If you have recently transitioned to a new role within your company be sure to ask about internal onboarding support and take advantage of existing best practices in the field including individual coaching, leadership style profiles and executive team development. Recognize your company has made an investment in you well beyond your salary and sign-on bonus.  Take the initiative to explore important questions that can make or break your success.

• What key results are needed now?
• What attributes are most admired in this corporate culture?
• What does it take to be seen as a leader here?
• Who are the informal and formal opinion leaders?
• What is the story of success in this division or company?

Next, it is key to understand that a successful transition takes time. Research suggests on average a mid-level senior manager needs slightly more than six months to “break even”—he or she begins to contribute to the organization at a level equal to the cost of bringing him or her on board (Wells, S. J.  “Diving In”. HR Magazine, 2005, March).  Set realistic goals during your transition and manage performance expectations to avoid early burn out or worse—deadly mistakes.

Successful onboarding is also a team effort. Make sure that you engage your direct reports in the onboarding process. Leverage their history and knowledge within the company to introduce you to key customers, stakeholders, and other departments.  Listen carefully to the issues that surface, the stories told and the needs for change that are presented to you.  Your team is a vital mechanism  to help you acculturate quickly to the new work place environment.

Perhaps the most difficult element of onboarding is handling your own  “blind spots”. Despite your technical expertise, be aware that it’s the soft skills that often hinder a career.   A transition coach can be an important resource for improving your public speaking, executive presence, or time and project management.

A comprehensive, systemic approach is best for successfully managing the ROI of new talent. Managing the ROI of talent management is a team effort, that requires clear strategy, focus and authentic dialogue to make the most of a successful executive transition.

Highlights from GILD (Global Institute for Leadership Development) sponsored by Linkage Inc.

Recently, I attended the Leadership Development Institute sponsored by Linkage in San Diego, CA. Attendees at the San Diego meeting included about 500 worldwide leaders. I served as one of the executive coaches.

I thought that this was the best learning experience of its kind that I have ever attended. This is a very strong statement for while I always find something useful in every meeting I attend this was a special event that truly was a positive learning experience for all involved: the Institute organizers, the presenters, facilitators, coaches and the attendees. Given the positive nature of the experience here are some of my key findings about learning and leadership.

1) Importance of Atmosphere- The design of the Institute experience was critical to its success. The Institute ran for six days and consisted of world class thought leaders including Gary Hamel, Carly Fiorina, Bill George and W. Chan Kim. All of the presenters focused on salient real world leadership challenges supported by key concepts. Additionally, all of them were compelling storytellers capturing our collective attention and mindshare. This was no easy task.

Following conversations with the thought leaders, participants engaged in team facilitations either with intact work teams or mixed teams. The focus was on implementation issues, and to test and validate reactions with peers confronting similar issues. These teams met everyday.

Each participant had a number of hours of individual coaching where they could explore what was important for them and their organizations. As an executive coach, this was a singular experience I have never had previously: having the privilege of having every coachee ready to explore what’s important for them, the core issues in their way, what motivates them, etc. (Of course, some coachees did require some skillful coaching to get them there.) I found it was a pleasure to work with clients focused and motivated to improve their performance and effectiveness as leaders.

The learning environment, an interesting mixture of varied and continuous learning experiences, created a positive atmosphere. People received exposure to leading edge ideas, discussed the ideas in depth with peers and then availed themselves of focused individual time to investigate what was limiting their own development. They were supported in this part of their development by one of the talented executive coaches on the faculty. The “heat” generated from the intensive all day learning permitted people be open to what was next for them.

2) Managing Personal Productivity through Energy Management One of the key challenges for today’s leaders is finding the time to engage in activities that can enhance their leadership skills. . It is difficult to keep up with the tasks and deliverables that leaders must focus on every day. Slowing down to reflect, change behaviors and finding ways to do become more effective is very difficult for most leaders given the magnitude and complexity of tasks they face.

A new paradigm presented by Tony Schwartz, co-author of The Power of Full Engagement, offered hope and direction in this area. (He will have a new piece in the October Harvard Business Review that presents his latest research.) Schwartz’s research suggests that there is physiological data that supports the need for rest and recovery to achieve increased productivity. His research suggests that our ability to focus and sustain productive activity only lasts 60-90 minutes. We need to rest or renew for a period of time after a period of focused activity to regain full productivity.

Schwartz suggests that we need varied kinds of renewal: physical, spiritual, mental and emotional to re-charge and renew, and that every successful executive knows this instinctively and takes appropriate action. The best way for us to manage our need for renewal is by creating simple, positive rituals so that, by better personal energy management, we can learn to better manage our time.

