The Honeymoon's Over

The Honeymoon's Over

If starting a new job makes you nervous, don't relax-it should. How you manage your first weeks in a new executive position can carve a path toward success or mark the beginning of your inevitable demise.
"There is no honeymoon. Once you're on board, you're on display," said Dory Hollander, founding partner of Wise Workplaces, an Arlington, Virginia-based executive coaching firm.
Just as you need a strategy for getting a new job, you should have a good strategy for starting one or your early missteps may come back to haunt you. Here are pointers from executive consultants and coaches for ensuring a smooth and successful transition into a new position:
Check your assumptions at the door.
Before you begin, remind yourself that you are entering a new corporate culture, which might be radically different from the one you left. For instance, you may have worked in an office that thrived on confrontation, but that kind of aggressive style may not be acceptable in your new job. Or perhaps the earnest, self-effacing approach that was effective in your past might be mistaken for a lack of resolve at your new company.
"You need to understand the nuances of the new culture and let go of the nuances of the culture you came from," said Hollander. It's more difficult than it sounds, as it could mean adapting ingrained work habits, especially if you spent several years in your previous position.
Get with the program.
You probably have a good sense of your job responsibilities. But do you understand how your job fits in with the overall mission and strategy of the company? If you don't, sit down with your boss and find out how your results affect the bottom line.
A surprising number of executives work without that knowledge, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to prioritize effectively, said Caela Farren, president of Mastery Works, an Annandale, Virginia talent management firm. "I always ask them how they make decisions without knowing. How do they choose what to focus on?" Farren said. "Especially these days, when we're trying to up performance and do more with less, it's more and more important that people are really hooked in to what's important to the organization."
And don't assume that those reporting to you understand how their jobs tie into the company's mission. If you make sure they know, you will not only help them focus, but you will empower them. "Knowing the mission and strategies gives people a great sense of pride, meaning and commitment," Farren said.
Identify your network of support.
Your first days on the job should be spent getting to know the people upon whom you will rely, as well as those who will rely upon you. In the first few months on the job, you should meet face-to-face with these people. If you manage people in different locations, start traveling. Find out how they work, what stumbling blocks they face, what they need to succeed. What do they expect of you? Build an organizational chart if there isn't one, and create a plan for communicating regularly with the members of your team.
Devote extra time to establishing good relations with the administrative assistants of anyone whose ear you hope to have, including your own boss. Administrative assistants, who often have more power than assumed, are sometimes the confidantes not only of a top executive but a whole group of executives. If you are sarcastic or dismissive with them, they may give you a negative review when a higher-up asks them, "What do you think of the new guy?"
"Never think going into an organization that you are too big or too powerful or too important to pay attention to this very critical group of people," said Hollander. "They may be the watchdogs of the culture."
Listen and learn.
One of the best ways to start a new job is to be open about what you don't know and to use your newness to ask questions. For many executives, displaying ignorance is difficult to do, but it's essential. After all, you may know your field, but as a newcomer to a specific company, there's no reason you should know everything about the way it operates.
Confront the legacies of your hire.
One of the stickiest challenges of starting a new job is dealing with the internal candidates who were passed over for the position you got. Ask your boss for the background, and then approach those people directly.
"Incite the dialogue rather than try to ignore it," said Michael Shahnasarian, president and founder of Career Consultants of America, Inc. in Tampa, Florida. "You can't go in there like a bull in a china shop. You have to be very knowledgeable of all these little dynamics that could undercut your effectiveness."
Soon after starting in a new management position at a brokerage firm, one of Shahnasarian's clients ran into difficulties with a subordinate who had been passed over for his job. The subordinate not only was angry; he had the sympathies of his co-workers. Shahnasarian counseled his client to befriend the man and look at ways to help him advance his career goals elsewhere in the organization. The client did, and ultimately, the subordinate was transferred to a different department, where he got the promotion he had wanted.
If you were hired at a particularly high salary for your company, you should be careful not to mention a fancy vacation, a new car or anything that will suggest you're flaunting your hefty compensation.
Approach change carefully.
A common mistake of new executives is to make a change that is less rooted in strategy than in a desire to flex one's muscles. Those changes often backfire, as they don't take into consideration what is actually needed or how the employees will react to the message.
"Changing the wrong thing, or changing things too soon, is worse than not changing anything at all," McKay said. "You need to know what the impact of the change is going to be. You have to know enough about the organization to know what change is going to be effective in bringing about the desired results."
Limit your promises.
New executives often make too many promises about the things they are going to change. This tendency is often motivated by enthusiasm for the job or a desire to win over new colleagues, career counselors say. But you'll do better to hold your tongue until you know not only what needs changing, but also the most effective way to achieve those changes.
Develop an exit plan.
It seems counterintuitive, but developing an exit plan before starting a new job-or even before accepting a new position-may be the best thing for your career, according to Hollander of Wise Workplaces.
Hollander counsels her clients to develop an exit plan that includes how long they will stay in the job, when they will leave and, most important, what they want to leave with. What skills do you want to acquire? What kind of contacts do you want to have? What kind of new knowledge?
"That's a developmental plan that has teeth in it," Hollander said. "If you just say, 'I've got some goals', those goals will be blown away the first month you're there. They'll evaporate because there will be so much on your plate. Your exit plan won't evaporate because it has got dates and timelines of what you need to learn by what time. It compresses your developmental approach."
Said Hollander, "You will be a better executive, a better entrepreneur, if you start with the exit in mind."
After all, your overall goal is not simply to start a great job, but to build a stellar career.

