Right from the Start Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role, by Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins, begins with the cautionary tale of a young man, Andy, who had been hired as president of the company and heir apparent to the CEO. Given a strong directive for transformation and improvement, Andy quickly started making changes. In doing so, he made enemies, including the CEO that he hoped to would replace. Eventually, a coalition formed against Andy, and he was let go.
Ciampa and Watkins then highlight the steps Andy should have taken to succeed at his new position. Their suggestions include acquiring needed knowledge quickly, establishing new working relationships, juggling organizational and personal transitions, managing expectations, and maintaining person equilibrium. For instance, rather than spend the week before he started the job relaxing with his wife and kids, Ciampa and Watkins suggest that Andy should have spent that time studying the company and learning its strengths and weaknesses.
The book then goes on to discuss the mistakes many new leaders make including falling behind on the learning curve, becoming isolated, coming in with the answer, sticking with the existing team too long, attempting too much, and being captured by the wrong people. Andy, for instance, declined when a senior worker offered to help bring him up-to-date on company history and culture. He became something of a Lone Ranger, making changes prior to discussing them with anybody else.
The authors then introduce seven fundamental propositions for meeting the challenge of a new leadership position. They propose that a new leader has two to three years to make a noticeable difference in company culture and bottom line, that any leader coming in should already have made him or herself familiar with the organization, that new leaders need to be able to balance focus and flexibility, that within six months the leader will have to make some firm decisions about organizational architecture, that within six months the leader will need to have built some degree of credibility, that the leader must earn the right to make changes rather than hiding behind the authority of the board of directors, and that there is no one right answer to getting through the transition process.
The second chapter talks about the importance of small victories in key areas. The authors suggest that the leader choose a "center of gravity," an area that requires improvement. Within that center of gravity, leaders should establish their priorities, or as the authors refer to them, "A-item priorities," and introduce changes based on these priorities. Even small victories can increase worker morale.
Next, the authors turn their focus to laying a foundation. They discuss the importance of visioning -- imagining what one wants the company to look like in five or ten years when all the problems are solved -- and using those visions and successes to create a political base and to start influencing cultural change.
The next section deals with building credibility and encourages leaders to be accountable. "Getting Oriented" offers tips for learning about the company culture as well as the hard facts.
Part II of the book deals with enabling technologies and discusses different styles of learning, visioning, and coalition building.
Part III, probably the most useful part of the book for me, talks about managing oneself, having an awareness of one's personal style and realizing its strengths and weaknesses, and receiving advice and counsel from others. I was particularly interested in the distinction Ciampi and Watkins made between advice, which to them suggests transmission of knowledge, facts, or information, and counsel, which they see as having to do with dialogue and receiving information about intra-or interpersonal factors which may influence the leader's decsisions.
Right from the Start offers excellent advice to anyone trying to get...
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