An example: get in the habit of checking in with your team daily, at a specific time, so that you create a regular, consistent time to facilitate communication. This would be a mental renewal activity. Once we have this positive habit routinized, we can move successfully to a physical renewal activity. Thus we schedule exercise 3-4 times a week just like we schedule meetings.

A key point: New activities must make it into your calendar!

Lying behind the activities are 3 core questions that enable us to drive focused, prioritized activity in the right direction:

1. What’s my purpose? How can I spend my energy in ways that align with my values?
2. What’s the truth? How am I really spending my energy now?
3. What actions will I take? Close the gap between where you are and where you want to be

These core ideas are used to focus our time and energy on the right ways for us to manage our productivity.

3) A NEW THOUGHT:

The biggest opportunities and leverage for improvement today come from managing and leading better not from process and product improvement

These findings come from several sources: including Gary Hamel, Bill George (former CEO of Medtronic), Carly Fiorina (former CEO of HP) and from W. Chan Kim, author of Blue Ocean Strategy.

WHAT THOUGHT LEADERS SAY

The last 20 years of business have seen tremendous improvements in work processes, technology and infrastructure. Many of these improvements have led to unimagined improvements in productivity. Now, the high levels of improvements derived from these vehicles, have leveled off. Business people are exploring new and better ways to achieve productivity improvements. All of the experts above suggest that the next transformation in productivity will come from the people side of the business.

* Dr. Gary Hamel talked about recent productivity research from a variety of worldwide organizations. The research concluded that most organizations just get 55% productivity from their employees. That leaves a potential productivity improvement of 45%, which he posits must be derived from the creativity and passion of the employees. The first 55% has come primarily from specialization, hierarchy, standardization, planning and control and extrinsic rewards. He suggested that leaders could best tap into the remaining 45% productivity potential by exploring emerging principles in biology, the principles inherent in democracy and from transformational efforts that have transformed cities like London, Tokyo and New York.

* Carly Fiorina posited that the essence of leadership is facilitating change and that quality leadership frequently drives us to non obvious choices. She also suggested that if you could do only one thing to lead change it would be focusing on rewards and recognition.

* Bill George talked about democracy and capitalism both being based on trust. There are interesting similarities between his work and Stephen MR Covey’s The Speed of Trust. Bill also discussed his five keys to leadership:

• Self awareness: Who are you really?
• Practicing your values: What are you doing when others aren’t looking?
• Motivations- both intrinsic and extrinsic: What’s important?
• Asking what kind of life you want to lead- Demonstrating integrity in all aspects of your life. Do you exemplify your highest values?
• Building your support team: Do you use a partnership model?

* Dr. W. Chan Kim discussed some concepts and applications from his compelling book, Blue Ocean Strategy. His basic premise is simple: to succeed in today’s marketplace you need to enter uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. This is contrary to much of the strategy teaching of the last 25 years. The leadership premise required to support new market success, though, is similar to all three of the thought leaders cited above. Chan Kim advocates a focus on creativity management, not production management to support increased productivity. If you want to leverage productivity you need to focus on creativity management which includes:

• growth and innovation,
• new business development,
• global management,
• future strategy,
• methods of creativity and
• building your corporate brand.

Conclusion

The conference was meaningful and impactful for me, personally, and for most of the participants. It included stimulating and provocative information, entertaining and informed speakers, quality interactions, new friends. That is a brief summary of the experience. But I left asking, “What is the meaning of what happened? What are the implications for leaders today? How can leaders use the learnings to make a difference? What can the coaches take away and apply to better support their executives? What can be done to sustain the impact over time?”

A few months ago I read a very powerful article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, “Make Yourself a Talent Factory” by Ready and Conger. The articles focus on eight (8) key areas for development and what I now call the “three fuels” for organizational vitality: accountability, commitment and engagement. Commitment focuses on involving interns and new employees early in important work and involves line managers and leaders participating directly in filling important positions. Engagement reflects the degree to which company leaders show their commitment to the details of talent management, making it a real business priority. Accountability involves all stakeholders doing their part to make systems and processes robust.

