Posted tagged ‘Transition Team’

« Strategy Insight home page
Newer Entries »

The Leadership Pipeline Model in Action – Part 2

December 9, 2008

Let’s continue on our path to growing our leader. When our leader moves to this next level, he or she has become removed from communicating with the individual contributor.

From Managing Others to Functional Manager
Skill Requirements
  • New communication skills must be developed to reach all levels.
  • Understand and manage areas outside of one’s own work experiences.
  • Illustrate the maturity to take other functional concerns into consideration.
  • Become proficient at functional strategy and the ability to blend that strategy with the overall business strategy.
Time Applications Participate in business team meetings and work with other functional managers. Team play with other functional managers and management of competing resources is vital. Limit the focus on functional matters. Delegate functional responsibilities to direct reports.
Work Values Shift here is from talking to listening to not only direct reports but customers, vendors and industry analysts so that more facts and perspectives may be gathered. Adopt a broad, long-term perspective (three years). Focus is on pushing the technical, professional and operational envelope, looking for sustainable competitive advantage rather than immediate but temporary edge. Understand the relationship between the function and other functions as well as the overall corporate strategy. Appreciate the work that is outside one’s own experiences.
Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered
  • Favoring and concentrating on areas where the individual is most comfortable, thereby undervaluing the unknown.
  • Failure to make the transition from an operational-project orientation to a strategic one (e.g. more focused on short term, demonstrates a poor sense of how the business operates.)
  • Immaturity as a leader-manager (e.g. lack of a control or measurement system, need to control everything, doesn’t trust others especially subordinates in unfamiliar areas, isolates himself except for a few direct reports where he or she has relationships).
Management’s Role in this Transition Place these managers on task forces, teams and committees of managers from different functions or with different backgrounds, skills and experiences. This will allow them to learn about new areas of work, develop new relationships with people who use different skills and methods.

Create meeting opportunities with other functional managers to discuss how they can work better together and what other opportunities exist for synergies.

Watch for development of and reinforce traits of maturity such as humility (aware that others may know more about something), delegation, communication and strong information flows within their organization.

By now you have probably noted that the common theme is that the skills in each of these passages are not the ones that you will use to become effective at the next level.

Let’s see if this trend continues.

From Functional Manager to Business Manager
Skill Requirements
  • Significant increase in autonomy, unfamiliarity and complexity at this level with a clear link between efforts and marketplace results.
  • Where he or she had to understand different functions before, he or she must now rely and integrate the functions and their leadership.
  • Balance future goals and present needs and make appropriate trade-offs.
  • The issue is no longer can we do something technically but rather will we make any money at this and is this profitability sustainable.
  • Become skilled at working with a wide variety of people and become sensitive to diverse functional issues.
Time Applications Shift from doing time to thinking time.
Work Values Learn to trust, accept advice and receive feedback from all functional managers even though they may never have experienced these functions personally.
Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered
  • Uninspired communications that doesn’t allow them to get their message across. This is because they are used to motivating a group of functional people who shared a particular “language” and now must address groups with different “languages”.
  • Inability to assemble a strong team of direct reports
  • Failure to grasp how the business can make money. This manifests itself in the failure to develop expense reduction or profit building programs. .
  • Problems with time management particularly in working upward, with direct reports and customers.
  • Neglecting the soft issues such as culture, feedback or organizational belief systems.
Management’s Role in this Transition Help business managers to learn to value all functions and assemble and rely on a strong team of direct reports. Encourage the business manager to spend time with each of his functional mangers to learn. Have them set goals which can serve as early warning systems of problems. Suggest that the business manager take an appropriate functional manager on trips to become more attuned to the marketplace.

Our next post will address two critical questions:

  1. Who is most responsible for the success of your leadership?
  2. What influences the likelihood that your people will execute successfully?
Advertisement

Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

The Leadership Pipeline Model in Action

December 4, 2008

The “Leadership Pipeline” model can be scaled for small and large companies and includes six major leadership passages.  For example, in a small company of less than twenty people, the only real passage is a variation on the first one, Managing Self to Managing Others. The owner usually moves from individual contributor to managing others. It is only once you begin to hire others that these passages of leadership start to occur.

