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Focus on execution
Success in making transitions is really about creating momentum. You wanna be doing some early learning, being seen to become part of the place, and then figuring out where you’re gonna get some of those crucial early wins. If you do that, it builds momentum, people get excited about what’s going on, it creates credibility and gives you more capital politically and otherwise to really push things forward. And early wins can cover a variety of topics. It can range from being seen to be connecting with the organization. It can be about being seen to understand what the organization’s trying to accomplish or it can be something much more operational, right? There are some key issues, for example, where there are some really high priority things that need to be changed. You’re seen as focusing in on those and beginning to have an impact early on.
However, momentum can cut both ways. If you do some things that are seen as problematic, you make some early mistakes, you can create a downward spiral for yourself that’s very, very difficult to reverse. There’s a well known phenomenon in social psychology called the confirmation bias. The confirmation bias says that once someone’s made up their mind about something or someone, they will tend to collect data that supports that belief and pushes aside data that doesn’t. Think about how that operates in the context of a transition. If you’re seen as being effective, the halo surrounds you, the momentum builds. On the other hand, if you’re seen as being ineffective, you’ve made some mistakes and bad choices, you can begin to create a dynamic that is incredibly difficult to reverse. It’s for this reason that I say that you really need to focus not only on the learning process, but also thinking very hard about where you’re gonna get those early wins. The key is to really think through what are the early wins I need to get? Make sure that you’re not trying to take on too much. Identify three or four areas where you’re really gonna try and have an impact and then just make sure you execute on those things.
Gather clues
As you think about getting early wins, it’s very important to take both the business situation and the organization’s culture into account. What counts for a win in a turnaround, rapid decisive action may not be an early win at all in a realignment scenario where people still need to be convinced that change is necessary. Likewise, as you think about the culture, understand what the culture basically says about the right way to go about getting early wins. For example, is it a highly individualistic organization or culture where stars are an acceptable thing and you being seen to be driving initiatives very publicly is really an attractive thing to have happen? Or is it a more collegial and team-based culture whereas the Russians used to say the tallest stock of grain is the first to fall to the side. In those situations, you wanna be thinking about how do you sort of spread out credit for what’s going on, perhaps not being seen to lead quite so visibly. Regardless, your understanding of the culture should give you important clues about what you need to do to secure early wins.