How Executives Can Successfully Transition

This is the 3rd of several posts of the coming week based on my book review of The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leader at All Levels by Michael Watkins (Harvard Press). See previous posts.

Executives coming into a company fail at the rate of 40-50% at a cost of $2.7 million to the company.

4. Secure early wins: Grab the low hanging fruit of success to set the tone of a successful tenure with virtuous relationships and not vicious ones (John Kotter—a Harvard Professor and change icon talks about this a lot in hit books on change, including Leading Change).

5. Negotiate success: Your new boss is your critical connection to the organization. Understanding and meeting his or her needs and expectations, style and energy is important if only for survival purposes! Get consensus on your 90 day plan and life will be a better place.

6. Achieve alignment: As a high flyer in an organization, you need to assure alignment with your approach and the corporate strategy (Covey chats about this a lot in his later books).

7. Build your team: Most new executives inherit teams. The key is to keep the right ones and jettison the wrong ones (remember Good to Great—Jim Collins research taught us to get the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off it).

Leadersip: Thriving, Not Just Surviving in a Downturn Economy

This is the second in a series of posts on leading in a downturn economy.

In the January 2009 issue of the HBR, Donald Sull of the London Business School writes "How to Thrive in Turbulent Markets" (pp.78-88). In a piece full of advice and boxing analogies, Sull notes that thriving in such an economic downturn requires leaders and companies both to absorb the blows and be agile enough to take advantage of emerging opportunities. The problem is that often times leaders often retreat into such a defensive absorption role that they forget that there are opportunities (offense) as well that must be exploited to ensure a strong comeback.

Measures of Absorption (defense). Have...
--Diversified cash flow lines
--Unique tangible assets
--Powerful business partners
--Low fixed costs

Measures of Agility (offense):
--Exploit change (my note: if you get lemons…make lemonade)
--Use the sense of urgency to move the company forward. (everyone unites faster when faced with a common threat)
--Attract entrepreneurial leaders.
--Reallocate cash and talent across units.

This is an article worth getting for all managers and fashioning a hard discussion around what your company is doing both to absorb the blows and counter-punch.

By the way, Sull likes Mohammad Ali as the best boxing example of his model—an ability to absorb or take a punch and the ability to be agile and throw an offensive blow.

Remember Ali’s famous chant: Float like a butterfly,sting like a bee. Good advice for leaders today.