seriously, as they can mean the difference between mission success and failure, life and death. Despite the stakes being different in the business world, these two concepts are vital to a leader’s success and, more importantly, that of their subordinates.

In our technologically infused, fast-paced world of business, the speed and amount of information available to us is unprecedented. Transactions now move faster, decisions are made quicker, and we’re able to collaborate and complete tasks more rapidly. However, leaders have largely missed one important side effect that can degrade the performance of their teams. Behavioral scientists call it the cognitive load, and it takes a toll on our teams more than we realize.

Simply put, the cognitive load is the mental “work” needed for any thought or action. Every task, conversation, email, project, meeting, etc. has a cognitive load price tag, and we all have a different capacity for what we can take on. This is why we spend hours refining our presentations to our leadership – there’s just too much information for them to consider and they want you to reduce the cognitive load required to make a decision.

As you can imagine, technology has provided a great many ways to maximize our cognitive load. As good as this may be for business, your team members may be exceeding their cognitive bandwidth without knowing it. This results in cognitive strain. Daniel Kahneman describes cognitive strain. Daniel Kahneman describes cognitive strain in Thinking, Fast and Slow as “being affected by both the current level of effort and the presence of unmet demands”. So, cognitive strain for our team members is caused by their current tasks and everything else they have to worry about during the day. This strain can lead to less creativity, lowered ability to focus on the task at hand, and ultimately degraded satisfaction and fulfillment.

Of course, I wouldn’t outline a problem without providing some helpful ideas to consider to help manage cognitive load in yourself and your people. There are ways for you to address the cognitive load issues your teams experience.

1. Know your team. Understand where your team members come from, how they think, and what’s important to them. There are so many benefits to this, and it helps give you a mind’s eye into how much bandwidth each individual team member has.
2. Look out for their welfare. Sadly, too many leaders miss this by becoming hyper-focused on finishing a project, closing the next deal, or hitting a metric while disregarding the welfare of the teams they should be serving. When you develop a sense of responsibility to look after the welfare of your team, you begin to understand how they work and how to set them up for success. You’ll know what to adjust and how to assign projects based on what you know about them. Which leads us to our final tip.
3. Leverage your team members’ capabilities. We all have our own talents, and if you spend time on topics 1 and 2, you’ll have a better idea of how to set your teams up for success. Employing them in accordance with their capabilities will not only result in higher quality outcomes, but it also makes your teams happier and contributes to a healthier culture. It also reduces the cognitive strain if your people can leverage their strengths more often.

As leaders, it’s important to understand the capabilities and limitations of our team members. Regardless of your level, it’s your responsibility to ensure the company goals are achieved, but it’s equally your responsibility to ensure the welfare of your subordinates. When you work to understand your team, mitigate excessive cognitive strain, and challenge your people to leverage their strengths, you become the servant-leader your team deserves.

Your success is made possible by your subordinates, not your superiors. Serve the ones who serve you, they deserve it much more than anyone else.

The post A Study in the Art of Servant Leadership appeared first on gothamCulture.

You’ve been assigned to lead a team that has a track record for underperforming, and it’s your mission to get things turned around.

Some may view this as being punished for a job well done. Others may take this as a true leadership challenge. An opportunity to have real impact on themselves, their team and their organization.

Whether you view it as a positive or negative, however, your job is to make it happen. So where do you start? Here are a few ideas to help design your approach to transforming this team from underperformers to superstars.

1. Don’t do anything big right away. Listen. Observe. Collect data. Don’t rush to judgment and implementation before getting a deep understanding of all of the factors that are at play. After a brief assessment, leaders will often jump into action only find that they‘ve successfully addressed symptoms of a much deeper issue. That said, there may be some obvious, low-hanging fruit that can be acted on quickly to generate some momentum and performance out of the gate.

2. Consider a new leader assimilation process. I’ve never understood why this approach is not more common. Creating space for a new leader and their team to come together to engage in dialogue at the start of the relationship can help establish trust, transparency, and set expectations going forward.

3. Understand the dynamics within the team. Getting to know each person as a unique individual can open a lot of doors for understanding the team as a whole. Understanding strengths and opportunities for each person can tell a lot about how and why a team is functioning the way it is, and help develop your strategy going forward.

4. Work to build trust through vulnerability but don’t try to push it. Trust is the foundation of all productive relationships. The challenge is that it takes time and shared experience to develop. You can’t force it. That said, you can take proactive efforts to begin the trust building process from the start. One way to do this is by showing up. Show up to team meetings, to events the team is engaged in, and be a part of the conversation—wherever it’s happening. Express interest just by being there, and show your team that you’re actively engaged.

5. Determine what type of team you really need to drive success. Are you a group of individuals whose activities aren’t interconnected? Or a true team whose success is reliant upon everyone working together? There’s a big difference between a relay team and a soccer team. Knowing what kind of team you need to be to achieve your strategic goals is table stakes in determining the best way to organize.

