That’s great! You’ve got this promotion or this new job you’ve been dreaming of for a while. Higher salary, broader responsibilities and extended power… Yes, but also coming with... higher complexity, larger expectations and stronger pressure on your shoulders to quickly deliver some results, and prove the people who put you there they were right.
It is a fact that you won’t get for ever to secure some short term wins while working on longer term goals. In this situation, it is very important to be able to quickly analyze the situation, figure out what is wrong, and make some decision to fix it. This is a typical situation in which having a few frameworks to rely on could make a big difference. And most likely you will get 90 days to do it. I have found and practiced for years many good models to manage this crucial period, amongst which this great book by Michael Watkins named "The First 90 Days".
Let’s step back for a second and think about a few topics and questions you have to master before doing anything. How large is the market? What are the main trends? Are there differences per geography? Who are the main competitors? How strong are they? Why? What is the vision, the mission, the culture and the strategy of the company? How is the company organized from marketing, R&D, Product Management, Sales and Pre-sales, Operations…? What are the key processes and tools to support them? What is the overall positioning of the product portfolio? What is its structure? How does the roadmap look like? What are the main technologies you should understand and watch? What are the main goals and objectives for each product line and region? The main issues? The shareholders’ expectations...? We could go on and on…
So it is crucial to get organized, to build a plan, and to have a plan for the plan. This is what I want to cover from 10,000 foot today, by just highlighting some key avenues and tools.
Let’s take a look to the general plan. Within the next 90 days you have first to learn a lot and understanding what is going on over there, whatever the scope of your responsibilities is now (market, company, country, region, department…).
Your actions should span three areas:
- · Assessing the situation both globally and locally (per region, product, department…)
- · Reviewing performance of organizations and people
- · Interviewing key people from top-down
But how can you quickly assess the situation? I don’t know a better tool than simplifying it somehow and building a map. Like I explained it in my previous post about Strategic Selling, you should not mix up the map (simple) and the territory (complex), but the first one is definitely a key resource to navigate the second.
One of the tools I have found extremely relevant is that regard is the following Situation Assessment Matrix.
Basically, whatever the level of your analysis is, you will find your-self in one of the four following situation:
· Start-up: everything has to be created from scratch. A good example is the launch of a new product or the opening of a new country. Nothing is really wrong because there is pretty much nothing yet. Usually there is a lot of energy, great expectations and positive attitude within the teams, but a lack of direction, structure and processes.
· Turnaround: this is the worst case scenario. Here everything goes wrong and you have to fix the mess. Low morale, poor results and extreme frustration are what you’re going to find. This is going to be painful and there will be collateral damages for sure. Be ready for it.
Realignment: things are not as good as they should be, but this is not a catastrophe either. At least not yet, but rather sooner than later if nothing is done to fix it.
· Sustaining Success: this is the best case scenario where everything goes well. Results are great, the right people are at the right place… the challenge here is to find out how to make this success sustainable. Nothing last forever and the natural law of physics goes from order to chaos. How to make the success last?
Actually what you are most likely going to find is a patchworks of these four situations: this product has just been launched or this subsidiary open (start-up), the customer satisfaction is at its lowest point since 5 years (turnaround), the roadmap is great but delivered with one month late in 35% of the case (realignment) and the consulting department is getting best result and the best customer feedback ever (sustaining success). So you need more than one map!
Now that you have an overall understanding of the situation globally and locally, you have to go to the next step and understand why that is from a product, organization or individual stand point. Simply put, that means comparing the results to the objectives over the last 2 to 3 years. This is a data intensive job, but the only way to have an objective view. Again here again, a simple matrix will help you organizing you findings and taking the appropriate action.
This is a pretty self explanatory matrix. Is this product, organization or individual “Often/Always” getting “Good/Poor" results? This is a structure very close to the so well known BCG Matrix’one.
From there you can quickly define the right type of action to be conducted to improve the situation. Let’s consider people, not products or service.
The appropriate answer is quite straight forward:
- · You have to get rid of the low performer (see my previous post)
- · You need to train people who are at risk and struggle performing at the right level. If they did it right once, they could do it again. Helping them to come back on track could surge their energy and benefit the entire team.
- · You have to coach people who are solid and have potential to do better, but are not top performers yet. Your future champions are amongst them.
- · You definitely have to leverage the top performers and use their leaderships to create a global momentum into the right direction. For example they could coach high potential juniors, and lead learn&lunch sessions to share their best practices.
You can easily transpose these actions to a product or service: stop it, rethinking its fundamentals (positioning, features, price, promotion…), fine tune them, or leverage its success by cross selling on the top of them or applying the same success factors to the next generation.
You have also to consider the mix People Profile/Markets, as different markets require different skills. Everybody is not a pure hunter, and every body is not a good farmer. Put the right people at the right place is crucial.
Finally you have to get feedback at all level of the organization. But to make something valuable from the, they have to follow a consistent and simple framework. There are 6 key questions that represent the skeleton of what you have to seek to really evaluate the situation, yesterday, today and tomorrow.
- Biggest challenges in the near future?
- Why?
- Most promising opportunities?
- What is needed to exploit them?
- How are culture, strategy, organization, processes and skills aligned?
- What are the priorities to focus on?
Well you should be well armed now to jump into your new job and make the right steps within the first 90 days and secure the early wins you needs based on a quick, consistent and quite comprehensive analysis. If you have other models that you have used and work, you are more than welcome to share!
