The First 90 Days (26 page)

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Making Waves (of Change)

Let us look at how the first few months of your transition fit into the larger picture of your full tenure in the new position.

In a study of new general managers in various company settings, Jack Gabarro found that they typically plan and

[3]

implement change in distinct “waves,” illustrated in
figure 4-1
. Following an early period of acclimatization, they began an early wave of changes. The pace then slowed to allow consolidation and deeper learning about the organization, and to allow people to catch their breath. Armed with more insight, the new general managers then implemented deeper, more thoroughgoing and structural wave of change. A final, less extreme wave focused on fine-tuning to maximize performance. By this point, most of these leaders were ready to move on.

Figure 4-1:
Waves of Change

Gabarro’s work has intriguing implications for managing transitions. First and most obviously, it suggests that you should devise your plan to secure early wins with your ends clearly in mind. The transition period lasts only a few months, but you will typically remain in the same job for two to four years before moving on to a new position. This two- to four-year period is your era in the organization, during which you will transition, make changes, and pursue your goals. To the greatest extent possible, your early wins should advance these longer-term goals.

Planning Your Waves

In planning for your transition and beyond, it can be clarifying to plan to make successive waves of change. Each wave ought to consist of distinct phases: learning, designing the changes, building support, implementing the changes, and observing results. Thinking this way can release you to spend time up front to learn and prepare, and afterward to consolidate and get ready for the next wave. If you keep changing things, it is impossible to figure out what is working and what is not. Unending change is also a surefire recipe for burning out your people.

The goal of the first wave of change is to secure early wins. The new leader tailors early initiatives to build personal credibility, establish key relationships, and identify and harvest low-hanging fruit—the highest-potential opportunities for shortterm improvements in organizational performance. Done well, this helps the new leader to build momentum and deepen his or her own learning.

The second wave of change addresses more fundamental issues of strategy, structure, systems, and skills to reshape the organization. This is when the real gains in organizational performance are achieved. But you will not get there if you do not secure early wins in the first wave.

Matching Strategy to Situation

Patterns of change differ radically with the different STARS situations. How would you expect the pace and intensity of

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waves of change to differ in start-up, turnaround, realignment, and sustaining-success situations? In more time-critical situations—start-ups and turnarounds—you should expect to begin your first wave of change earlier. The intensity of change, as perceived by people in the organization, will also probably be greater. In realignment and sustaining-success situations, you can afford to take more time to learn and plan. If the business is genuinely in a sustaining-success situation, you might plan several modest waves of change rather than a single big bang.

[3]See John J. Gabarro,
The Dynamics of Taking Charge
(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1987). This is a wonderful study of the transitions of general managers.

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Establishing Long-Term Goals

In the first 90 days, a key goal is to build personal credibility and create organizational momentum. You do this by securing some early wins. Early wins leverage your energy and expand the potential scope of your subsequent actions.

As you look for ways to create momentum, keep in mind that the actions you take to get early wins should do double duty. Plan your early wins so they help you build credibility in the short run
and
lay a foundation for your longer-term goals. Specifically, your efforts to secure early wins should (1) be consistent with your A-item business priorities, and (2) introduce the new patterns of behavior you want to instill in the organization. In other words, the process of pinpointing the early wins you want to go after begins with thinking about the longer-term changes you want to realize by the end of your era.

Focusing on Business Priorities and Behavioral Changes

Your long-term goals should consist of A-item business priorities and desired changes in the behavior of people in your organization. A-item priorities constitute the destination you are striving to reach in terms of measurable business objectives. This destination could be double-digit profit growth or a dramatic cut in defects and rework. For Elena Lee, one A-item priority was significant improvements in customer satisfaction. The point is to define your goals so you can lead with a distinct endpoint in mind.

Think about your legacy here. What do you want it to be? What do you want the letter announcing your promotion to your next job to say about what you did in this one? (It is a useful exercise to write this letter. What would you want people to say about your achievements in this job at the end of two to three years?)
Defining Your A-Item Priorities

How do you select your A-item priorities? You may have no choice—your boss may simply hand them to you. But if you are able to shape your own agenda, or if think you need to negotiate goals with your boss, these guidelines may prove useful:

A-item priorities should follow naturally from core problems.
Establishing A-item priorities calls for pinpointing the critical areas in your organization that demand attention, as well as those that offer the greatest opportunities to contribute to dramatic improvement in performance. Elena Lee did this when she identified service quality as both a critical driver of performance and a goal that she could rally employees around. She might establish an A-item priority to increase customer satisfaction by 60

percent in one year.

A-item priorities should be neither too general nor too specific.
They should address several levels of specificity so you can establish measures and milestones along the way. For example, if your A-item priority is to condense the time it takes to get a new product from concept to customer, you should develop more specific, measurable short-term steps to mark your progress toward that goal. At the same time, it probably isn’t helpful to define daily goals for improving time to market.

A-item priorities should offer clear direction yet allow for flexibility while you learn more about your
situation.
The process of defining your A-item priorities is iterative. You need to have a clear set of goals early on, but you must often test, refine, and restate those goals. You have to remain open to adjusting your objectives as you move along. For example, if you decide the distribution system is a key target for improvement, you might make it an A-item priority to get products to customers 50

percent faster than before by the end of eighteen months. This goal is ambitious, so success would have a big impact. But it also is broad enough that you have some flexibility to figure out how and where you will achieve it, as you learn more.

Targeting Behavioral Changes

If A-item goals are the destination, then the behavior of people in your organization is a key part of how you do (or