Both Gary Hamel and Chan Kim talked about the diminishing returns for leaders from focusing on production. They then highlighted the possibilities available for organizational effectiveness today by tapping into the creativity and passion of the people in their organizations. Three areas of focus seem ripe for possibility:

• creating the atmosphere for learning
• focusing on managing your personal energy and
• focusing on leading better

What does this mean in practical terms for leaders? What it means is that if you are truly seeking to enhance and leverage organizational effectiveness you need to make the three items above top priorities. And how do you work with these priorities? In the organization, you look for what you need to do to put in place new and improved ways for creating accountability, commitment and engagement. Personally, you look at the best ways to improve your social and emotional intelligence. Increased social and emotional intelligence will improve your ability to hold others accountable successfully and to influence effectively towards greater commitment and engagement. A simple process but not one easy to execute on.

What should the executive on(-)boarding / executive assimilation process be called?

Happy polling!

• When is it too late to fix an on-boarding problem and you know you have to try again?

Reality

Even those with good judgment and a good track record sometimes make bad hiring decisions. In our experience the best solution to bad hires and poor onboarding is problem prevention, not problem solving. The goal should be to manage the end to end hiring process well so well that you have fewer bad hires. The conclusion of our previous article (CEO On-boarding question #1) states:

Do a better job with recruitment, selection and onboarding and make certain that all three pieces are integrated into one well defined and well managed business process. In this way you will enhance productivity and minimize bad hires.

Still, problems occur due to bad hires and poorly executed onboarding. As you know, we are strong advocates of the Profile XT instrument for supporting effective hires. This tool is the most accurate we have found for predicting success and high performance in a specific role. The Profile XT tool has been used for about 20 years with nearly a million people and it accurately predicts success and future performance about 80% of the time. Use the tool effectively and you minimize bad hires. The reality is that even good recruiting and effective selection, facilitated through the use of the PXT, cannot guarantee that all new hires will succeed.

This article will examine the other 20% who do not succeed or prosper in their new positions, namely those who were bad hires or were not properly integrated into their new culture through an effective onboarding process. Our purpose is to examine how CEO’s can improve both their hiring and on boarding processes for increased organizational effectiveness.

Want to improve your hiring and onboarding success? Follow the four steps illustrated in the following chart:

Onboarding

An effective onboarding process is fairly simple to design yet often difficult to execute. The process has three main components: focus on the right, high priority tasks, proper sequencing and connection with the right people. The connections with the right people include:

• Your new boss
• Your new team of peers
• Your own team, and
• Those who have significant informal power and influence in the organization. Some people refer this as the “shadow board.”

Connecting with the Right People

Creating covenants or agreements with each of these individuals or groups as to how you will work together is the key to success in this area. The art of “covenant making” comes is the result on honest negotiations between all interested parties. The outcome is a quality set of agreements that people will honor and live by.

Given the immense number of tasks a new executive needs to pay attention to during the first 90 days, it is essential that the executive receive active support from a trusted advisor such as: a new boss, an assigned mentor, a team of peers who are navigating similar challenges or an executive coach. Active support means providing adequate time for interactive conversation where the trusted advisor can provide feedback and direction. He/she can also ask questions about various pursuits that broaden, deepen and question the new leader’s point of view and perspective.

Focus on the Right Tasks and Proper Sequencing

We have also found that focusing on critical tasks is the key to success during the first few months on the job. Proper sequencing of these tasks produces higher quality results.
During the first few days the focus needs to be on:
• Learning specifics of the business
• Obtaining clarification of expectations
• Timely and accurate communication with key stakeholders
During the first 30 days the key tasks need to be:
• Understanding cultural Issues
• Identifying key job fit issues at this level
• Identifying learning priorities
• Devising 90 day strategies
• Attaining clarity of relations with the boss and determining your risk profile in the new environment
• Investigating team restructuring issues

During the next 30 days the key tasks typically include:
• Identifying early wins to help develop a successful job pattern
• Attaining consensus on “A” item priorities
• Finalizing 90 day job strategy
• Refining specific job expectations and resource requirements with your boss

From days 60 to 90 the focus needs to be on:
• Clarifying post 90 day strategy
• Articulating a shared vision and engaging the team with the vision
• Implementing action plans to support execution of early wins
• Assuring alliances are in place that support early wins
• Completing a team restructuring plan that has formulated and agreed upon with HR and Corporate
• Devising regular and effective communication with peers and superiors. This process starts on the first day and continues and improves on an on going basis.

Key point

Excellent results come from effective execution and proper support from the boss, a mentor, an executive coach or team of peers. This is not a task that can be accomplished alone. The new executive is moving too quickly and has too much new information to process to proceed successfully without active support. A trusted advisor who can provide feedback, perspective and insight is instrumental to ensuring early productivity and facilitating organizational fit.

