Time to make your mark

By MARK STORY

Congratulations, you've finally landed your first top role and are raring to make your mark. But on your first day, the board makes 13 staff redundant after losing a major contract. Making matters worse, you discover staff turnover is running at 40 per cent annually and cynicism is rampant among remaining staff. Welcome to your new job. How will you handle it?

Having been handed this Pandora's box on arriving to run floundering engineering/architectural consultancy, City Design, civil engineer Barry Potter knew his first 90 days would be make or break.

Within industry circles there were no illusions over where the underlying problems lay. Potter's predecessors at City Design - formerly owned by Auckland City - struggled to make the sea-change from local government to a private business.

Potter had to keep City Design's wheels turning, while making a quantum leap into the commercial real world - without alienating staff further. So how did he make his mark over those critical first three months? Potter's first decision was to remind staff the firm wouldn't recover if they kept walking out in such numbers.

Although seen by some as somewhat juvenile, Potter divided the company's 100 mostly professional staff into small groups and asked them to draw a picture - without words - describing what the company would look like in three years. In hindsight, he says getting staff to paint these "rich pictures" paid off big-time.

"Still gracing the firm's corridors, the pictures became the company's vision," says Potter. "They were powerful in conveying underlying sentiment on where staff wanted to be."

To get the necessary staff buy-in on needed changes, many of Potter's first 90 days were spent being highly visible to clients and staff.

He didn't eradicate cynicism completely within the first three months but after a series of one-on-one meetings with each staff member he had a clearer sense of their abilities, personalities and how the company functioned.

Armed with that knowledge he proceeded to build his personal credibility. That meant getting "runs on the board" by focusing on what needed changing.

Not surprisingly, 70 per cent of those early days were spent listening to what processes staff and clients needed to move the company forward.

"It's amazing what you'll learn about what needs fixing when you bother to sit down and have a cup of coffee with people," Potter says.

One of the first things that needed fixing was insufficient HR expertise to deal with individual staff issues. To help to stem the high turnover rate and identify where the firm's real competencies lay, Potter immediately brought in HR consultant Stewart Forsyth.

Suspecting some staff reluctance to rock the boat, Forsyth also started mining former climate and staff exit surveys to give Potter a fuller picture of the business.

Forsyth didn't want Potter falling into the common trap of trying to develop strategy while some pieces of the company's jigsaw were still being found.

"It's only human nature to want to fit in when joining a new group, especially if you're a CEO. But a new boss has to back his own judgment," says Forsyth, an industrial psychologist with FX Consultants.

He discovered that while staff had already volunteered vitally important information through surveys, former management had failed to act on it. After adding Forsyth's research to the feedback he had received from staff and clients, Potter was ready to act on his findings.

His initial conclusion was that it would take time to recover from 40 per cent staff turnover. Potter decided to bring in a couple of market leaders, an architect and environmental management expert. Based on Forsyth's advice, a full-time specialist was also hired to develop proper management systems.

Potter's next challenge was to successfully harness individual expertise to help to make needed changes.

Instead of waiting for staff to make mistakes, he figured the best way to assess competencies was by coaching and working alongside staff to find solutions. With staff eager to support his recommendations, Potter prepared a blueprint for change around rolling three-monthly action plans.

Underscoring these plans was the need to win better work, improve productivity, capabilities and client satisfaction - and make City Design a desirable workplace.

"It is critical for staff to see progress. If I hadn't brought in HR expertise, listened to staff and customers and involved the organisation in implementing three-month action plans we wouldn't have achieved success," says Potter.

Forsyth attributes Potter's ability to woo staff during those early days to his collaborative management style and reluctance to take a "gung-ho" approach to changes.

"CEOs can feel uncomfortable saying 'I disagree', especially when they haven't had their feet under the desk long," says Forsyth. "But they can't afford to do all the listening - when they're ultimately responsible for making change."

But that doesn't mean making sweeping changes without fully understanding the business and those running it, says business psychologist Iain McCormick.

He says execs who fall back on their core strengths when entering a new job can wreak havoc if those strengths are inappropriate. He cites as an example the temptation many tech-driven execs have of focusing on the IT issues before understanding business nuances and people.

"The great thing about the first 90 days in any new role is you have the perfect excuse to ask dumb questions," says McCormick, who runs the Executive Coaching Centre. "The tightrope all CEOs walk is gaining the confidence of the board without losing it at a divisional level."

But as the honeymoon period is quickly replaced by solid expectations, he warns new execs to find out as much as they can as fast as possible. New execs are more likely to get quality feedback and staff confidence if they remain true to character and play an open hand.

"Acting prescriptively can be seen as cheesy. People can pick up on insincerity through non-verbal communications."

It's important to find out as much as you can about the organisation before joining. But you can't expect to fully understand the culture and key issues until you're on the job.

"How we're running the firm a year down the track is simply a continuation of the processes put into place within those first 90 days," advises Potter.

The key to laying the right foundation is building credibility by listening to what needs doing, calling it straight and then delivering on it.

"I didn't come in to raise hell, nor did I adopt a new management style. It was just me being me," says Potter. "Build a good team, back yourself, don't be afraid to ask for help, and earn the support of staff."

Tips for handling the first 90 days

* Build a good team around you.

* Back yourself.

* Don't be afraid to ask for help.

* Earn the support of staff.

* Build long-term credibility.

* Treat staff and customers equally.

* Understand staff capabilities.

* Listen to all stakeholders before making changes.

* Be highly visible to clients and staff.

* Unleash and guide the company's human capital.