6. Be clear about why you’re there and what you want to accomplish. Regardless of the circumstances that brought you to lead this underperforming team, the fact of the matter is you have a job to do. People are going to look to you for direction, guidance, and feedback. Once you have your sea legs, you are going to need to steer the ship.

7. Clearly link team activities to the organizational strategy and goals. I’m surprised at how often I speak to employees in various organizations who can’t explain how their day-to-day activities contribute to the bigger picture. Help your team members clearly understand how they are adding value to the larger strategy. Illustrate the impact that not delivering has on their peers, customers, and other stakeholders. This can have a profound effect on their behavior.

8. Educate and train the team to be able to successfully deliver what you need delivered. Whenever a leader asks people to behave differently, whether that be due to a change in strategy or something else, sustained change may be hindered. Members of the team either do not have the knowledge and skills to deliver in the new environment, or they don’t believe they do. In these cases, leaders must remain alert and be willing to provide support to team members as they explore new ways of working.

9. Recognize behaviors that align with your vision. Provide detailed and timely feedback so people know what right looks like. Sustaining positive behavior through reward and recognition helps ensure that team members understand what right looks like. Recognizing performers also reinforces your expectations to others on the team.

10. Be prepared to make some tough decisions. At the end of the day, you may do all of these things and some folks still won’t deliver. In these situations, you have to be prepared to make some termination decisions for the good of the team.

11. It’s a marathon not a sprint. You’ll have to be persistent and commit to your plan. It can take some time for team members to begin to see that the new way of doing things actually works, and it’s not a threat to them.

12. Develop your own support network. A lot of times leaders spend so much time and energy focused on others that they forget to take care of themselves. Finding a support system (be that a mentor, peer, a formal executive coach or some combination) can make the transition into this leadership challenge much more fulfilling and beneficial for everyone involved.

Being a leader is not for the faint of heart. Leading a team that is underperforming can challenge even the most effective leaders. It may seem daunting now, but this is your chance to test your mettle as a highly effective leader. Take the opportunity to embrace the challenge; not only for your own career, but to help make a meaningful difference for your team, and your organization as a whole.

I’d like to thank Mr. Tomas Hanna for pitching the original idea for this article. As an OD professional (and a client), Tomas supports many leaders in many diverse situations to be their best. Thank you Tomas.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.

The post How Great Leaders Manage Underperforming Teams appeared first on gothamCulture.

Given these huge sums of money that companies sink into team building exercises every year, why do these trainings have such difficulty sustaining effective outcomes? The answer may lie in the fact that team building and team training cannot be seen as a one-size-fits-all proposition. They must be specially tailored to fit the kind of team you are a part of. Instead of simply throwing money at more training, leaders of these organizations should be asking, “how can I tell what kind of team I’m on?” and “how can I build my team accordingly?”

Those are the million dollar questions. Luckily, there are some answers.

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Peter Drucker, a management expert, describes three types of teams that differ in their structure, member behaviors, strengths, limitations, and ultimate purposes. He likened the characteristics of each type of team to either a baseball, football, or tennis doubles team. We’ll explore each type here, along with lessons you can take to hit a homerun, score a touchdown, or ace your next team building training.

The Baseball Team

The players on a baseball team have fixed positions that they almost never leave. The third baseman is the third baseman, and is paid to perform the tasks of a third baseman for the duration of a game. Once he performs his task of snagging a ground ball, he passes it off to the second baseman, who passes it off to the first baseman to succeed in completing a routine double play. While the task was completed, each individual assignment was accomplished in a silo.

You may see this type of team in your own organization, when a boss passes a project to his assistant, who completes his portion and passes it to a designer, who completes her portion and passes it to an engineer to create the final product.

On the surface, this type of team may appear unable to flex to changing situations and environments, but it is a good structure when the game is understood by all players and everyone knows what his or her role is. Another strength of this type of team is that each member can have his or her own goal, meaning that he or she can be held accountable for a specific task’s outcome.

The best way to train a baseball team is to focus on each individual and his or her strengths and weaknesses. Since each position is relatively separate, individuals can be separately developed in the precise areas they are weakest. As each individual improves, the team will also improve in kind. However, no team member exists in a vacuum. Training this type of team should also include a component on the team’s overall organizational structure, so each worker can see where he or she fits in.

The Football Team

The players on a football team have fixed positions like the baseball team, but are free to work alongside each other in a more parallel way. An offensive play that is called on third down requires the effort of each player to perform his job to ensure a successful new set of downs. If even one player does not perform up to standards, the quarterback could be sacked and the play deemed a failure.

