Steps for Orderly Launch of a New Management Team

It's a common scenario: A new leader or team of leaders comes into a workplace, eager and willing, but soon runs into the muck of old habits, bad attitudes, and inefficient customs. Enthusiasm flags. Sometimes the new team actually gives up and moves on. More often, it keeps complaining about resistance to change and behind-you-back hostility. None of this needs to be. There's an orderly way to clean house, and then renovate it. BUT, please keep in mind that simple lists are not like antibiotics. You can't just pop a pill. You will need to work hard and adapt any process to your own situation. The following is just a starting point to get you thinking and help you see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. :-)

1. Become familiar with your new organization’s strengths (procedures that are working well, positive feelings and attitudes, strong external relationships, physical and other assets of value). “Appreciative inquiry.” Benefits: Smoother transitions. Retention of good practices, staffers, procedures, facilities, etc.

2. Define aspirations (What do we want the entity to be? To accomplish? To contribute? How do we want customers and partners to see us?) Benefits: Clear mission and position goals.

3. List gaps, defined as people, processes/practices, habits, beliefs (internal and external), relationships, tensions, metrics, liabilities, or whatever else proves useful to clarify ways in which organization is or has historically fallen short of aspirations.

4. Prioritize gaps. What comes first? How to avoid tackling too much, or getting mired in too many details all at once?

5. Set and execute opening strategy. Three key actions that bridge first 50% of gap ASAP. Benefits: Shows strong and clear intention by moving toward aspirations strongly, right away.

6. Strengthen relationships with allies (those who are attracted to your aspirations via your initial movement).

7. Settle into some sort of routine while finishing the next 45% of the journey at a slightly slower pace. Recognize that aspirations usually produce stretch goals and it’s okay to be a bit short of them as long as you have made durable, beneficial progress that everyone can feel.

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Here are some general observations that may also help as you go through these steps:

- The old management team generally hinders, rather than helps, as you pursue your new agenda, which is why old leadership is usually best replaced, not layered over. If some of the old team is still kicking around, kick them out. (How? That's what your HR folks are for. Ask them how to move people on gracefully if they no longer are helpful or relevant.)

- Historical knowledge may or may not be an asset. Were best practices already in place? (See 1.) If not, seek new knowledge and better practice from elsewhere, or create it yourself.

- Resistance to change is a real and powerful thing. It can and will wear out a new management team because it is easier to sabotage than to create. Thus experienced change managers favor a spring cleaning ASAP, in which those who do not exhibit enthusiasm for the new team and its aspirations soon move to other organizations where they feel more at home, and new recruits are brought in who are attracted to the new team and its agenda. You cannot win any game with a team that doesn’t want to play.

- Alex Hiam, Amherst Mass

Personnel Alignment

Additional steps to help new leaders get their teams into good shape  

     Once new management team has a good sense of the existing strengths of organization, a clear view of its aspirations, and sees the main gaps that need to be addressed, plans can begin to be formulated.

     At that point, personnel can be assessed in the context of the emerging new mission and positioning strategy, the desired new performance level, and so forth. Here are a few observations for aligning staff with the vision of the new organization and the plans for it:

1. Start with the big picture: What positions are really going to be needed for certain? Are some now out of date or redundant? Redraw the chart and redefine the positions needed before doing anything more.

2. Recraft the job descriptions so that each desired position is well defined both in terms of the tangibles of work (who does what, when etc.) and the intangibles (presenting the new image, creating positive impact on customers and partners, working smoothly with team, relating positively and productively with leaders, etc.). Attitudes and behaviors that effect other people of importance to the functioning and mission of the organization can and should be included in job descriptions. So should skill sets, performance levels, and willingness to pursue self-improvement if these things are important to the organization going forward.

3. Orient staff to the plans for remaking the organization, and to their new job descriptions, with emphasis on how the two dovetail. 

4. Support staff who genuinely try, with at least some success, to adapt appropriately (so long as they aren’t lingering at an unacceptable level of performance).

5. If necessary, follow a considered, consistent series of several reasonable but firm steps to move others on. Goal should be no staff who are sabotaging the work of the new organization either by performing badly themselves, hurting performance of others, or hurting morale and perceptions of the organization externally.

6. Negative talk is not only annoying, it can (see new job descriptions) actually be “poor performance” if it sabotages important goals for improvement. Write it up (from direct observation if possible). Firmly follow your discipline or outplacement processes.

7. Negative thinking can be a deeply rooted habit, and not entirely in a leader’s control. It is often impractical to change personalities and personal attitudes exhibited at work. Changing the organization is easier than changing any one individual. That’s why change managers often recruit new teams. 

- Alex Hiam, Amherst Mass