Friday, April 24, 2009

The First 90 Days - Final Take

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Today, we complete the analysis of the excellent book “The First 90 Days” by Michael Watkins. It is a book I particularly liked and I want to share my thoughts about the book with you. Today, we close by looking at two more aspects of leadership transitions, the topic of the book, in more details.

Transitioning into a new leadership role is an uphill credibility battle. You have to become credible if you want to gain trust from the people on your team. Without that credibility, your leadership will never be effective!

So how can you gain credibility as a new leader? According to Watkins, news leaders will be seen as more credible when they exhibit the following traits:

  • Demanding but able to be satisfied – You have to press people to make realistic commitments, but if you are never satisfied, you’ll sap people’s motivation.
  • Accessible but not too familiar – You have to be approachable, but in a way that preserves your authority.
  • Decisive but judicious – Take charge, but do not jump too quickly into decisions that the team is not ready to handle.
  • Focused but flexible – Zero in on issues, but make sure that you consult others and encourage input.
  • Active without causing commotion – Make things happen, but avoid pushing people to burnout!
  • Willing to make tough calls but humane – Show that you can make tough calls, but ensure they will be perceived as fair.

Note that I feel the above also applies to well establish leaders, not only to transitioning leaders. If you are leading a team and you are not seen as having the above qualities, chances are that your team does not see you as a credible leader that they really want to follow!

One of the best ways to build credibility is to secure a few early wins. This is the second element of Watkins’ book. Improving a few aspects of your business in short order will gain you the trust of your followers and give a sense of security to your new boss as well. What could be these early wins?

Some easy early wins can be gained by having an impact on the quality of life of your team. Try to remove minor but persistant irritants in your new organization. For instance, cut out redundant meetings, bring in tools for team collaboration, improve their equipment problems, or improve relationships with suppliers.

Second, look at your A-Items (see the previous post) and identify good, impactful, achievable first steps. Start to implement those and show that you are making progress in the right direction.

Note that your early wins need to matter both to your team AND to your boss. You need to choose your first actions to matter to both so that you can win in multiple dimensions.

This concludes my brief look at Watkins’ book “The First 90 Days”. I hope what I highlighted here has shown you the value of having a structured approach to leadership transition. Too often, organizations handle leadership transitions as sink-or-swim event, providing absolutely no support or training whatsoever. This often leads to great potential leaders leaving companies or worst, being fired because of a few mistakes made during a transition. This is terrible! Watkins really sold me on the importance of supporting leaders as they transition into new roles. This is essential.

What about you, dear leaders? Do you believe in the sink-or-swim model of leadership transition? Does your organization help you during your career transitions?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Promote Yourself!

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Today, we continue the analysis of the excellent book “The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Level” by Michael Watkins. It is a book I particularly liked and I want to share my thoughts about the book with you. Today, we will look at two aspects of leadership transitions, the topic of the book, in more details.

Promote Yourself

The first thing that the book teaches you is that when you are in a leadership transition, you must promote yourself. That does not mean that you have to show only your good side or publicize your past successes. It rather means that what made you successful in your previous role and got you your promotion will not necessarily make you successful in your new position. You have to give yourself a promotion, let go of the past, and turn your attention to what must be done to succeed in your new role.

First, you need to ensure that you really move mentally from your previous position to your new position. Note that this is tough to do. You were likely in a very comfortable position before you got this new job. You were probably successful. Now, you are in a position you do not understand fully, with different goals, potentially a different team, and brand new challenges. The boat is rocking. The secret here is to accept that the boat will be rocking for a while. It will be tough for some times, until you get accustomed to your new role. If you do not accept that fact and go back to what you feel secure doing (your previous role), you are doomed to fail!

Second, you need to learn what you need to learn. The first thing that you have to understand is your new role. What will it take to be successful in that new role? What does that mean to be at the level of management you’re at now? An excellent book to find answers to these questions is “The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company” by Charan, Drotter, and Noel. You can also talk to your new boss to understand what he expects from you.

Once you understand better what is required of you in your new job, you need to assess your strengths and weaknesses. What do you already possess to help you be successful in your new role? What are the areas where you need to learn more or improve? Those are two fundamental questions to answer really early in the transition process. Amongst those weaknesses, you may even have blind spots, unknown areas where you do not have prior experience with. Those are the ones you will need to watch out for the most, to make sure that you do not forget about these areas of the business. They are also areas where you will need to expedite your learning to ensure you improve quickly in those areas.

Define Your A-Items

Another concept that Watkins promote is the establishment of what he calls A-Items. Those items are general goals that you want to meet as you start leading the group. An example would be “increase customer satisfaction by 60% in one year”. Those goals must be related to the critical areas in your organization that demand attention as well as those that offer the greatest opportunities to improve your new business.

Defining a small number of A-Items will ensure that you stay focused and that your actions will be focused in the right direction. Without these over-arching goals, you might fall into the trap of trying to do everything at once or to forget to work on improving the business.

An important point that Watkins also promote in his book is the necessity to secure early wins during a leadership transition. Defining your A-Items allows you to secure your early wins in the direction you want to develop your business.

And you, dear leader, even if you are not in the middle of a leadership transition, do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are in your current role? Do you have a clear list of A-Items to direct your actions on a day-to-day basis?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

Friday, April 17, 2009

The STaRS Business Model

Dear Managers and Leaders!

As I told you in a previous post, I’ve been reading the excellent book “The First 90 Days” by Michael Watkins. I liked the book so much that I want to give you a flavour of what you can find in the book. This and the next few posts will be dedicated to presenting some concepts found in that book. There is nothing like reading the original of course, but I wanted to share a few ideas presented by Michael Watkins that I particularly liked.