Important Hiring Issues

It takes courage to recognize a bad hire yet it is ultimately less expensive to recognize the error and to move on. Even very successful business people make mistakes and lose some battles. The objective is to win the war and cut your losses by recognizing the signs and symptoms of a bad hiring decision.

The easiest way to recognize that you have made a bad hire is by the absence of good results, although early positive business results are not enough to ensure that you have made a good hire. A typical scenario: Soon after the hire you met with your new executive and clarified expectations and set targets. Now, you find that your new executive is not getting the required results. Possible cause: Your new hire is in the wrong position, or you have not provided adequate support. If you have provided adequate support and this appears to be a good job for the individual, you probably have a new executive who is not able to achieve good results in your environment. This is the easiest way to recognize a bad hire.

The other symptoms that indicate a bad hire are harder to discern because they show up in “soft ways”- in people’s behaviors, the ways they interact with others or perhaps manifest as an uncomfortable feeling that things are not right. We don’t have a prescription for the ‘soft components’ of a bad hire, but we do have a checklist of typical signals or indicators developed from interviews conducted by Mary Kay Blake, SVP of the Freedom Forum. Some of the signals that indicate you may have made a bad hire include:

• Warning vibes were ignored
• Talked — but did not deliver — a great game
• Wouldn’t learn what was needed to succeed
• Poor communicator
• Inflexible
• Displays poor judgment
• Doesn’t know that he doesn’t know
• Doesn’t listen
• Is selfish and condescending
• Demonstrates non-collaborative behavior
• Is uncooperative
• Doesn’t understand the importance of planning
• Watches the clock

When you get frequent reports and observations of bad judgment, poor listening and inflexibility, it is time to consider that you may have made a bad hire.

Conclusion

The best antidote to bad hires and poorly executed on-boarding is designing a good solution and plan from the inception. This includes a comprehensive on-boarding process starting with good recruiting, quality and thoughtful execution and adequate support from others to ease the on-boarding process. Like all initiation processes, adequate support is required to provide focus and momentum to aid the individual through the transition.

While new managers have some of the same needs and challenges as new executives there are some distinctive differences in the onboarding process for each.
You can listen to the broadcast here in MP3 format, or you can view a PDF summary of the show here.

Some highlights of the panel discussion are given below:

Many companies still take the sink-or-swim approach to training new managers. After a day or two of HR-mandated training, you’re on your own. But today, no company can afford not to properly prepare its mid-level managers for their new roles.

Professional coaching is one of the most effective tools in helping new managers make the transformation from individual contributor to management. This program discusses how coaching can fit into management development, emphasizing how it can increase the overall effectiveness of a management team.

Research shows that individuals new to management can have a variety of myths about how to be successful in a management role.

From not being able to see linkages and interdependencies across the organization to learning how to get commitment instead of compliance from employees, our experts discuss how these perceptions can affect how new managers perform in their first 3 to 6 months.

Guests explain how coaches can guide new managers in their process of self realization, as they adjust to their new roles. Highlights of the show include:
• What new managers typically experience as they
ease into their roles.
• The importance of meeting the right people and
building relationships.
• The complaints new managers have in the first 90
days – as well as those voiced by their employees.
• How coaches can help managers see the big picture.
• The feeling of humility that comes with managing a
team of people.
• The unintentional disasters that can occur as a result
of micromanagement

How can the CEO (or hiring manager) identify these situations in time to take corrective action?

“Begin with the end in mind,” is an old planning adage, which is especially applicable to the on-boarding process.The first on boarding problem occurs prior to the new executive’s arrival and is caused by poor recruiting. Poor recruiting occurs for three basic reasons:

• The recruiter does not know that he needs to look beyond the executive’s training, experience and technical knowledge. What is missing is determining if there is good fit between the executive and the organization and its values.
• The recruiter often does not have a precise description for the kind of executive and the real requirements that the client is looking for or the results the executive should produce.
• When the recruiter searches their database for candidates they are often not selective enough. The result: the recruiter may not select or present the best candidate for the job.

The second breakdown occurs during the selection process that follows the initial recruiting. There are usually two main breakdowns in the selection process following the initial interviews. The first breakdown occurs during the interviewing process, where the interviewer reviews a candidate’s experience in terms of activities, not results or deliverables. According to Lou Adler of The Adler Group and Carl Wellenstein of ExecGlobal candidates must be selected who can actually perform in your organization. Interviewing with a focus on outcomes, milestones and chronology will help you select a candidate who has proven she can meet your expectations.

