Evaluating success and failure in realignment and sustaining-success situations is much more problematic. Performance in a realignment may be better than expected, but still poor. Or it may be that nothing much seems to happen, because a crisis was avoided. Sustaining-success situations pose similar problems. Success may consist of a small loss of market share in the face of a concerted attack by competitors or the eking out of a few percentage points of top-line growth in a mature business. The unknown in both realignments and sustaining-success situations is what would have happened if other actions had been taken or other people had been in charge—the “as compared to what?” problem. Measuring success in such situations takes much more work, because to assess the adequacy of their responses, you must have a deep understanding of the challenges new leaders face and the actions they are taking.
Closing the Loop
Your understanding of the mix of STARS situations inevitably will deepen and shift as you learn more about your new organization. Plan to return to this chapter periodically to reassess your diagnosis of your organization, and think about the implications for what needs to be done and who needs to do it.
MATCH STRATEGY TO SITUATION—CHECKLIST
What portfolio of STARS situations have you inherited? Which portions of your responsibilities are in start-up, turnaround, accelerated-growth, realignment, and sustaining-success modes?
What are the implications for the challenges and opportunities you are likely to confront, and for the way you should approach accelerating your transition?
What are the implications for your learning agenda? Do you need to understand only the technical side of the business, or is it critical that you understand culture and politics as well?
What is the prevailing climate in your organization? What psychological transformations do you need to make, and how will you bring them about?
How can you best lead change given the situations you face?
Which of your skills and strengths are likely to be most valuable in your new situation, and which have the potential to get you into trouble?
What are the implications for the team you need to build?
CHAPTER 4
Negotiate Success
When Michael Chen was promoted to be chief information officer for a key business unit of a midsized oil company, he was elated—until he received calls from two colleagues. Both told him the same thing: “Start updating your résumé. Cates is going to eat you alive.”
His new boss, Vaughan Cates, was a hard-driving business unit leader with a reputation for getting results—and for being tough on people. She had recently taken over the unit, and several of the people she had inherited had already left.
Michael’s friends anticipated the problem. “You’ve had a lot of success,” one said. “But Cates will think you’re not aggressive enough. You’re a planner and team builder. She’ll think you’re too slow and not up to the tough decisions.”
Forewarned, Michael laid the groundwork with Vaughan to gain time for diagnosis and planning. “I want to operate on a 90-day time frame, starting with 30 days to get on top of things,” he told her. “Then I will bring you a detailed assessment and plan with goals and actions for the next 60 days.” Michael updated her regularly on his progress. Pressed by her to make a call on a major systems purchase after three weeks, Michael held firm to his schedule. At the end of 30 days, he delivered a strong plan that pleased his new boss.
A month later, Michael returned to report some early wins and to ask Vaughan for more head count to advance a key project. She subjected him to withering questioning, but he was on top of his business case. Eventually she agreed to his requests but set strict deadlines for achieving results. Armed with what he needed, Michael was soon able to report that he had met several interim targets.
Building on his momentum, Michael raised the question of style at their next meeting: “We have different styles, but I can deliver for you,” he said. “I want you to judge me on my results, not on how I get them.” It took nearly a year, but Michael built a solid, productive working relationship with Vaughan.
To succeed as Michael did with a new boss, it’s wise to negotiate success. It’s well worth investing time in this critical relationship up front, because your new boss sets your benchmarks, interprets your actions for other key players, and controls access to resources you need. He will have more impact than any other individual on how quickly you reach the break-even point, and on your eventual success or failure.
Negotiating success means proactively engaging with your new boss to shape the game so that you have a fighting chance of achieving desired goals. Many new leaders just play the game, reactively taking their situation as given—and failing as a result. The alternative is to shape the game by negotiating with your boss to establish realistic expectations, reach consensus, and secure sufficient resources. By negotiating effectively with Vaughan, Michael laid the foundation for his success.
Keep in mind that the nature of your relationship with your new boss should depend on your level in the organization and the business situation you face. The higher you rise, the more autonomy you’re likely to have. This is especially the case if you and your boss are situated in different locations. Lack of oversight can be a blessing if you get what you need to succeed. Or it can be a curse if you get enough rope to hang yourself.
What you need from a boss also varies among the STARS business situations. In start-ups, you need resources and perhaps protection from higher-level interference. In turnarounds, you may need to be pushed to cut back the business quickly to the defensible core. When you’re accelerating growth, the key may be securing appropriate levels of investment. If you’re in a realignment, you may need your boss to help you make the case for change. In a sustaining-success situation, you may need help to learn about the business and avoid early mistakes that threaten the core assets.