In your own organization, you may see this play out in the lifecycle of a new project: each individual has a role to play (whether that is recorder, facilitator, or researcher), and the ultimate success of the product depends on each person working in tandem to complete their own job.

The football team is inherently more flexible than the baseball team in terms of the timeframe of task accomplishment. However, this type of team has stricter requirements, in that it always requires a specific play to be run and usually entails a specific way to perform that play. The individual goals of the football team are tied together, but they may be subjugated to the overarching organizational goal.

The best way to train a football team is to build trust between its members and place a special focus on effective communication. Since each member’s ultimate goal is intricately tied to the success of all other members, trust that other people will perform their own tasks is vital. Effective communication of the present situation and any adjustments that may need to be made to ensure future success must be shared and understood to get the win.

The Tennis Doubles Team

The players on a tennis doubles team are distinct from the baseball or football players in that each player has a primary, rather than a fixed, position. The player on the right side of the baseline may run to get a lob over the head of her teammate, leading her teammate to run to cover the vacated right side of the court.

In your own organization, such a team would not flounder if one member left on a needed vacation. Instead, another member would be able to cover the vacated duties with ease until her return.

The tennis doubles team is highly flexible and adjusts easily to the constantly changing environment in which it may find itself. Since no positions are strictly fixed, members have a wide range of strengths and abilities they can apply to the workplace. Such teams are most successful when they are small and have worked together for a considerable amount of time. However, this team structure may lack the individual goals that it needs to get work done.

The best way to train a tennis doubles team is to ensure that each member is comfortable in his or her non-primary role. This can be done through job rotations and the use of informal mentors, both of which can widen experience and confidence in performing a role that may not be comfortable. An added bonus of a workforce that can flex to different jobs is the creation of an organizational succession plan. With new employees learning from a wide range of other workers, a pool of institutional knowledge can be sustained.

What Kind Is Your Team?

Consider your own place within your team. Do you have a fixed role and structure? Does one or the other vary? Do you have individual goals, team goals, or both?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you can start to build your team up with the right training. You’ll be a World Series, Super Bowl, or U.S. Open contender in no time!

The post What Sports Can Teach Us About Building Better Teams appeared first on gothamCulture.

I have previously explored how your business has its own culture, which infiltrates every aspect from leadership decision-making down to daily processes. And, when partnered with strategy, this culture propels businesses to high performance.

Understanding, and more importantly, developing that culture allows you to build and achieve your strategic objectives. A well defined, established corporate culture will provide the framework for your organizational development and strategic planning. Allow this culture to guide your planning process.

Though there is no single, perfect, cookie cutter method to ensure that your culture and organizational strategy align, there are some critical pieces that should be considered.

How to Ensure That Your Strategy and Culture Align

1. Take a look at who we are as leaders.

An organization’s long term success relies heavily on leadership, its ability to embody/implement your company culture and to lead the company toward its strategic goals. Key leadership, those that set the tone for the strategy and culture of the organization, must understand their own strengths and weaknesses as leaders along with those of the entire leadership team. Without this insight, the implementation of organizational strategy will be stifled, starting at the top, from the beginning. Assessing your leadership is an important step in developing and realizing your strategic plan while creating an atmosphere where people want to work, succeed, and stay.

2. Gain a realistic view of your organization.

Just as we need to assess the leadership of an organization, leadership must assess the organizational maturity as well as the process maturity of a company. Evaluating where your organization stands and understanding its current state offers perspective of its strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. It provides a view of what your company can realistically handle and allows you to build your plan around that knowledge.

3. Plan where you are headed and how you will get there.

Developing your strategy will guide your company in reaching its ultimate goals and objectives. Take the time to develop organizational priorities, themes, and accountability as well as a process to manage those priorities.

4. What if?

Once you have some your strategies developed, test them out. Create a series of “What If?” scenarios to get a feel for how well your strategic plans are suited to real life situations. Are your plans realistic? Or are they lofty goals which do not truly guide your business? Risk management and scenario methodologies can help you create a more concrete, reliable plan to lead your organization toward your goals. Use this information to re-work and tweak your strategic plan, then test again.

5. Manage and sustain your progress!

It’s great to pull all these pieces of the puzzle together, but you need to plan how you will keep them all afloat. More importantly, you must then follow through. Keep tabs on how you are managing performance, communications, personnel, resources and all the moving parts that make your company tick. Assess, plan, re-assess, plan again… Once you have the taken those first steps in getting your company headed in the right direction, you won’t need to reinvent the wheel each time you do a self-check. You can compare where you are to your baseline and goals to see how you measure up.

Your strategy and culture are yours to develop. Create the company you want through a clearly defined culture and a solid strategy for getting there. If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at our services, and talk to us about how Strategy and Culture go hand in hand.

The post 5 Ways to Align Your Organizational Strategy and Culture appeared first on gothamCulture.