You're the new CEO of a struggling company. How can you turn things around?

Completely agree with Chris Macdonald especially in respect of the need to communicate with your workforce and teams early and consistently. Don't wait for wins. Another point worth mentioning, is that if the new CEO asks their workforce to pitch in and work harder to help reach a critical goal, s/he will need to trust the workforce with the data even when it isn't pretty. That's a judgement call.

Assess and engage. Engage and assess. A trap I have seen countless execs in this position fall into is that they blindly swoop in to ‘save the day’; very often with good intentions and with the hope of making a great first impression on the team. Showing up with a template approach or based on second hand information can be damaging to both the team and the credibility of the new leader. Be intentional about assessment and engagement. Walk the floor. Get a sense of the pulse of the people, the culture and the enablers/disablers that exist. Craft something with them rather than dictating something to them. Their input and perspectives will be invaluable.

If you are already CEO then it's fair to say that you have a pretty good concept of the issues being experienced. You will also have a good idea of where your Board sees the main challenges. So now the task is to identify the low hanging fruit across the most obvious areas such as clients, cash, debt, capability, reputation, sales etc. You will be judged by your early moves so bite off what is achievable in the first 90 days but don't wait for success before communicating and sharing with all key stakeholder groups, internal and external. Don't underestimate how tricky and time consuming this will be but the effort will repay you later. Of course gaining buy-in from your leadership team is critical early, there is little time for debate.

First thing first. Assess the problem and plan accordingly. Need to gather all the useful information of the company for assessment. After that, need to change whatever company is doing wrong in the past. whether it is lack of management, lack of motivation, or lack of professionalism.

Assessing the situation is clear, any new CEO (or executive, manager, or team leader) will do that when taking over a new leadership position. The question is rather what to do with the information? How to make the right decisions? I would suggest using the Cynefin framework. It's one of the most referenced, and used, decision making frameworks out there. You can check out the original HBR article (A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making) or the EU Field Guide (Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis).

If one chooses to be the CEO of a struggling company, the person would have already studied the company's tough conditions and has skill set and willingness to save the company from struggle . The board would have appointed that person as CEO by trusting a person's capabilities/record to turn around the things. That's a big responsibility to make history for the company and for his /her own career. I would suggest the approach below: - Accept the company's current position of struggle -Understand the root cause of the situation -Know the strengths/weakness of the company in terms of financial standing, good will, quality of product, Marketing and the SLT etc - Plan to leverage on the strengths and restructure rest -Clear strategy &Plan -

Defining the vision should be the first step. It's not about slogans but operating models. AI, workforce, political and environmental dynamics are going to fundamentally change how we work. The real question is what does your company need to do to stay relevant and still be here in ten years? Once you have worked that out absolutely assess the current situation, sentiment and gaps.

After that, need to create a clear and comprehensive vision and set goals. Also, need energetic and skillful managers to implement the vision.

In the 'Planning the change' step, you should define principles guiding the design, e.g., simplification, automation, autonomous decision-making, and involve representatives from all impacted groups to understand their pain points so that new models, structures, processes or technologies address these. This will make it easier to get buy in.

If your company is bleeding then there is not a lot of time for detailed planning, however after triage actions are initiated, the planning process is somewhat different from other change with well defined scope. The feeling can be overwhelming and the temptation to touch everything all at once compelling. In reflection, I would have been better to identify change initiatives that could be delegated, and to focus my attention on building my support infrastructure. I would spend less time on detailed planning and more time engaging with my board, investors, legal and finance stakeholders. These people want a relationship, not a Gantt chart.

If key members of your team have been planning and leading various initiatives, then execution (and sustainability) is already up and running. It is a trap to think of your early initiatives as being the main game - it is just the start of creating your business' change capability. Of recent times boards are under increasing pressure to be close the business and participate as a more integrated part of the leadership team. I have seen the benefits of having change leaders attend board meetings to share their initiatives. It is amazingly powerful in providing deeper engagement from the top and recognition of the change agents' efforts. This sets the team up for ongoing belief in the future and therefore a company that knows how to change.

With the fast pace of change across the business landscape, initiatives are lucky to achieve the business case return, let alone in the payback period, before the next wave of change hits. For a CEO "Sustain the Change" is the wrong concept. Success across the initial change is a good outcome but the ultimate outcome is to achieve a business ethic and culture that "Sustains Change". This means having (among other things): - A planning cycle that allows for frequent adjustments while maintaining alignment - A leadership group who are proficient in leading change - A performance culture that rewards 'what' people do as well as 'how' they do it - Clear delegation and empowerment policies with team rewards. NO business cases with a 10yr ROI