The second breakdown in the selection process typically occurs due to a lack of objective data about the candidate, their talents and whether they are a good fit for the job. The necessary data are often impossible to obtain even by a good, quality interviewer. Marcus Buckingham, in his book First Break All the Rules, emphasizes the need to evaluate people’s talents (not just skills) and that possessing the required talents is critical for success. Correctly assessing a candidate’s talents using only interviews cannot produce an accurate talent assessment, even for experienced, savvy interviewers. Many candidates interview well, which further skews the evaluation process. The interview is no guarantee of effective future performance yet it is performance we must look for.

In order to discover talent, we strongly advocate the use of assessment tools to reveal a candidate’s mental horsepower, core behaviors, core motivators and how these attributes compare to others who have already succeeded in this role. Assessment tools provide additional in depth, objective and benchmarking data that permit us to make more informed decisions. We view the hiring process as a business process where having real, accurate and relevant data is instrumental to hiring success. The tool we favor is the Profile XT. See a brief description of the Profile from Smart Moves Consulting.

Finally, there is the on boarding process itself. Having a good recruiting and selection process sets up future success. Quality on boarding, though, is the final step in sealing the deal. The on boarding process is different from employee orientation, and while effective employee orientation is essential (as it covers where to park, how to dress, when and how much the employee will be paid, etc) employee orientation has nothing to do with productivity.

To ensure and accelerate productivity the new executive needs to understand the employment covenant and how to implement its agreements. What is this employment covenant? The employment covenant is essentially the initial key agreements that the new executive must make with his boss and team of peers to ensure success. It answers questions like: What do you expect of me? How do I work with you? How do we make decisions? What is not okay with you? How do you like to hear about bad information? Unless the new executive learns how to forge these agreements well and quickly he or she will not succeed.

The components of the covenant need to meet specific core corporate or business requirements; they are not always obvious or easily discernible. Sandy Sanderson, President of Meridian Executive Recruiting, an executive search firm, specializes in working with early stage companies. He says the ability of the executive team to work together either causes the organization to succeed or fail. Similar to joining a successful athletic team, the new team member must learn to fit in with the other team members. Once the covenants are solidified with the boss and team of peers, the next step for the new leader will be to facilitate developing a covenant with her/his team and its members. The final piece in successful on boarding is measuring executive effectiveness. In our experience, a new executive must focus on the following core activities during the first 90 days on the job:

• Promoting yourself
• Accelerating your learning
• Matching your strategy to the situation
• Securing early wins
• Negotiating success
• Achieving alignment
• Building your team
• Creating coalitions
• Keeping your balance
• Expediting everyone

(Source: Dr. Michael Watkins, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Executive Education program)

The hiring manager must support and encourage the new team member to spend her/his time on the most relevant executive activities.

The worst on boarding problems come from an inadequate employee talent evaluation and failure to treat the hiring process as a serious business process. The focus needs to be on the selection of a candidate who fits well with the organization. The most important component of success is: connection with the boss, peers and the new leader’s team; clarifying their collective covenants and then implementing agreed upon covenants.

The final component of on boarding business success is doing the right things, at the right time, in the right ways, especially during the first 90 days. With an effective on boarding process like this in place, the CEO is most likely to succeed in hiring the right executive, and to get the execution and results that the organization requires.

]]> http://www.resourcesinaction.com/blog/ceo-on-boarding-question-1/feed/ http://www.resourcesinaction.com/blog/executive-dads/ http://www.resourcesinaction.com/blog/executive-dads/#comments Mon, 07 May 2007 23:32:26 +0000 Patrick Reilly Executive Onboarding Emotional Intelligence Social Intelligence Accountable Action Worklife Balance http://www.resourcesinaction.com/blog/executive-dads/ This week we have something different. I was interviewed on a radio show done in L.A. for a program for Executive Dads. Though we touch a little on executive assimilation and on boarding, our primary focus for the interview was concerning the issue of worklife balance that confronts executive Dads. Let us know what you think. This is the first audio file from our interview: http://www.bigmediausa.com/archive.asp?aid=9814

What might the man with the glasses be thinking and feeling walking into a meeting like this? The New Yorker cartoon depicts the challenges of effective executive assimilation. The newly hired executive looks just like the talented, professional and experienced executive you just hired. He has been duly informed of all the explicit information available: he knows his role and responsibilities, where he sits on the org chart, who he reports to, who is on his team and how much his compensation package is worth.