In the small business version of this model, the work within the group and enterprise levels is done by the Business Manager. The Functional Manager and Manager of Others levels are combined so there are really only four levels to address.

The small business model looks like this.

Level 1: Manage Self

Level 2: Manage Others

Level 3: Functional Manager

Level 4: Business Manager

Let’s take apart a couple of the levels and see how we can help our people become better leaders.

When one is effective at the “managing self” level, one’s skill requirements are primarily technical or professional. One contributes by doing the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives. From a time application standpoint, the learning involves planning (so the work is completed on time), punctuality, content, quality, and reliability. The work values to be developed include acceptance of the company culture and adopting professional standards. When people demonstrate an ability to handle these responsibilities and adhere to the company’s values, they are often promoted to first-line manager.

Managing Self
Skill Requirements Do the assigned work within given time frames and in ways that meet objectives
Time applications Plan so work is completed on time, be punctual, deliver quality content and be reliable
Work Values Accept the company’s culture and adopt professional standards

This high performer is now ready for the first leadership stage. Let’s see what s/he needs to do to become effective in her/his new role.

From Managing Self to Managing Others
Skill Requirements Plan work, fill jobs, assign work, motivate, coach and measure the work of others. There are some individual contributions to the work product.
Time Applications Reallocate time so that one’s own work is completed and help others perform effectively. Set priorities for unit and team. Stop putting out fires, seizing opportunities and handling tasks themselves.
Work Values Delegate and get results through others. Value managerial work (rather than tolerating it) and the success of others. The passage begins a shift toward a great emphasis on planning.
Signs this Level Has Not Been Mastered
  • Views questions from his or her people as interruptions
  • Fixes their mistakes rather than teaching them to do the work properly
  • Refuses to take ownership of the success of his or her people, distancing himself or herself from their problems and failures.
Management’s Role in this Transition Create measures so that these performers make the transition effectively. Survey the direct reports to get feedback. Intervene and coach extensively when problems are observed. . Reinforce the need to shift beliefs and guide the leader in becoming effective using the new skills that are required.

As you can see, to be successful at managing others, our manager will have to shift from many of the things that made him or her successful when he was accountable for only his work. There must be a shift from “doing work” to getting work done through others.

In our next post, we’ll look at the remaining levels of the small business model outlined in Ram Charan’s and Stephen Drotter’s book, The Leadership Pipeline.

Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Five Practical Guidelines when Hiring

November 9, 2008

Here are some practical considerations that are now part of my hiring process. They are a result of both experience and my research into what other executives, such as Jack Welch, have done to make their hiring process more successful.

1. Think Through the Assignment

Job descriptions may last a long time, but the assignments and the challenges associated with a position fluctuate with the changing conditions of the organization and the environment or marketplace. If the challenges are different, then the talents and skills necessary for the role will change. Undoubtedly, the role of Treasury Secretary today is different than the one of two years ago – yet the job description may well be the same. To grow a new area from scratch is very different from managing a seasoned team. If the team is getting close to retirement age, the new sales manager may need people development skills to grow the new team. As a leader, you must get to the heart of the assignment.

One of the ways to determine what is at the “heart of the assignment” is to revisit the strategic plan. By understanding the strategic goal and the tactics necessary to achieve the goal, one will be able to understand the key skills required to achieve success in a role. As a result, your thinking shifts and a new set of candidates may emerge.

2. Look at a Number of Potentially Qualified People

The key word here is number. Formal qualifications are a minimum for consideration, as their absence would eliminate the candidate. The person and the assignment need to fit each other. To make an effective decision, three to five candidates should be considered.