There is much you can do to build a productive working relationship with your new boss, and you should start doing it as soon as you’re being considered for a new role. Keep it in mind as you participate in interviews, get selected, and formally begin the new job.
This chapter shows you how to engage in the right kinds of dialogue with your new boss. Read it even if you will be reporting to the same boss in your new role. Your relationship likely won’t stay the same. The boss’s expectations may be different, and you may need more resources. Many managers mistakenly assume that they can continue to work with a current boss in the same way despite being in a different role. Don’t make this error.
Think also about how you might use the ideas in this chapter to accelerate relationship building with your own new direct reports. After all, don’t you have a big stake in getting them to the break-even point as quickly as possible?
Focusing on the Fundamentals
How do you build a productive relationship with a new boss? There are some basic do’s and don’ts. Let’s start with the don’ts.
Don’t stay away. If you have a boss who doesn’t reach out to you, or with whom you have uncomfortable interactions, you will have to reach out yourself. Otherwise, you risk potentially crippling communication gaps. It may feel good to be given a lot of rope, but resist the urge to take it. Get on your boss’s calendar regularly. Be sure your boss is aware of the issues you face and that you are aware of her expectations, especially whether and how they’re shifting.
Don’t surprise your boss. It’s no fun bringing your boss bad news. However, most bosses consider it a far greater sin not to report emerging problems early enough. Worst of all is for your boss to learn about a problem from someone else. It’s usually best to give your new boss at least a heads-up as soon as you become aware of a developing problem.
Don’t approach your boss only with problems. That said, you don’t want to be perceived as bringing nothing but problems for your boss to solve. You also need to have plans for how you will proceed. This emphatically does not mean that you must fashion full-bl
own solutions: the outlay of time and effort to generate solutions can easily lure you down the rocky road to surprising your boss. The key here is to give some thought to how to address the problem—even if it is only gathering more information—and to your role and the help you will need. (This is a good thing to keep in mind in dealing with direct reports, too. It can be dangerous to say, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” Far better is, “Don’t just bring me problems, bring me plans for how we can begin to address them.”)
Don’t run down your checklist. There is a tendency, even for senior leaders, to use meetings with a boss as an opportunity to run through your checklist of what you’ve been doing. Sometimes this is appropriate, but it is rarely what your boss needs or wants to hear. You should assume she wants to focus on the most important things you’re trying to do and how she can help. Don’t go in without at most three things you really need to share or on which you need action.
Don’t expect your boss to change. You and your new boss may have very different working styles. You may communicate in different ways, motivate in different ways, and prefer different levels of detail in overseeing your direct reports. But it’s your responsibility to adapt to your boss’s style; you need to adapt your approach to work with your boss’s preferences.
There are some fundamental do’s as well. Following them will make your life easier.
Clarify expectations early and often. Begin managing expectations from the moment you consider taking a new role. Focus on expectations during the interview process. You are in trouble if your boss expects you to fix things fast when you know the business has serious structural problems. It’s wise to get bad news on the table early and to lower unrealistic expectations. Then check in regularly to make sure your boss’s expectations have not shifted. Revisiting expectations is especially important if you’re onboarding from the outside and don’t have a deep understanding of the culture and politics.
Take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work. This is the flip side of “Don’t stay away.” Don’t expect your boss to reach out or to offer you the time and support you need. It’s best to begin by assuming that it’s on your shoulders to make the relationship work. If your boss meets you partway, it will be a welcome surprise.
Negotiate time lines for diagnosis and action planning. Don’t let yourself get caught up immediately in firefighting or be pressured to make calls before you’re ready. Buy yourself some time, even if it’s only a few weeks, to diagnose the new organization and come up with an action plan. It worked for Michael in his dealings with Vaughan, and it can work for you. The 90-day plan discussed at the end of this chapter is an excellent vehicle.
Aim for early wins in areas important to the boss. Whatever your own priorities, figure out what your boss cares about most. What are his priorities and goals, and how do your actions fit into this picture? Once you know, aim for early results in those areas. One good way is to focus on three things that are important to your boss and discuss what you’re doing about them every time you interact. In that way, your boss will feel ownership of your success.
Pursue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects. Your new boss’s opinion of you will be based in part on direct interactions and in part on what she hears about you from trusted others. Your boss will have preexisting relationships with people who are now your peers and possibly your subordinates. You needn’t curry favor with the people your boss trusts. Simply be alert to the multiple channels through which information and opinion about you will reach your boss.
With these basic rules in mind, you can begin to plan how to engage with your new boss.
