In today's fast-moving global organizations, change is the order of the day. Executive transitions happen more frequently than ever, as companies are eager to shore up their "bench of talent and ask their leaders to take on roles in many parts of their organizational pipeline and corporate ladder. So what happens to these often blazingly bright, technically talented leaders as they move through multiple roles, often within the same company?
Here's the good news: many organizations deeply understand this issue and try to be on the forefront of Talent Management, Succession Planning and Organizational Development. Here's the bad news: despite the best of intention and resources that these companies have, many leaders still do not succeed in their new roles. And there is new data that gives credibility to what we often observe.
So how many fail? Almost one in three senior-level executives (30%) who come from other organizations are judged as under-performing after two years on the job, says a year-long, on-line survey conducted by The Alexcel Group, our global coaching alliance and The Institute of Executive Development. We tracked over 150 executives and talent professionals, across a variety of companies and industries, as they worked to transition and integrate new leaders into mission-critical roles.
And even more surprising is that while internal transfers (in other words, leaders who move from one role to another inside their company) are typically viewed as less challenging moves, our information suggests this is not the case. Our data found that one in five executives (21%) who make internal transfers do not succeed by the two-year mark on the job.
What leads to this executive failure? Just as we've long suspected, it's not the lack of technical or business skill; these were cited as causes of underperformance by just 15% of survey respondents. The big culprits are lack of interpersonal leadership skills (68%) and lack of personal skills, including the need for better self-management and focus (45%). With these results, we once again see that the "soft stuff drives the hard results.
Case in point: a Senior Vice President we'll call Waldo was moved internally into a high-visibility business development role with a talented team of direct reports responsible for executing his strategy. At the three month mark the entire team was failing. What was the problem? Certainly not Waldo's business knowledge or technical skill. His shortcomings, according to his boss, fell within his lack of ability to collaborate and influence effectively. Waldo failed to proactively communicate with his staff, did not inform them of opportunities and challenges on the horizon, and created an atmosphere of fear and mistrust that served to de-motivate his direct reports, resulting in the loss of some of his best talent. Where's Waldo now? Not in this job any more.
What can companies do to support successful senior executive transitions? Here are some suggestions, based on our survey results.
1. Revisit your hiring process: make sure that you are hiring for the right mix of leadership style, content expertise, and personal qualities that will drive success in the new role. Ensure that you have effective processes and assessments for evaluating these qualities, and assessing them against the cultural fit for the new role.
2. Set reasonable expectations: our results indicate that the time from transition to full productivity exceeds the usual "90 day plan. The new leader, as well as her/his boss, must make sure they craft an ongoing dialogue about expectations, team culture, needed results, and other issues that will affect success with direct reports, peers, and across the enterprise.
3. Support both external and internal hires. We found that organizations spend considerably more time and resources on external hires. Organizations can increase their level of success by consistently using a deliberate assimilation process which should be well-designed and executed. Given the cost of failure, this is a sound investment strategy.
4. Invest in coaching and mentoring. Our results indicate that mentoring programs are particularly effective for senior leaders new to a company. Experienced executive coaching was found to be the most effective activity to help internal executives transition into new roles. Coaching can be invaluable in helping leaders recognize and avoid their interpersonal "blind spots, navigate through challenges and build relationships with new stakeholders.
5. Find mistakes early and take decisive action. The cost of an underperforming executive is too high to ignore. When issues surface, they must be addressed quickly to help the leader stay on track.
The bottom line: organizations often expect internal transfers to be seamless and require little help. We found that, in fact, this is not the case. As 20% of internal transfers and 30% of external transfers are not successful when they change roles at the senior level, this is clearly a wake-up call to do something differently. So the question for CEOs and talent professionals -- what is your organization doing to effectively assist your leaders through these transitions? And for leaders in transition -- what are you doing to increase your self-awareness and management of interpersonal "blind spots as you build collaborative relationships with your new stakeholders?
Our results suggest that a relatively small but very focused amount of time, if done the right way, will help senior executives assimilate in their new roles and prevent the loss of significant talent, dollars and opportunity to growing companies.
Copyright 2008, Leading News