What he does not know is what is truly important and what is hard to discern unless you have been around long enough to see what is under the “hoods and hats.” This hidden information is critical to success.

The newly hired executive has just entered his first meeting at the head table, the place in the organization where all critical meetings are held. He has in reality walked into a room of complete strangers. He does not know what motivates them; he does not know what is important to them individually and collectively; he does not know how to influence them or how they make decisions. In summary: he knows nothing about the key players or how the organization works. The challenge: Given the new executive’s background, experience and income they he will expect him to be immediately productive to justify and maximize their investment.

On-boarding anyone?

Business Week published an article a few weeks back about executive onboarding.
The article touches on a few key issues: informing the general business public what onboarding is, why businesses might want it and some potential conflicts of interest that onboarding may present. The article does not explain the underlying need for onboarding and why many key organizations are investing significant amounts of time and money in the onboarding process. Given that CEO failure rates exceed 40% and the very high CEO rate of pay, the failure of a key leader can cost an organization dearly. Replacement costs for the CEO are one issue (typical estimates are double the executive’s compensation). Of additional importance is the potential loss of brand image, strained relations with key customers and potential loss of significant sales. Executive onboarding is a tool deployed to mitigate this risk. Like any good insurance policy, executiveon boarding protects two of the corporations’ most valuable assets: the key executive’s success and corporate profitability.
But why has this trend in executive on boarding emerged now? Until 12 months ago most people thought of onboarding as the procedure to follow to get safely onboard a ship or plane. That is no longer the case. Many companies are employing a wide range of coaches and consultants to help them get their newly hired executives “in the saddle” quickly and performing at a high level.

Our research indicates that the frequent loss of key executives is costing companies significant amounts of time and money. The problem is driven by a few simple factors:
1) Complexity- As each minute passes there is a proliferation of information impacting our world. Even very smart and capable executives are often unable to keep up with the plethora of information and its potential impact on their new business.
2) Speed of Change- Markets change, competitors change, business conditions change at a dizzying rate that is hard for even for the most nimble companies and most experienced business executives.
3) Raplexity- About eighteen years ago, John Naisbett wrote the book Megatrends. The primary thesis of the book was the interaction of complexity and speed of change and how together they greatly limit people’s ability to adapt and successfully change. “Raplexity” creates a systemic overload that can paralyze many of us, greatly limiting effective action.
I agree with Naisbett. I don’t know how much more impactful “raplexity” is today than eighteen years ago but we can all agree that today’s business world is more complex and changes more quickly than ever before. The “raplexity” has increased making it more difficult for people to successfully adjust and adapt.
4) Culture Adaptation- The challenges above make the test of successfully adapting to a new culture more confounding. It is not easy to speed up the learning cycle for cultural change activities because these things are often subtle and hard to discern. Quality on boarding can help- but it still takes time to learn the key nuances of a new culture. Successful executive performance requires critical awareness of: the new corporate culture; how ideas are successfully presented; how to dress appropriately. This learning takes time and practice.
To illustrate the difficulties of adapting to change, here are the results of an industry wide study we recently conducted to determine how well top performing sales people succeeded after changing companies. Remember; these were the best performers.

What we learned is that top performers in one company were not necessarily top performers in their next company. They were not always able to adjust successfully to the culture of their new employer: how to talk with new customers, how to work with people in a new location, how to motivate new team members. Adjusting quickly and easily to the new culture was not a skill that that was uniformly present. The top sales people we studied had the right technical skills and experience to be top performers in one organization but their inability to successfully adapt to a new environment often limited their ability to make a successful transition in their new job.

To address complexity and speed of change and the compound set of difficulties these circumstances create is daunting. To succeed you go hard and fast. To adapt to the new culture you go slow, you listen and you exercise patience. Even the best of us are not very skillful going slow and fast at the same time, especially when we are faced with extremely high performance expectations. In baseball, there are the minor leagues to learn higher skills. In the theater, there are small theaters and rehearsals where talents can be honed. In the executive suite: onboarding. There needs to be more onboarding available so that the executives we serve can get up to speed quickly and perform well where expectations are high and the cost of failure is a price we would rather not pay.

Chris Argyris, professor emeritus of Harvard, first voiced the need for two simple
components for effective change in organizations: Having a good theory, then
taking action. I, and many others, have tested his premise many times and
always found it to be true: the best and most effective way to move forward is to

• have a qualified idea set or method that you think will work
• take action
• observe behaviors
• track and measure results
• refine your actions based on the evidence

We established the model in our last article for moving effectively from being a
victim to becoming accountable. Now we need to examine how to make that
model both actionable and effective.

