All week I'm reviewing key ideas from The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results
Early wins
By Day 60, you need to decide on one or two early wins that you and your team can deliver by the end of your first six months. Remember that it is key to accomplish something meaningful in your first six months - something with substantial impact that your boss will be proud of. It's better to pick one thing and make it a slam dunk than to pick two things and fail to achieve either. If you are sure you can deliver, target two things to do. But never go above two.
Delivering on these early wins is a "matter of survival" for the new leader.
Use these criteria to select your early win targets:
- substantial impact external to your organization,
- something worth bragging about,
- something you and your team are 100 percent sure you can deliver,
- something that will model important new behaviors, and
- something that would not have happened if you had not come on board.
Select your one or two early win targets by Day 60, then over-invest in them to ensure success. If you think you need three people, put nine on it. If you think it will take one day per week of your time, devote two. Put more resources against these one or two projects than anyone would ever think reasonable. That way, you will be sure to deliver better and faster results than anyone would have thought possible.
Use the charter (tool 9.1) to set up the projects for success. And don't forget to conduct a rigorous Potential Problem Analysis to help ensure a good outcome.
Getting the right people in the right roles
By Day 70, you need to have the right people in the right roles. This date might flex a bit, based on what it takes to make people changes successfully, but don't delay too long. The authors believe that Day 100 is too late - your team is "your team" by then, for better or worse.
By Day 45 you will have seen the members of your team in the Imperative Workshop and in the milestone setting session. By Day 70 you will have seen two months of performance and should know where folks stand. Using tool 10.1, sort your folks into four groups. Make your sort based on two dimensions. First is their performance - results, behavior and communication versus goals.
The second dimension is their potential in their current role, considering motivations, strength and fit. In a separate presentation, George Bradt has described these three elements as:
- motivations - match of the current job to their ideal job, and opportunities for growth
- strengths - talent, knowledge and skills
- fit - values, beliefs, norms of the organization, the work group and the new leader
Data for performance can come from recent reviews. Potential can be assessed using the Gallup StrengthsFinder or other tools.
Sort your people into these four groups:
- Performance above target, and good fit with the current role. You will support and develop these folks.
- Performance below target, but still a good fit with the current role. You will work with these folks to quickly improve their performance.
- Performance above target, but poor fit with the current role. Here they are helping, but you need to look for a role that fits them better.
- Performance below target and poor role fit. You need to move these folks to a better role immediately. That new role might be within the organization, or in some other organization.
Make these moves as quickly as possible. Wait too long and you are stuck. The authors say it well:
"Have a bias to move faster on your team than you think you should. The risks of moving too fast are nothing compared to the multiplier effect of leaving people in the wrong place too long."
Tomorrow: Adjusting to change and communications
