Immunity to Change: Post #2--Getting Started

1. Getting Started
a. To help evaluations be more meaningful, especially for professional growth, ask: What’s the “one big thing” or one single goal that if you improved would help you add value to your company or team? This should not be anything technical, like learning a new skill. Rather it should be more adaptive—a change you make in yourself that leads to real change and growth.
b. Before a management retreat or evaluation, get feedback from three levels
i. Your boss: Here’s the one important goal/behavior that will make the big difference in his/her evaluation of you for the year.
ii. Your Peers: Here’s the one goal/behavior that will make you a better team member.
iii. Your direct report(s): Here’s the one goal/behavior that would enable you to serve them better as their boss.
c. Members of the team confront each other about how their “one big thing” would be best for the team and the company.
d. Each talks with family and friends. Important to vet this one big thing if you’re going to make it your quest for the next year.

Choosing Your Successor

This is the 3rd in a series of five posts from a book review of Succession: Are You Ready? by Marshall Goldsmith (Harvard Business Press, 2009).

1. Choosing a Successor: Debates about whether to hire an external CEO candidate or internal candidate has filled many board rooms with endless hours of discussion. Goldsmith argues for an internal candidate, where at all possible. He does so for some very good financial and emotional reasons, all worth considering closely.

2. Evaluating Internal Candidates: Do you really want this person as a CEO? This is a key question for CEOs choosing their successor. Also, considering the critical stakeholders (the board, constituents, internal executives, clients, etc,) does the candidate have a political possibility? Or, do critical stakeholders see this person as a “jerk,” a favorite catch-all descriptor for Goldsmith, because it often fits the character being described.