It’s been estimated that the cost of unplanned executive turnover can reach as high as 200% – 300% of the executive’s annual compensation. This year, a significant number of professionals will navigate transitions to new opportunities. Despite economic woes, senior executive turnover is witnessing a surge, with CEO transitions reaching a five-year peak post-COVID. This brings great opportunity for both the professional seeking a leadership position, and for the organization looking for a fresh approach to drive results.
Critical to the success of these transitions is how effectively the executive understands the new organization’s culture and integrates into it. I use the term integration deliberately, rather than “assimilation” or “onboarding,“ with connotations that don’t adequately describe the important work needing to be done.
The Promise and Challenge of New Executive Integration
When a new executive joins a company, they bring with them the promise of new perspectives, new opportunities, and the unleashing of untapped organizational potential. It is usually an exciting time for the new executive, arriving to the organization following a selection process which probably involved several weeks (or months) of discussions with their new boss, board members, peers and others. Day one arrives and they show up fresh and ready to get started on the schedule of “meet and greets” that have been arranged for them. Several more weeks pass as they move through their first 90 days, accompanied by copious notes, a surprise or two, and an evolving hypothesis on where they need to focus their time. In an ideal world, they then slip seamlessly into execution, and everyone lives happily ever after.
However, the reality can be a little different.
Perhaps some of the selection conversations involved a bit of poetic license on the part of the hiring party. Maybe the board members were not quite as close to the business as they seemed, and their perspectives were not as current as they thought. Or maybe somewhere in the weeks of elongated selection and “meet and greet” discussions, the executive heard things that were reshaped by their own experiences and aspirations for the role, skewing the reality of what is truly needed from the new leader.
Anyone who has joined more than one organization in their careers will have experienced things like this. The selection and traditional “onboarding” process can sometimes project an altered reality of the role. On the executive level, it’s an even bigger potential issue. This misalignment usually becomes evident only after extensive discussions and hands-on experience, with the best-case consequence of lost time and energy and the worst case, a failed executive hire and an organization that needs to regroup and start again.
Don’t Onboard…. Integrate.
Quite frankly, there is a great deal at risk – alongside elevated visibility – when a new leader comes into the organization. All stakeholders are watching. Expectations are high. It’s critical to set the best possible path to success for your new executive.
The art of new executive integration lies not just in welcoming a leader, but in ensuring they become an integral part of the organization from the beginning. In my work with organizations across multiple industries, cultures and geographies I’ve found the following conditions are needed for success:
- Clearly understanding the new executives’ aspirations and expectations for the role, and where they see potential challenges.
- Fostering a “day-one mindset” for current team members. This means helping them to feel comfortable sharing their perspectives and enriching the new executive’s ideas and vision with reality from their own experiences in the organization.
- Having a clear picture of the role, priorities and challenges through the lens of the new leader’s future peers, direct reports and line managers. For new C suite executives, this may also involve insight from the board of directors.
- Rallying the new executive and stakeholders around a shared vision of the role, its potential impact and the challenges and opportunities that exist.
- Supporting, coaching and sometimes mentoring the leader as they work through their integration priorities with their team, delivering on any commitments they made.
While the points above provide a glimpse into key considerations for new leader integration, it’s important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. In fact, many organizations experience pitfalls when their process is not tailored to each unique situation. Think about it – every leader and the role they’ll fill is different, every moment in the organization’s history is unique, and the change (or continuity) that is expected from the leader can vary. Regardless, each situation should focus on enabling the executive to move from ideas to execution faster, focus on critical work, and gain the support and proactive engagement of their team.
To accomplish this, the most successful process involves these steps:
- Assess and set the baseline: explore the executive’s leadership style, values, vision and how it aligns with the company culture to set the stage for integration. Documenting their hypothesis for the role creates a strong foundation and allows the executive to reflect as they learn more.
- Facilitate insight gathering and understand where the team and organization are at: uncover the perceptions of company culture, business challenges, opportunities and aspirations that key stakeholders have for the new executive. Maintain confidentiality on “who said what” to encourage frank and open input from the team.
- Turn insights to action: this is where the magic happens. Sharing the collective insights with the executive and their team to identify where priorities for the new leader are aligned, and how the executive and their team can rapidly get to work on the things that matter. This work can be the most impactful when it’s done with the leader and their team together in one room. I’ve observed such sessions to be immensely illuminating for new leaders, as they realize there is other work to be done before they start to power through their own agenda for change. I have seen some big “aha” moments, that enabled the executive to reconsider their early approach and take a path that created stronger engagement and support among their new team.
- Bring the stakeholders along: enable the executive to share insights and action plans with a broader group of stakeholders. It’s important to ensure that how this is shared aligns with the organization’s culture, how they communicate and how they get inspired for action.
What I love about this approach is that it can start on day one and be implemented rapidly. Well before the end of the first 90 days, the executive can be working through a clear integration plan that has the support of their stakeholders and accelerates their sense of being a part of the team. Using an expert in accelerated integration also ensures the executive doesn’t lean too far forward on their initial ideas and commitments; that they first have a solid understanding of the size and scale of their new role.
Executive integration is not easy. It can be time consuming, a bit messy and involve a lot of resources. At best, the risk of failure can be disruptive. At worst, it can derail an organization and negatively impact its credibility. Sometimes, organizations need support to facilitate a process that accelerates the integration and substantially reduces the chances of an executive hiring misfire.
