Clarify the role, help leaders build relationships early, recognize red flags
Have you hired someone over the past few months who is having a tough time adjusting to your company and its expectations? Have you hired a “safe bet” instead of a riskier, but potentially more rewarding, candidate because you were afraid he might not work out? Have you moved an internal candidate into a role you knew was going to be a huge stretch, crossing your fingers she would “figure it out?”
These are not uncommon scenarios. Hiring is expensive and risky. No company is in a position to casually throw away time and money — but that is often exactly what organizations are doing. New hires, external or internal, often fail to deliver on expectations. So what can you do to increase the odds, reduce failure and accelerate performance when money is tight and time is of the essence? Here are a few tips.
Role clarity
One of the most common complaints leaders have about taking on a new job is how long it takes to get real clarity and alignment around what they need to do. Watch for these red flags:
• People complain, “He’s not delivering.”
• Decisions are made without input from the right stakeholders.
• The leader is heard saying, “I don’t know how they expect me to do that.”
• The team is focused on tasks that do not align with broader organizational objectives.
These are symptoms of a lack of clarity in terms of key priorities (unclear expectations) and a lack of understanding around how the role fits with others in the organization (boundary confusion). A lack of clarity leads to delayed performance for the individual and the business. This is often the result of insufficient time with, and unclear communications from, the boss. Providing role clarity includes arming the new leader with a formal role description, as well as a concrete business plan with goals and metrics, and conducting regular alignment meetings.
Make relationships a priority
When leaders are asked, “What would you do differently next time?” their wholehearted response is most often, “Spend more time building relationships earlier in the process.”
In the drive to learn the business and have an early impact, relationships are sometimes put on hold. Although new hires tend to focus, as they should, on their boss and their direct reports, they need to add a much broader stakeholder group to their priority list. Signs that someone is ignoring relationships include:
• Peers complain they do not know what the new person is up to.
• Key stakeholders are “surprised” by information or events.
• You rarely see the new hire with anyone other than direct reports.
• You know she is not being consulted by others.
What many leaders learn, too late, is relationships are critical when people need to collaborate with others to accomplish their own goals. The sooner they build important liaisons, the better. Strategies for accelerating relationships include “listening tours” that extend beyond the first 90 days, relationship mapping to identify key stakeholders and cross-functional projects that bring people together around real work.
Give culture a chance
Much of what we read about leader onboarding is obsessed with the first 90 or 100 days — “Obama watch” is a recent example. But no one integrates into a completely new culture in only three months. It typically takes leaders 12 to 18 months to fully integrate. Organizational culture takes a long time to reveal its subtleties. Adapting to culture is the last, and often the most challenging, hurdle.
If your organization has trouble retaining outside hires, it is probably because of your culture — something about it rejects new implants. Here are some signs someone is struggling to understand or adapt to the culture:
• She continues to drive things in a way that “just isn’t done here.”
• It takes him a long time to get support for his ideas.
• You continue to hear the phrase “At my last company…”
• Others continually refer to her as “new,” well past the three-month honeymoon phase.
Strategies for accelerating the ability to understand and navigate culture include exposing the person to as many culture-revealing events and people as possible, as early as possible, throughout the first year. People who can be cultural translators are also helpful — this includes a peer mentor, an HR business partner or an external coach who knows the organization in-depth.
Tough times mean we are all under pressure. We are expected to hire the right person the first time. The new leader is expected to hit the ground racing. Without doing something different to integrate our new leaders, we cannot increase the odds of our success.
Organizations that recognize onboarding “red flags” are able to more quickly address, and correct, potentially costly issues that new hires are facing to increase the odds of success — a win-win situation for both the employer and the employee, regardless of the economic environment.
Rebecca Schalm is the executive integration and transition practice leader for RHR International in Calgary. She can be reached at [email protected].
