In yesterday’s Advisor, we took aim at breaking out of the management onboarding rut with a few proven methods of ensuring new-manager success. Today we tackle three more strategies from Michael Watkins, founder of the Newton, MA-based leadership strategy consultancy Genesis Advisers LLC.
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Keep their balance. During the hubbub inherent in any workplace transition, it’s easy to lose perspective, become isolated, or even make a few bad calls. Your job is to not only encourage frequent check-ins and follow-ups, but to also help steer the new hire to the right advice-and-counsel network, Watkins says, which can be an indispensable resource in the critical early months.
Build a team. If your new hire is inheriting a team, he or she will need to evaluate, align, and mobilize its members. You can help support a willingness to make tough early personnel calls and the capacity to select the right people for the right positions. Fostering strength in strategic decision making can be among the most important drivers of success during the transition period and beyond.
Create coalitions. New leaders’ success also depends on the ability to influence people outside their direct line of control, Watkins points out. “Supportive alliances, both internal and external, are necessary if you are to achieve your goals,” he says. So don’t leave new management in the dark. Start right away to help identify those whose support is essential for success—and then figure out how to line them up on your side, he says.
Takeaway message: “The root causes of transition failure always lie in a pernicious interaction between the new role, with its opportunities and pitfalls, and the individual, with his strengths and vulnerabilities,” Watkins concludes.
So, the true aim of any worthwhile onboarding effort is this: To expose new executives to the good, the bad, and the ugly front and center, rather than to leave key challenges and important connections unspoken until later.