The First 90 Days (15 page)

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dramatically accelerate your ability to extract actionable insights. Naturally, the questions you will ask will be tailored specifically for the groups you meet. If you are meeting with salespeople, for example, consider asking: What do our customers want that they are getting from our competitors and not getting from us?

New Leader Assimilation Processes

One example of a structured learning method is the New Leader Assimilation Process originally developed by GE. In this process, each time a manager enters a significant new role, he or she is assigned a transition facilitator. The facilitator meets first with the new leader to lay out the process. This is followed by a meeting with the leader’s new direct reports in which they are asked questions such as: What would you like to know about the new leader? What would you like him or her to know about you? about the business situation? The main findings are then fed back, without attribution, to the new leader. The process ends with a facilitated meeting between the new leader and the direct reports.

Other structured learning methods are valuable in particular situations. Some of the methods described in table 2-1

may increase the efficiency of your learning process depending on your level in the organization and the type of business situation you are in. Effective new leaders employ a combination of methods, tailoring their learning strategy to the demands of the situation.

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Table 2-1: Structured Methods for Learning

Method

Uses

Useful For

Organizational climate

Learning about culture and morale.

Useful for managers at all levels, if

and employee

Many organizations do such

analysis is available specifically for

satisfaction surveys

surveys regularly, and a database

your unit or group.

may already be available. If not,

Usefulness depends on how granular

consider setting up a regular survey

the collection and analysis is. This

of employee perceptions.

also assumes the survey instrument is

a good one and the data have been

collected carefully and analyzed

rigorously.

Structured sets of

Identifying shared and divergent

Most useful for managers leading

interviews with “slices” of

perceptions of opportunities and

groups of people from different

the organization or unit

problems. You can interview people

functional backgrounds.

at the same level in different

Can be useful at lower levels if the

departments (a horizontal slice) or

unit is experiencing significant

bore down through multiple levels (a

problems.

vertical slice). Whichever dimension

you choose, ask everybody the

same questions and look for

similarities and differences in

people’s responses.

Focus groups

Probing issues that preoccupy key

Most useful for managers of large

groups of employees, such as

groups of people who perform a

morale issues among frontline

similar function, such as sales

production or service workers.

managers or plant managers.

Gathering groups of people who

Can be useful for more senior

work together also lets you see how

managers as a way of getting some

they interact and who displays

quick insights into the perceptions of

leadership. Fostering discussion

key employee constituencies.

promotes deeper insight.

Analysis of critical past

Illuminating decision-making

Most useful for higher-level managers

decisions

patterns and sources of power and

of business units or project groups.

influence. Select an important

recent decision and look into how it

was made. Who exerted influence

at each stage? Talk with people

involved, probe their perceptions,

and note what is and is not said.

Process analysis

Examining interactions among

Most useful for managers of units or

departments or functions and

groups in which the work of multiple

assessing the efficiency of a

functional specialties must be

process. Select an important

integrated.

process, such as delivery of

Can be useful for lower-level

products to customers or

managers as a way of understanding

distributors, and assign a

how their groups fit into larger

crossfunctional group to chart the

processes.

process and identify bottlenecks

and problems.

Plant and market tours

Plant tours are opportunities to meet

Most useful for managers of business

production personnel informally and

units.

to listen to their concerns. Meetings

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Method

Uses

Useful For

help you assess technical

capabilities. Market tours can

introduce you to customers, whose

comments can reveal problems and

opportunities.

Pilot projects

Gaining deep insight into technical

Useful for managers at all levels. The

capabilities, culture, and politics.

size of the pilot projects and their

Though these insights are not the

impact will of course increase as one

primary purpose of pilot projects,

rises through the organization.

you can learn a lot from how the

organization or group responds to

your pilot initiatives.

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Creating a Learning Plan

Your learning agenda defines
what
you want to learn. Your learning plan defines
how
you will go about learning it. It translates learning goals into specific sets of actions—identifying promising sources of insight and using systematic methods—that accelerate your learning. Your learning plan is a critical part of your overall 90-day plan. In fact, as we will discuss later, learning should be a primary focus of your plan for your first 30 days on the job.

The heart of your learning plan is a cyclical learning process in which you collect information, analyze and distill it, develop hypotheses, and test them, thus progressively deepening your understanding of your new organization.

Obviously, the specific insights you decide to pursue will vary from situation to situation. You can begin by looking critically at the learning plan template