Getting a great start - adjusting to change and communications

All week I've been reviewing key ideas from The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results (George Bradt, Jayme Check and Jorge Pedraza, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, 230 pages).  Yesterday I covered how to select a couple of early wins and how to get the right people in the right places.  Today I'll cover adjusting to change, communications, and suggest a couple of other useful books.

Adjusting to Change

No matter how well you plan your first 100 days, things might change.  One of seven mistakes new leaders make, according to the authors, is "not seeing or reacting to situational changes."  Don't make that mistake!

Keep your eyes open for change that will impact you and your organization.  Use regular tracking meetings as one way of noticing changes, but don't ignore other means of sensing trouble.  Especially be sure to get out of your office and onto the factory floor and in customer offices.  When you sense a change, sort out what kind of change it is and respond accordingly.

• If the change is relatively minor and short term, stay focused on your central plan.
• If the change is relatively minor, but will endure, sort out how to modify your existing plan. 
• If the change is major and will have only temporary impact, treat it as a crisis - don't modify your central plan, but immediately implement solid crisis management.  There are many books on the subject of crisis management.  The authors provide tool 12.1 for preparing for and managing a crisis, and tool 12.2 for communicating during a crisis.  The key with crisis management is to anticipate the various types of crisis that might occur, and have a plan ready to go should a crisis occur.
• If the change is major and will have a long-term impact, it's time to revise your plan and redeploy. The authors advise treating this as the start of a new "First 100 Days" and going all the way back to step one (see my December 18 post).  Identify key stakeholders, sort out any office changes needed, conduct prestart meetings, gather prestart information and plan your first 100 days.

Communications

The authors stress the need for carefully planned and executed communications throughout your first 100 days. 

I've already discussed the importance of the Day One agenda.  The second big communications opportunity will be after the Imperative Workshop.  You and your team will need to sort out how to roll out the new imperative.  Think about what the key messages are, how to get them out, what signs and symbols to employ, what media to use, and how to keep the conversation going after the initial roll out.

A third opportunity for focused communication will come after you have decided on the one or two early wins, and chartered the team to deliver on those wins.

The authors present a nice table on page 155 to help sort out media choices.  Tool 11.1 helps plan a communications campaign at a high level, while tool 11.3 is a much more detailed tool for developing communications in support of cultural change.

Debbie Weil suggests using an internal blog as a way to generate broad conversation during your first 100 days.

Other resources to help you get started as a new leader

The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results is the most useful book I've seen on getting started, which is why I have focused on it all this week.  I find the model easy to follow, and the download-able tools quite handy.

And check out George Bradt's webinar, available on-demand from Execunet. George is a dynamic speaker and does a great job of leading you through the process in an idea-packed 1 1/2 hours.

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels (Michael Watkins, Harvard Business School Press, 2003, 253 pages) was the first book I read on the subject, and helped me through a couple of promotions.  I found it somewhat higher-level and perhaps not as street-smart as The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan. 

You're in Charge--Now What?: The 8 Point Plan (Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin, Crown Business, 2005, 299 pages) is full of good ideas, but not as action oriented as I like.  It's tougher (for me at least) to build a great startup plan from this book than from The New Leaders 100-Day Action Plan.

Check out this FastCompany article, listing "18 ways to take charge - Fast" for more ideas.