The first concept that I really liked in the book is the STaRS business model. According to Watkins, there are 4 states in a business: Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment, and Sustaining Success. A start-up business is a new business that needs to get off the ground. Products must be created, people must be brought in and trained quickly, and projects must be launched in very short order. Note that a start-up business is not necessary a new company. Even established companies have sections in start-up mode when a new project starts, when a new product is created, or when a new team is formed.

The second business state is the turnaround state. A business is in that state when the situation is dire. A business is losing money, its best talents are jumping ship, the team is totally demoralized and not working anymore, or anything else that makes the business at risk of shutting down.

The third business state is the realignment state. In that state, the organization is still not in trouble, but there are signs that the team is drifting towards problems. The main risk in such a situation is that many people in the organization are in denial about the situation and believe that no changes are required.

The last state in the model is the sustaining success state. Leaders want their business to be in that state! The business makes money, people on the team are happy and work well together, etc. This is the easy state for the leader, the state you always want to go back to.

The interesting thing about that model is its dynamic view of businesses. A start-up business will either enter a sustaining success state or will fail and lead to the business shut-down. A realignment business will either end up back in sustaining success if it succeeds or in a turnaround when it fails. A turnaround business will either succeed and lead to a sustaining success state or fail and lead to the shutdown of the business.

The main point that Watkins brings up is that as a leader, your actions and style must be very different depending on the current state of your business. Therefore, analyzing the state of your business accurately is absolutely essential!

In my next post, I will discuss Watkins’ framework for a successful leadership transition.

So, dear leader, in what state is your business?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Flawed Question, Tough Answer

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Recently, I’ve been facing a very tough question. Every night, I’m asking myself whether the steps I made during the day brought me closer to revenue. In more general terms, one could translate my personal question to “Has what I did today brought me closer to success?”  I’ve been struggling with that question for many weeks now because I can never clearly answer it. The only answer I can give to that question is that I do not know! Frustrating, isn’t it...

I must admit that I start to see this question differently now. (Hey, do I have a choice after all that struggle?) I start to see that it is actually a flawed question! It is flawed at least in its current form. It is not complete. I will never be able to answer that question unless I define the concepts better.

First, I need to define what success is. At the moment, for me, success is defined as generating revenue for my business. But this is actually quite vague. It is not really a SMART goal, is it? I need to bring the concept of success further and define more specific goals if I ever want to feel success!

Second, I need to elaborate a plan to achieve my goals. I can then validate my plan by having other people looking at it or even by looking at it myself to see whether it is realistic, achievable, and complete.

With goals clearly defined and plans properly elaborated, you can easily see whether progress in the right direction is made on a daily basis. It becomes easy to evaluate your situation and correct course when you find that you are not going where you are supposed to.  

I know all this is going back to basics. But it is easy to forget about the basics when you are faced with new challenges, with a new situation. In that case, it is essential to go back to basics and make sure that you are covered at least from that perspective.

What about you, dear leader? Have you ever found that the question you were asking was flawed and unanswerable? Have you ever caught yourself forgetting about basic principles?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

Friday, April 10, 2009

Impacting People’s Life

Dear Managers and Leaders!

One company I know very well is on vacation this week. The whole company is off for the week! Shocking, isn’t it? This is what the CEO decided to do in order to cut costs. Forcing people to take a one-week vacation will save the company enough money to avoid lay-offs or other more drastic cost-cutting measures.  

I do not have all the elements that made that decision, but from an external point of view, I think it was a good decision for the following reasons:

  • It keeps the “family” intact. The whole team will remain and go through the crisis as a single entity.
  • It re-inforces team spirit and the CEO’s leadership. It actually tells the team: “I care about you and I value the team as a whole. Let’s face this crisis together as a team by all participating in the solution.”
  • It minimizes the impact of the crisis and avoids reducing the company’s ability to recover from the crisis and soar at the exit of the downturn.

When looking at this decision, it strikes me how leaders can impact the life of their followers! Here the CEO could have decided to lay off people to save money and put a lot of family in a tough situation. Instead, he decided to send people off for a week on a paid vacation. For the employees, it is quite a different situation!

Thinking about leadership in terms of the impact on the followers helps one to realize the responsibility of being the leader. Of course you want your team to be efficient; of course you want to meet your goals. But you should always bear in mind that your actions have effects on the people who are following you. You have to care for these people and provide them with security and love. Leadership brings responsibilities, responsibilities towards the people following your lead!

What about you, dear leaders? Have you ever felt that you had to care about your people? Have you ever had to make a decision impacting people’s life?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

Friday, April 3, 2009

A Standard Leadership Bookshelf

Dear Managers and Leaders!

As you may already know, I am creating a program to coach newly promoted managers. This program will give the new managers a precise action plan for their first 3 months. It will also provide the managers with sufficient background in leadership and management to understand their new role and what they need to do to be successful.

As part of building the curriculum for the new managers, I wanted to find a list of books on management and leadership that all managers should have somewhere on their bookshelves. After some research, I came up with the following list:

  • Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership (Linda Hill)
  • First, Break all the Rules (M. Buckingham and C. Coffman) 
  • The Servant Leader (James Autry) 
  • The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Leucioni) 
  • Good to Great (Jim Collins)
  • Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (Ram Charan)
Do you agree with the above list? Do you know of other books that should be on that list? Aside from Peter Drucker's masterwork, do you know of any good book specifically on management?

Until next time,

Remi Cote