Barbara's Book Corner - Managing Executive Transitions

In 2022 I changed roles from being a Talent director for Capgemini Invent, to working for Capgemini Group as the head of global leadership talent. In this role I grapple on a daily basis with questions around senior succession development and the support our Group leaders need to continuously grow.

Now, I do have some experience in the field of leadership development, having spent 4 years leading executive education at our University. But development at the top is a different ballgame. Development programs still have a place, but also have their limits in how they can help prepare someone for the challenges they will face at an enterprise leadership level. Some things you can only really learn by doing.

It follows logically then that mobility is one of the key tools for senior development. It provides leaders with a broader view of the organization and a better understanding of how the different elements of the enterprise fit together in the value chain. But more importantly, the actual fact of having people go through a myriad of different experiences, gives the opportunity to gain, test and demonstrate new skills and behaviours.

This goes beyond the general notions of 70-20-10, as George Hallenbeck from the Center of Creative Leadership states. In the article experience as a leadership tool, He shares 6 insights around experience-based development which I have listed below:

1. All experiences matter – internally and also outside of work, for instance taking a leadership role on a board or providing pro-bono services to community groups.
2. Some experiences matter more than others.?The best developmental experiences happen when employees to step outside their comfort zone. If you’re looking to develop yourself, be on the lookout for full- or part-time assignments that provide higher levels of novelty, challenge, visibility, and pressure.
3. Quality + Quantity + Diversity of Experience = A Well-Rounded Leader.?Truly great leaders have a whole string of high-quality developmental experiences that are diverse in nature. A turnaround, followed by a start-up, followed by a cross-cultural assignment and then maybe a functional shift, etc.
4. Learning from experience doesn’t follow a straight line of progress.?Struggle and failures are a natural part of learning from experience. Leaders need to be resilient and set their expectations accordingly.
5. Bad experiences can teach us the most.?Mistakes, crises, and career setbacks offer some of the richest opportunities for learning and development. But that’s only if individuals and organizations have the courage to capitalize on the opportunity to examine and learn from failure. This requires a culture of transparency and support where uncomfortable matters are dealt with constructively. Managers need the coaching skills to have conversations with their people that encourage development and drive future performance, even (especially) when things go wrong.
6. Having high-quality experiences doesn’t guarantee learning.?Individuals need to be willing and able to learn from their experiences.

Now, if we are asking our senior leaders to transition more often and in more challenging ways, how can we best support them through this process? Even if struggling is a great opportunity for learning, there is a huge cost associated with executive transition failure – both for the organization and for the individual, so getting it right should be a priority.

In the book at the centre of this book corner, Mastering Executive Transitions, Navid Nazemian states that between 30-50% of transitions fail at an estimated cost to the organisation of 2.5-30 times the executive’s annual salary. We can add to that the more indirect costs of the ripple effect on the team's performance and engagement as well as a negative impact on the image of the organization.

For the individual leader, an unsuccessful transition can spell the end of a career. The exposure that comes with top jobs makes it very visible when things go wrong and even if we like to embrace failure as learning, organizations are not always that forgiving and can have a long memory. So, Navid builds a compelling case around why we should help executives through transitions and shares his thoughts on how to do this.

It starts with recognising why executive transitions are so hard.?Firstly, all transitions are likely to increase stress levels. According to the Leadership Transitions Report 2021 by Development Dimensions International (DDI), “more than one-third (34%) of leaders, regardless of level, described their transition as overwhelming or very stressful, and at least 5% thought of quitting. A stressful transition also sends leaders hurtling toward burnout, even if they transitioned to their role a long time ago. Among leaders who had a highly stressful transition, 37% said they feel used up each day, compared to only 11% of their peers with low-stress transitions.”

What makes it extra hard at executive level is that there are often different challenges piled on top of each other making transitions exponentially more difficult.

