The First 90 Days (16 page)

in the accompanying box and deciding which elements make sense for you, which do not, and what is missing. In the

next chapter
, we will explore different types of transition situations and return to the subject of what you need to learn and when.

Learning Plan Template

Before Entry

Read whatever you can find about the organization’s strategy, structure, performance, and people.

Look for external assessments of the performance of the organization. You will learn how knowledgeable, fairly unbiased people view the organization. If you are a manager at a lower level, talk to people who deal with your new group as suppliers or customers.

Find external observers who know the organization well, including former employees, recent retirees, and people who have transacted business with the organization. Ask these people open-ended questions about the organization’s history, politics, and culture. Talk with your predecessor if possible.

Talk to your new boss.

As you begin to learn about the organization, write down your first impressions and eventually some hypotheses.

Compile an initial set of questions to guide your structured inquiry once you arrive.

Soon After Entry

Review detailed operating plans, performance data, and personnel data.

Meet one-on-one with your direct reports and ask them the questions you compiled. You will learn about convergent and divergent views, and about them as people.

Assess how things are going at key interfaces from the inside. You will hear how salespeople, purchasing agents, customer service representatives, and others perceive your organization’s dealings with external constituencies. You will also learn about problems they see that others do not.

Test strategic alignment from the top down. Ask people at the top what the company’s vision and strategy are. Then see how far down into the organizational hierarchy those beliefs penetrate. You will learn how well the previous leader drove vision and strategy down through the organization.

Test awareness of challenges and opportunities from the bottom up. Start by asking frontline

This document was created by an unregistered ChmMagic, please go to http://www.bisenter.com to register it. Thanks.

people how they view the company’s challenges and opportunities. Then work your way up.

You will learn how well the people at the top check the pulse of the organization.

Update your questions and hypotheses.

Meet with your boss to discuss your hypotheses and findings.

By the End of the First Month

Gather your team to feed back your preliminary findings. You will elicit confirmations and challenges of your assessments, and will learn more about the group and its dynamics.

Now analyze key interfaces from the outside in. You will learn how people on the outside (suppliers, customers, distributors, and others) perceive your organization and its strengths and weaknesses.

Update your questions and hypotheses.

Analyze a couple of key processes. Convene representatives of the responsible groups to map out and evaluate the processes you selected. You will learn about productivity, quality, and reliability.

Meet with key integrators. You will learn how things work at interfaces among functional areas within the company. What problems do they perceive that others do not? Seek out the natural historians. They can fill you in on the history, culture, and politics of the organization, and they are also potential allies and influencers.

Meet with your boss again to discuss your observations.

This document was created by an unregistered ChmMagic, please go to http://www.bisenter.com to register it. Thanks.

Learning About Culture

Your most vexing business problems likely will have a cultural dimension. In some cases, you will find that aspects of the existing culture are key impediments to realizing high performance. You will thus have to struggle to change them.

Other aspects of the culture will turn out to be functional and thus worthy of preservation. Having realized how proud and motivated the workforce was, Chris Bagley could draw on this energy to upgrade the plant. Think how much more difficult it would have been had he inherited a group of complacent, hostile people.

Because cultural habits and norms operate powerfully to reinforce the status quo, it is vital to diagnose problems in the existing culture and to figure out how to begin to address them. These assessments are particularly important if you are coming in from the outside or joining a unit within your existing organization that has a strong subculture.

You can’t hope to change your organization’s work culture if you don’t understand it. One useful framework for

[1]

analyzing an organization’s work culture approaches it at three levels: symbols, norms, and assumptions.

Symbols
are signs, including logos and styles of dress; they distinguish one culture from another and promote solidarity. Are there distinctive symbols that signify your unit and help members recognize one another?

Norms
are shared social rules that guide “right behavior.” What behaviors get encouraged or rewarded in your unit? What elicits scorn or disapproval?

Assumptions
are the often-unarticulated beliefs that pervade and underpin social systems. These beliefs are the air that everyone breathes. What truths does everyone take for granted?

To understand a culture, you must peer below the surface of symbols and norms and get at underlying assumptions.

To do this you need to carefully watch the way people interact with one another. For instance, do people seem most concerned with individual accomplishment and reward, or are they more focused on group accomplishment? Does the group seem more casual, or more formal? More aggressive and hard-driving, or more laid-back?

[2]

As my colleague Geri Augusto has noted, the most relevant assumptions for new leaders involve
power
and
value
.

Regarding power, key questions are as follows: Who do key people in your organization think can legitimately exercise authority and make decisions? What does it take to earn your stripes? Regarding value, what actions are believed by employees to create (and destroy) value? At White Goods, employees were proud of producing premium-quality products, so a decision to move downmarket could easily trigger resistance. Divergent assumptions about power and value—for example, between workers and managers—can complicate efforts to align the organization. Some degree of divergence is, of course, unavoidable. The danger comes when the gap becomes too wide to be bridged by effective communication and negotiation.

Organizational, Professional, and Geographic Perspectives

You can also think about culture from three perspectives: organizational, professional, and geographic. As you read the following descriptions, imagine examining each aspect of culture through a camera’s zoom lens. Start by zooming in to see organizational culture, then gradually widen your focus to see professional culture, and then focus broadly on geographic culture.

Organizational Culture.
Cultures within organizations or groups develop over time, and can be deeply rooted.