A MAPT is the model we have found invaluable in moving from the victim space
to the accountable space. You create “a map” and then test the map to see if it
takes you where you want to go. A MAPT stands for

• Assess
• Mindset or Perspective
• Action or Decision
• Practice
• Test

Following this approach, first with myself, and then with coaching clients, has
proved consistently and predictably to produce quality results. While using this
approach does not guarantee permanent transformation, it does help to break
the gravitational pull of victimization and help us stay focused on remaining
accountable. Being accountable most often takes two forms:

• being aware, ahead of time, what you need to do and then doing it or,
• taking action, observing the outcome and revising our behavior as needed

Let’s look at the accountable model in more detail.

I’m powerless and there’s nothing I can do about it.” The biggest challenge with the victim mindset is that we don’t usually know we have it. It is out of sight.

For example:

• We think that the other person ran into us with their car and it isn’t fair
• We think that someone else got a bigger raise and it isn’t fair
• We think that my staff is not productive because they are lazy

These are some of the typical stories that victims tell themselves.

In the victim mindset we rarely notice that we were distracted before the
argument, or that we did not really do very good work on the project, or that we did not set clear expectations with our staff. We were probably not aware at how our state of mind or the conclusions we drew got in the way of our making better and more effective decisions.

The first step in moving from being a victim to becoming accountable is in working to gain insight or perspective. This may take the form of checking my perspective or point of view and assessing its accuracy or validity. I need to ask myself: What do I assume to be true about a particular situation? and recognize that this mindset will probably effect the outcome. It’s helpful to bear in mind this statement about the impact of assumptions when something is not working well. For example: I’ve had conflict with someone or there is a disappointing outcome. I may experience pain or frustration; having an accountable mindset will motivate me to do something differently. To gain the needed insight I need to check my assumptions and see how they affect my behavior. This exercise allows us to see and understand how the victim mindset contributes to the unwanted outcome.

The model below is useful in seeing the path from being a victim to becoming
accountable. We have charted the pathway we have found most useful in moving from victim to accountable. The chart is drawn intentionally in a counter clockwise direction. Why? Because to change the path from victim to accountable requires a new way of thinking. The chart says: When we are in the victim mindset (and all of us are,at times) we must stop, and intentionally and by design, think and act in a new and more productive fashion.

• The focus emanates from the individual who asks, “What did I do that is causing me to be stuck or having difficulties?
• The process requires that I take full responsibility for my discomfort, articulate my “contribution,” and then ask, “What do I need to do to get out of the middle of the circle?”
• The new thinking, “What did I do?” is the first step in my recognizing my part in
  the problem. This step essentially stops the blame game. We acknowledge there
  is a problem and we are at least a part of it.
• The transition, suggests that I use my creativity to begin thinking differently.
• The new action takes me off the “hamster wheel” and into new behaviors
  which may yield different outcomes

Step 1 Assess → Gain Clarity about the Issue, Define the Problem

What’s the problem? For example: “Mary and I don’t work well anymore. She
is a pain to work with. Boy, I wish Frank (who used to have the job) was still
here.”

• This might be my first level assessment in the victim mindset.

When I examine the consequences I discover: It’s costing us time at work, it
makes others uncomfortable. It seems that she is more focused on people
issues now and I am more focused on the financials and am uncomfortable
with our relationship. I notice I am tense and frustrated, and often focus on all
the things that she is doing that keep us from moving ahead.

Step 2 → Mindset or Perspective

In step two, we need to take a fresh look at our current situation. We need to
express the perceptions that exist and evaluate their impacts. In particular, we
need to identify the assumptions we have made and the conclusions we have
drawn. Most importantly we need to ask, “What have I done to contribute to this
difficulty, impasse, misunderstanding or problem?

Breaking out of the mindset at this stage is the key to moving from being a victim
to becoming accountable. If we do not take this step we will not move ahead. My
colleague, Nick Ray, describes the prerequisite for gaining a foothold in this
stage as having an active interest in changing and an inner acknowledgment that
courage is required to move out of the old way of thinking.

This is the place where we often need the help of others to “get out of the box”
we have created. Usually, we stay stuck as victim because we:

• want to be right
• because we think we are right
• because it is easier and more comfortable to be the victim or
• because we are unaware of being in the victim mindset
• do not see other options

Remaining the victim allows me to maintain the status quo. This is the most
important place in the cycle. It requires concerted effort to reverse the energy flow, facilitating movement to an accountability mode and higher level functioning.

