• Research indicates that successful transitions have many common factors
• Focusing on these activities in your first 90 days will assist you to make a high-impact transition

• A Learning Plan is important to ensure you:
• gain access to as much information as possible in your first month
• get up to speed with major issues and the organisation
• understand organisational dynamics early
• Determine what you need to know about the organisation and its people and ask HR, your manager & direct reports to help identify key stakeholders to meet
• Build a series of questions for each of your stakeholder groups - focusing on past, present and future. Seek to understand the history of your business, as well as its current challenges, before determining your final business strategy.
• Do not expect to arrive with “the answer”, appropriate time needs to be spent understanding the organisation before significant decisions can be made
• Executive coach partnership

Understanding organisational dynamics will help you be more effective in your new role.

• What is the culture of the organisation, how does this differ from your old culture? Will you need to make changes to your style in order to be successful here?
• What are the sources of power in the organisation? (expertise, access to info, status, control of resources etc)
• Who will be supporters, opponents and stakeholders you need to convince in order to pursue your leadership agenda?
• How are decisions made?
• Why was your predecessor successful/not successful?
• What is your boss’ mandate - what does he/she view as the main threats/ opportunities for your business?

• Your early actions have a disproportionate effect on how you are perceived in the organisation
• Consider how you want to be perceived as a leader and craft your messages accordingly
• Early messages should focus on your values, style and what you want to achieve - research suggests you have approximately six - nine months to build a full leadership agenda, but stakeholders will look for early signals of your ability.
• You need to show confidence in the business’ prospects and have clear ideas about where progress is possible and what it would look like
• Consider if there is any lingering influence from your predecessor? How will the organisation react to differences in your style?

Research suggests that new leaders are viewed as credible when they:

• Focus on achievement
• Set realistic objectives and hold firm to them
• Are accessible but not too familiar
• Act decisively, but have taken time to understand the organisation

• A key factor in a new hire’s success is the ability to create meaningful relationships that can be sustained throughout their tenure. This is particularly important in most organisations relationship-driven culture
• Map your required network - Use your ‘buddy’, direct reports, manager or P&P to introduce you to key contacts both internal & external. Use stakeholder map in tools
• Go beyond ‘one-off’ meetings to establish and maintain a useful business network that can be relied upon to facilitate your leadership agenda
• Build a strong relationship with your manager immediately, to ensure support for your ideas and approaches
• Build your advice and counsel network - find a confidant - either internal or external - someone you can trust as a confidential sounding board when developing your leadership agenda

• Focus on personal development needs within the first six months has been identified as a significant contributor to successful executive transitions
• Two key challenges for executives transitioning to a new role:

Cultural assimilation

what behaviours / processes need to change in order to work well in the new company culture

Taking on a more senior role

understanding that current and future leadership performance differs by layer - working approaches, behaviours and skills that have created success in the past, may need to change as part of a more senior role. Avoid falling back to comfort zones

• Assess differences in previous culture vs. New organisational culture
• Consider differences in previous vs. new role
• Are there critical aspects of your new role that you would prefer not to focus on/ are not your key strengths?
• What needs to be done differently in order to succeed? What are the critical skills you need to develop?
• Work with Executive Coach to develop appropriate areas over the next 6 months - development activities may include trying different working approaches, new leadership ‘experiences’ or just consolidating your skills in a new culture
• Constant early feedback critical
• Have clear understanding of the expectations of you in the role.

• One of the most significant derailers of new hires is the misalignment of expectations between the new executive and the company
• Research tracked the attitudes of executive new hires over their first year, uncovering a common series of peaks and troughs
• High optimism during first few months
• Moves to frustration at perceived lack of progress at approximately 6 months
• At 8 - 12 months, executive builds traction and either continues with progress or decides to move on
• Meet with key stakeholders and ensure alignment of expectations
• What is expected of you? Is your mandate clear?
• What do you expect from them?
• Has your mandate also been made clear to your peers?

• Complete an analysis of business priorities to determine your short and long-term aspirations
• A simple SWOT analysis could be a starting point
• How will you deliver long-term business growth?
• What are the business’ future growth engines?
• Where are the opportunities for significant performance improvement?
• Are there activities/ businesses that need to be stopped due to a change in the market/ lack of profit?
• Are your business processes effective?
• Are there external issues impacting your business (legal, regulatory, financial, government, customer, competitor)? How are you dealing with these?
• Are your internal relationships working as they should?
• Be careful not change for the sake of change - some things may have been working well before

• Corporate Executive Board studies (2005) suggest that leaders who focus on team building, developing people and relationship building are the most successful at transitioning to a new role.
• Focus on achievement through your people
• What are the capabilities of your inherited team?
• Do their skills and abilities represent your workforce of the future? Are their skills complementary?
• Where are the skill gaps in the existing team?
• What development activities need to take place?
• Do we need to hire specific skills?

• Are team dynamics effective? Does the team have a clear, effective working approach?
• Decisions regarding your team should be made within the first 90 days - however consider the most appropriate timing for making any changes
• Always engage your HR partner when considering any changes to your team
• Plan any team building activities once your final team is in place
• Review existing team processes - e.g.: team meetings - who attends, how are decisions made - is this as effective as could be?
• Introduce a common language with direct reports

• Corporate Executive Board studies suggest that achieving an ‘early win’ and revising the business plan are pivotal to the eventual success of a transitioning leader.
• Identify opportunities for quick, tangible performance improvements aligned with your long-term strategy
• Ensure these ‘quick wins’ reflect your values as a leader
• Focus on only a few areas - and drive performance to achieve results
• Early wins build momentum for your overall leadership agenda
• Ensure desire to make immediate impact does not lead to negative behaviours such as micromanagement, hasty conclusions or dismissal of others’ ideas

• Establish key themes that will represent your personal and business agenda
• Align your short-term goals with your longer-term agenda to ensure consistency of message and allow business to gain momentum
• What will be the business’ major achievements in 6 months, 12 months, 3 years, 5 years
• What plans need to be put in place to achieve these milestones?
• Clarify how you would like to operate as a leader:
• What are the key elements of your role? - setting direction, leading, motivating, removing roadblocks, external spokesperson?? Ensure focus is strategic vs. operational
• What will you allocate time to?
• Which meetings do you need to attend?
• Which decisions need to be made by you - and what can be delegated?