The book mentions a list of challenges that executives deal with, often in combinations of 2, 3 or more:

·??????New organization – understanding “how work gets done around here”

·??????Big promotion – new skills required, shifts in stakeholder landscapes

·??????Leading former peers – and how this changes relationships

·??????Corporate diplomacy – influencing key stakeholders indirectly

·??????International move – cultural adjustments and family implications

·??????Turnaround – going in on a rescue mission

·??????Realignment – inheriting a function that is in denial

·??????Business portfolio – for instance in post-merger integrations

If there are many reasons why transitions are hard, there are some clear similarities in the top 10 reasons why they fail – and most of these are not about lack of technical or functional competence.

According to Navid, executive transitions often fail as a result of reasons related to people, culture and politics. For instance, lacking outside in focus, reluctance to make tough calls, inability to handle the emotional toll or having low emotional awareness.

And this is what interests me as a talent professional as it is exactly the space where the talent function and executive coaches can play a part.

The DDI report I mentioned earlier also states there was clear evidence that leaders who received transition support of the “talent” kind, were far more likely to experience a smooth transition than those who didn’t. This support could take on various forms, such as:

• Being assessed (61% of those in smooth transitions cites this support versus 46% in difficult transitions)
• Receiving leadership training (65% versus 55%)
• Being coached by the new manager (57% versus 45%)
• Being coached by the previous manager (52% versus 41%)
• Receiving 360-degree feedback (56% versus 44%)
• Being assigned a formal manager / coach (30% versus 21%)

According to DDI “In addition to providing support through formal programs, organizations can help leaders have smoother transitions by demystifying what it means to succeed at the next level. Of leaders who had smooth transitions, 81% said their organizations set clear expectations for their performance. Of those with extremely difficult transitions, only 61% of leaders said the same."

Leaders want to know what success looks like in their role. It’s not just about metrics they are responsible for, but the skills and behaviours they will be judged on.

There are two additional points I would like to make. Firstly, the same study states that being assigned a formal coach is only available to 23-28% of the executives at the moment, whilst it was a big differentiator at especially the higher levels. There seems to be room for growth in that area and Navid builds a good case for this in his book – even if we account for the fact he is an executive transition coach himself.

Secondly, and quite frankly puzzling to me, is that female leaders receive considerably less transition support throughout their career. Men are 13% more likely to receive leadership skills training, 19% more likely to be formally assessed and 22% more likely to be assigned a mentor or executive coach. It would be interesting to understand why this is the case especially when increasing female diversity at the top is a common goal in most organizations these days. But that is for another day.

Let me conclude with some other take-aways from the book:

• Transitions take much longer than people usually think, beyond the often mentions first 90 days and more like 4-18 months. We need to think of it like a journey with different phases rather than a quick fix and support should be tailored accordingly.
• The right support for integration can half the time for new leaders to get up to speed and increase the likelihood of a successful transition by 50%. Those are substantial benefits, likely to outweigh the associated costs. Check out the book for the “double diamond” framework and other practical tools to use.
• And finally, one of my favourites. Energy matters more than time. While time is a finite resource, energy can be replenished with careful attention and management. People at the top often are very resilient, otherwise they wouldn’t have got to that level. But resilience can also mean signals to slow down are ignored. It is therefore important to build in healthy practices around four dimensions: body (taking frequent breaks), emotions (rejecting the role of a victim when facing adversity), mind (avoiding constant distractions) and spirit (participating in activities that give us a sense of meaning and purpose).

In summary, the life of an executive is demanding and often involves many changes and transitions. There is a compelling business case for organizations to provide better support to our executives in transitions to help them be successful quicker. But taking care of yourself is a role that cannot and should not be delegated.

About the author

Navid Nazemian is a globally recognised coach and thought leader in executive transitions and the author of Mastering Executive Transitions - The Definitive Guide. He started his professional career of 26 years in commercial roles, before moving to leadership roles in HR in order to elevate the practice of people, leadership, and culture.