The most powerful questions to ask now are:

• What’s important?
• What’s my purpose?
• What’s my bottom line?

We need to surface and articulate our assumptions about what we believe to be
true, and then test them for validity and accuracy. Are my assumptions really
true- or are they simply one way of looking at the situation? The first step in
moving towards new action is gaining a change in perspective. Some useful tools
include:

• Practice self observation and increased awareness- Using the
  concepts from the previous article you can make the conscious decision
  to notice when you are acting like a victim or find yourself on the hamster
  wheel. To create impact, ask yourself, “What does an accountable
  perspective look like?” For example, I may have noticed that I don’t
  consistently value Mary’s contributions.
• Get feedback from others in your environment- Let those you trust
  know that you are working to improve yourself and ask them for feedback
  on your progress. For example, you might learn that they’ve observed
  that you’ve started taking Mary for granted.
• Get feedback from a coach- Choose to work with an objective
  professional who can assist you in changing your perspective so that you
  function better. In working with a coach you might discover your real
  attitude about Mary. This insight might lead you to change your behavior
  towards her and the entire business situation.
• Use additional tools for gaining perspective or insight including
  meditation, therapy, asking others for help, and self help literature.

Step 3 → Action or Decision- Make a decision to do something different
and commit to taking action. Set goals and determine measures.

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done takes us directly into the field of
action. Allen suggests that to be efficient and productive, taking action, we
need to attain a “mind like water.” By taking the first two steps, which are
assessing the situation and defining the problem we can begin to see our
situation more clearly and to explore new actions that lead to more positive
outcomes.

We have found that the move to accountability is supported by being simple
and making choices. One to two (1-2) important new actions are all that most
people, even our victim overachievers from the first article, can manage
successfully. Select one to two new actions, then create goals and determine
how to measure success. To make certain you are making informed choices
review your answers to the key questions from step 2:

• What’s important?
• What’s my purpose?
• What’s my bottom line?

To cultivate accountability, we need something or someone to whom we will
be accountable: public accountability is empowering. Good thoughts are a
precursor to success but not usually sufficient to help us move ahead
successfully. Creating a way to track accountability creates an actionable plan
that documents what we are doing in the real world. The map requires:

• Making informed choices about what to work on
• Creating measurable goals
• Implementing a system for ensuring accountability

In moving from victim to accountable we are following the path of

• Victim → Apply Attention and Focus→ Accountable
• Victim → Explore Possibilities → Accountable
• Victim → Make Plans for Change and then Practice → Accountable

Step 4 → Practice

In this stage we try on new ways of functioning and evaluate
their effectiveness. We can consider practice as a trial and error process where
we actively look for new ways to deal with our own mindset.

Practice is the first real step into the new world and it is where we will require the
most active support. We will succeed and we will fail. Just like any beta test for a
product or new way of delivering service this requires a trial and error process.
Talent is helpful but practice is essential.

Step 5- Test → Measure Actual Results, Revise

The single most important discipline in getting things done is review, according to
productivity consultant Marc Orchant. This is the phase where we discover if we
are actually making a difference, acting accountably and diminishing our
victimization. This is business in action.

Conclusion

We measure our results. We see if we are achieving our goals or not. We make
adjustments or refinements to our actions. We act like accountable adults. It is
not easy or comfortable but is does permit us to take right action and most report
the experience as ultimately more satisfying.

In The Power of Personal Accountability Mark Samuel aptly describes the stance
of a victim as, “Why Me?” A victim focuses his time on hiding and denying, a
person of accountability focuses their time and attention on owning, forgiving and
taking action. How much longer do you have to choose? Someone will leave you
or the marketplace will eat you alive if you don’t change.

For myself, I have discovered that choosing the path of accountability brings
greater internal satisfaction and puts me in a place of power. Not control or
controlling others from not doing, but the power to create, to impact and craft the
world in the way that I want it. For me and many of my clients that seems to be
the main attraction and lure. As a leader it is also the carrot to be offered to
many followers who want to contribute, who want to have impact and who want
to make a difference. If you act accountably, you gain power.

I am the biggest barrier I have found to seeing other people and situations
accurately. Often, I simply deceive myself about what’s true because I don’t know
or don’t see. On the path to becoming accountable, it is necessary to employ
some new tools, do hard work, act with courage and enlist the help of others to
help you see that to which you are blind. Are you ready?

Note: A PDF version of this entire article can be found in the Books and Articles Section of the Resources in Action site.