3. Think Hard about How to Look at These Candidates

The crucial issue is to understand the focus and priority of the assignment. The primary questions are, “What strengths does each candidate possesses?” and “Are these strengths the right ones for the assignment?” While weaknesses may rule a candidate out, if the answers to these questions are that s/he is the right person for the assignment, regardless of a particular weakness, then that person gets the job. It is then the company’s responsibility to provide the additional training, talent, or skills to mitigate the effects of that weakness.

4. Discuss Each of the Candidates with Several People who have Worked with Them

One executive’s opinion is worthless. That’s because we all have biases, prejudices, likes, and dislikes. Competent executives do this routinely and informally. My former partner, a senior executive at Microsoft, has five to seven people in the interview loop. If the candidate does not meet the approval of this group, the candidate is eliminated from consideration. Each interviewer is also assigned a specific attribute or characteristic of the candidate for evaluation. One might evaluate analytical problem solving while another might evaluate collaborative skills. By following this discipline, one gains valuable additional perspectives.

5. Make Sure the Appointee Understands the Job

After the appointee has been in a new job for three or four months, he or she should be focusing on the demands of the job rather than on the requirements of preceding assignments. It is the executive’s responsibility to call that person and say, “You’ve now been manager for three months. What do you have to do to be a success in your new job? Think it through and come back to me in ten days and show it to me in writing.” It is critical that you, as a manager, assist others to think through what a job requires. Frequently, these requirements are not the traits that the performer thinks got him the job in the first place. And as we will discuss later on, if this person was promoted to this position, it is almost a one hundred per cent certainty that he will have to shift his work approach and focus in order to be successful in his new role.

Categories: Hiring, Leadership, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

How many business improvement initiatives can a company manage at any one time?

October 24, 2008

Operating a business in these challenging times is certainly not easy. In the last two posts, I introduced a number of strategies that make sense during an economic downturn. One of these strategies can best be classified as a sales strategy – that is, how to reignite opportunities that one would otherwise expect to stagnate when the economy is in difficult straits and businesses are adhering strongly to the philosophy of hoarding cash because “cash is king.”

The other strategy looked to the internal workings of a company and focused on how a company might best use underutilized resources that are suddenly available because sales are lagging. In this context, we discussed the development of best practices and the optimization of internal processes.

It is on this internal opportunity that I would like to discuss in today’s post.

The internal business process redesign discussion begs the question as to how many initiatives can a company manage at any given time. Is there an optimal number and if there isn’t, how does one determine how many initiatives are manageable so that business opportunities and the needs of clients continue to be addressed?

In all of my research and studies, I have yet to come across a discussion that addresses this particular question. To address this question, I will rely on my thirty years of experience as a CEO and consultant and share with you what I have learned from my experiences as a strategist.

To perform this analysis, one must:

  • Understand your company’s strategic goals
  • Define what tactics are required to support these strategic goals
  • Establish what each department must do to achieve the strategic goals
  • Determine the time and effort required by departmental staff to support the achievement of the core goals that essentially enable the company to deliver value and stay in business

What remains after performing this analysis is the amount of time available for personnel to address new improvement initiatives.

In other words, this analysis is predicated on assessing the company’s priorities and the core roles that must be fulfilled. After all, customer support personnel must perform their support function or the company risks client defections. Sales and relationship professionals must be engaging prospects and customers to assure growth. Accounting and internal support staff must make certain that the infrastructure exists so that the organization can run efficiently. These are the prime functions of these departments.

So is there an optimal amount or maximum number of initiatives a company can manage? As best as I can tell, the number of enterprise-wide initiatives that a company can swallow is typically between one and three. (Note added 11/09/08: Interestingly, several weeks after this post was written, the Obama Transition Team was enagged in a similar conversation and may have reached a similar conclusion.)

The reason that I believe this to be so is that I have concluded that most people have a difficulty managing more than five significant goals or projects simultaneously at any given time. And if one considers that the average person has two or three core functions for which he or she is accountable, this only leaves so much space for professional and organizational development without impacting the core responsibilities that each of us have.

Categories: Sales, Strategic Plans, Strategy
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Newer Entries »
%d bloggers like this: