You're in Charge, Now What?: The 8 Point Plan - Hardcover

Neff, Thomas J.; Citrin, James M.; Fredman, Catherine

 
9781400048656: You're in Charge, Now What?: The 8 Point Plan
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1400048656 ISBN 13: 9781400048656
Verlag: Crown Pub, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Two career and business experts share their eight-point plan on how to succeed in a new job or project, offering helpful guidelines on leadership, decision-making skills, interpersonal relationships, and other key aspects of the corporate environment. 50,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Thomas J. Neff is chairman of Spencer Stuart U.S. and has led its CEO and Board of Directors Practice. He is the coauthor of Lessons from the Top.

James M. Citrin leads Spencer Stuart’s Global Technology, Communications, and Media Practice. He is the author of Zoom and the coauthor of The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers and Lessons from the Top.

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CHAPTER ONE: THE COUNTDOWN

PREPARING FOR THE RACE BEFORE YOU REACH THE STARTING LINE

When does a race begin? At the starting line, when you are taking your last deep breath in anticipation of the starter’s gun? Earlier that day, when you follow the rituals that focus your mind on the race ahead? Or weeks or months in advance, when you construct the training program that will enable you to meet and manage the upcoming trial?

WALK IN WITH A “STRATEGIC PROCESS”

Everyone’s countdown period to a new leadership position is different, depending on whether they come into a new position from inside their organization or were recruited from the outside, whether they are entering a company in crisis or in a stable environment, and whether they are jumping right into a new job from an already demanding one or have the luxury of some free time for additional preparation.

But all countdown periods share a common goal: to learn as much as possible about the new world you’re about to enter so that you can figure out how to best explore and navigate your way through it. To accomplish that, says Dave Peterschmidt, CEO of the Internet security firm Securify and former CEO and COO respectively of Internet pioneers Inktomi and Sybase, “You shouldn’t expect to walk into a new leadership job with an established strategic plan. Rather, you should walk in prepared to lead a strategic process.”

This is a process of multiple dimensions. You’re clearing and focusing your thoughts so that you can diagnose the challenges and opportunities of the new situation. You’re identifying key constituencies and starting to forge alliances and build new relationships. You’re attempting to flush out biases while distilling valuable information from people who have key insights into the company. You’re thinking about all that needs to be done in the context of your own skills and experience. You’re considering the strength of the managers who will soon make up your team, and you’re hypothesizing about where the holes are likely to be. Simultaneously, you’re preparing yourself emotionally for a major life transition and taking steps to get your family and support infrastructure ready to run without you for a period of time.

THE VALUE OF PREPARATION

By now, just about everyone knows that Lance Armstrong is the record-breaking six-consecutive-times winner of the Tour de France, one of the most grueling endurance contests in the world. His success is based not only on his extraordinary athletic ability, supernatural lung capacity, and ferocious competitive drive fired by his heroic conquering of cancer, but also on the intensive time and energy he invests in preparing for the race. In his memoir, It’s Not About the Bike, Armstrong discusses the importance of building the right team, learning the course, and ensuring that he and his support staff have the right training, the proper conditioning, and the best equipment to go for the win. He literally memorizes the entire 2,106-mile course, diligently researching every conceivable permutation of wind, weather, and temperature affecting each curve and straightaway.

No serious athlete walks into a competition without prior preparation. It should be no different when you are approaching a challenging new business assignment. You too are entering a race. If you are not sharp and at the top of your game before the starting gun fires, you will squander a golden opportunity and diminish your chances of achieving your goals.

“The countdown establishes the foundation to maximize your chances for success,” says Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA. “The days leading up to the point when you actually take the job are some of the most important to being successful. Day one on the job better not be ‘day one’ where you’re working on your action plan; it should be well under way by the time you get there.”

SPEND TIME IN THE RIGHT WAYS

Establishing and maintaining the right priorities is one of the greatest challenges a new leader faces. One of your goals during the countdown period is to try to shape events before they shape you.

Let’s assume you work an average of six days a week and fourteen hours a day. That means that a finite 1,204 hours are at your disposal during the first hundred days. How should you allocate your time and energy to achieve the greatest return on this scarce resource? Which areas should you focus on, and which can you afford to put on the back burner? Effective planning will help you invest your available time wisely.

During our research, we asked leaders which actions they rated as the most important for getting off to the right start. Topping the list were five items:

1.Absorb information.
2.Define the company’s challenges.
3.Establish credibility and win employees’ trust.
4.Assess the senior management team.
5.Prepare yourself emotionally.

While all five of these items are critical—and are addressed in the chapters that follow—the last one is frequently neglected. New leaders are often so anxious to jump into their new role that they jump right in, or they put their personal life on autopilot. Yet a solid emotional foundation is in large measure a precondition for achieving the other objectives, as they can’t be achieved without preparing oneself for the difficult and intense period ahead. Psychologists maintain that you cannot truly open a new chapter in life until you close the previous one. People need a sense of closure before they can possibly be ready to listen, learn, and lead. Simply recognizing this fact and following the intuitive knowledge that you need some type of break or “interstitial” time before moving into a new role will help get you ready.

Based on these five priorities for the countdown period, we have extrapolated ten guidelines to optimize your countdown period. (See Conclusion at the end of this chapter.) They range from sifting through the avalanche of information to hone in on the most critical issues, to developing strategies for building people’s trust, to ensuring that you are in the best possible physical, mental, and emotional shape to meet the challenges ahead.

GET SET TO LEARN

Preparing yourself for a new job requires understanding how the company operates, where it has been, where it is headed, how the management team works, and where your own abilities fit into the mix—all of which require an incredibly steep learning curve. As GE’s Jeff Immelt points out, “You never get a job because of what you know. It’s about how fast you learn and how much you can adapt.”

Bob Nardelli, a former colleague of Immelt’s at GE and now CEO of The Home Depot, adds, “You really have to immerse yourself” to get up to speed. The countdown period offers you the chance to take whatever due diligence process you’ve already started and dig a little deeper.

Jim Kilts, the first outside CEO at Gillette in seventy years, had six weeks between acceptance and his start date in February 2001. The once high-flying maker of Mach3 razors, Duracell batteries, and Oral-B toothbrushes had missed its earnings for fourteen consecutive quarters. Sales and earnings had been flat for five years. Two-thirds of Gillette’s products were losing market share, and Gillette’s value dropped 30 percent between 1997 and 2000. Investor enthusiasm for the formerly hot stock had dwindled.

During his countdown period, Kilts launched an exhaustive investigation with a handpicked team composed of the former heads of strategy and...

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Verlag
Crown Pub
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1400048656
ISBN 13 
9781400048656
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
299
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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