For More Information:
http://www.gatewayinternationalgroup.com/ http://www.larrymaglin.com/
http://www.lawrencemaglin.com/
http://www.joekran.com/
http://www.josephkran.com/

Staff Review by: Joseph (Joe) Kran, Lawrence (Larry) Maglin, Walter Sonyi, Jr. and Rick Spann

The Permission Paradox

The permission paradox is one of the great Catch-22s in business. "You can't get the job without the experience and you can't get the experience without the job." Many people are confident in their abilities to if given the chance to perform. But the hard part is getting permission to demonstrate these skills and to gain new experiences. This is the Permission Paradox.
You may want to become a CEO, move into general management or make a bigger impact in your company but unless you have permission to take on a broader role, you won't reach your goals. How do you go about getting permission to make a big impact?
"Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow smaller ones."Ralph Waldo Emerson
The permission paradox can be a paralyzing obstacle to overcome and is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Successful executives, unlike a large number of their peers, rarely have trouble gaining access to the most critical opportunities in their careers. They know that the secret is finding some way to get the experiences they need to get ahead.
Forms of permissionBefore formulating your strategy to get the permission you need to advance your career, you first need to understand the two primary forms of permission:
Direct Permission: You can do it because somebody says you can
Implied Permission: You can do it because no one says you can't
One way to identify successful professionals is to look at their job descriptions when they arrived and compare those to the jobs they were actually doing when they left. Among extraordinary executives, you will find a consistent occurrence that the scope of their responsibilities, including the things they have direct permission to do, increases over the tenure of their jobs. These professionals view their job description merely as a starting point - a platform on which to build.
This expansion of permission is often accomplished through implied permission, performing well and then ultimately being granted direct permission.
Permission StrategiesSuccessful executives gain permission and take charge of their experiences in several ways. There are eight strategies for gaining permission.
The direct approach: if you want something, you can always ask
Demonstrate Competence in areas that form the building blocks for new roles
Clean Slate: when you join a new division or company you have a relatively clean slate from which people will grant you permission
Get Credentials: one of the most logical ways to gain associative or expert permission is to get relevant credentials
Barter: you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours
Masquerade as the leader: a risky but sometimes effective strategy also referred to as the 'stealth land grab'.
Two-way mentoring: the key is for both parties to get something from the relationship
Paying politics: not a success pattern followed by extraordinary executives
Each strategy has unique characteristics and outcomes, and situations where they are most appropriate. Some permission strategies are more effective for gaining direct permission and others are better for gaining indirect permission. Some can be used for both.
By understanding and implementing the strategies for resolving the permission paradox, you should be able to get the permissions that are critical, putting you in the best position to perform.

For More Information:
http://www.gatewayinternationalgroup.com/ http://www.larrymaglin.com/
http://www.lawrencemaglin.com/
http://www.joekran.com/
http://www.josephkran.com/

Staff Review by: Joseph (Joe) Kran, Lawrence (Larry) Maglin, Walter Sonyi, Jr. and Rick Spann

This extract is taken from The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers by James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith, published by Random House.