Planning for Five Conversations
Your relationship with your new boss will be built through an ongoing dialogue. Your discussions will begin before you accept the new position and continue into your transition and beyond. Several fundamental subjects belong at the center of this dialogue. In fact, it’s valuable to include plans for five specific conversations with your new boss about transition-related subjects in your 90-day plan. These are not subjects to be dealt with in separate meetings but are intertwined threads of dialogue.
The situational diagnosis conversation. In this conversation, you seek to understand how your new boss sees the STARS portfolio you have inherited. Are there elements of start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success? How did the organization reach this point? What factors—both soft and hard—make this situation a challenge? What resources within the organization can you draw on? Your view may differ from your boss’s, but it is essential to grasp how she sees the situation.
The expectations conversation. Your goal in this conversation is to understand and negotiate expectations. What does your new boss need you to do in the short term and in the medium term? What will constitute success? Critically, how will your performance be measured? When? You might conclude that your boss’s expectations are unrealistic and that you need to work to reset them. Also, as part of your broader campaign to secure early wins, discussed in the next chapter, keep in mind that it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver.
The resource conversation. This conversation is essentially a negotiation for critical resources. What do you need to be successful? What do you need your boss to do? The resources need not be limited to funding or personnel. In a realignment, for example, you may need help from your boss to persuade the organization to confront the need for change. Key here is to focus your boss on the benefits and costs of what you can accomplish with different amounts of resources.
The style conversation. This conversation is about how you and your new boss can best interact on an ongoing basis. What forms of communication does he prefer, and for what? Face-to-face? Voice, electronic? How often? What kinds of decisions does he want to be consulted on, and when can you make the call on your own? How do your styles differ, and what are the implications for the ways you should interact?
The personal development conversation. Once you’re a few months into your new role, you can begin to discuss how you’re doing and what your developmental priorities should be. Where are you doing well? In what areas do you need to improve or do things differently? Are there projects or special assignments you could undertake (without sacrificing focus)?
In practice, your dialogue about these subjects will overlap and evolve over time. You might address several of the five issues in a single meeting, or you might work out issues related to one subject through a series of brief exchanges. Michael covered style and expectations in a single meeting and established a schedule for talking about the situation and more deeply about expectations.
However, there is logic to the sequence just described. Your early conversations should focus on situational diagnosis, expectations, and style. As you learn more, you will be ready to negotiate for resources, revisiting your diagnosis of the situation and resetting expectations as necessary. When you feel the relationship is reasonably well established, you can introduce the personal development conversation. Take time to plan for each conversation, and signal clearly to your boss what you hope to accomplish in each exchange.
Use table 4-1 to take stock of where you currently stand in having each of these conversations and what your priorities are for the next 30 days. If you’re in the process of interviewing for a new role, use it to capture what you’ve learned and identify focal points for conversation.
TABLE 4-1
The five conversations
Now use the detailed guidelines that follow to plan the next steps for each of the five conversations with your new boss.
Planning the Situation Conversation
Reaching a shared understanding of the business situation you face, and of its associated challenges and opportunities, is your goal in the situational diagnosis conversation. This shared understanding is the foundation for everything you will do. If you and your boss do not define your new situation in the same way, you will not receive the support
you need. Thus, your first discussion should center on clearly defining your new situation using the STARS model as a shared language. (The same is true, as I discuss later, with your team.)
Match Your Support to Your Situation
The support you need from your boss will depend on your STARS portfolio—start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, sustaining success, or some mix. Once you reach a common understanding of the situation, think carefully about the role you need your new boss to play and the kinds of support you will ask for. In all five situations, you need your boss to give you the direction, support, and space to do your job. Table 4-2 lists typical roles your boss might play in each of the STARS situations.
TABLE 4-2
Matching support to your situation
Planning the Expectations Conversation
The point of the expectations conversation is for you and your boss to clarify and align your expectations about the future. You need to agree on short- and medium-term goals and on timing. Critically, you need to agree on how your boss will measure progress. What will constitute success, for your boss and for you? When does your boss expect to see results? How will you measure success? Over what time frame? If you succeed, what is next? If you don’t manage expectations, they will manage you.
Match Expectations to the Situation
Closely align your expectations with your shared assessment of the situation. In a turnaround situation, for example, you and your boss would probably agree on the need to take decisive action quickly. You would both have explicit expectations for the immediate future, such as making difficult decisions to reduce costs in nonessential areas or concentrating on the products with the highest margins. In this scenario, you would probably measure success by improvements in the business’s overall financial performance.
The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded_Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter Page 8
