Sharing best practice in changing political and business leaders

This summer has seen unprecedented leadership changes in politics, business, sport, and entertainment.

We have witnessed extraordinary and rapid UK government change following the EU-membership referendum. In the US, a media circus surrounds the election of its 45th president. Here in Ireland the process to select the next Fine Gael leader and taoiseach is widely anticipated in the coming months.

In business, CEOs globally change on average every 10 years, and an entire industry of expert consultants has developed around the topic of transition planning. Some Irish public sector CEO roles are for a five-year fixed term; and some key State agencies are recruiting new chief executives.

Leadership change appears to be everywhere. Never before has the need for robust transition planning been so important. Sharing best practice between the political arena and business world could benefit both.

Done well, leadership change offers huge opportunities for both the organisation and the individual leader, ensuring that the changing challenges facing an organisation are matched by the specific skills of the new leader. The best entrepreneur may be the worst possible leader of a business that is going through a consolidation phase. Having the right leader for the right time is crucial.

It seems obvious that a bit of strategic transition planning can result in a higher success rate, ensuring the new leader’s performance is optimised. Few businesses do it really well and some countries’ political systems seem to manage leadership transition better than others.

Transition teams

Sometimes leadership transitions are long and carefully planned, none more than the transition of American presidents. A newly elected president has more than two months – between election day in early November and inauguration day on January 20th – to set up a new administration. In fact, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have already established transition teams aiming to manage the process more openly from November.

Other political systems don’t have that luxury. British prime minister Theresa May stepped into her new role within days. Political leadership change is often accompanied by an immediate reshuffle of the leadership team: sometimes this rapid change appears to result in a great loss of expertise and appointments made for party political reasons rather than on merit.

In business a newly appointed CEO usually inherits an existing senior management team, with an immediate task to remodel that team in the context of a new set of priorities, ensuring the team is balanced and optimised. These changes needed to be made sensitively if the team is to retain its motivation and commitment: however a common fault in business seems to be a hesitation to implement such necessary changes.

In business, planning for a successful leadership transition has become more robust. Some new business leaders, borrowing from US presidential transition methods, establish “transition teams” to help project manage the transfer of power, quickly redefining their management team’s roles and driving on the organisation with renewed energy and a greater clarity of its priorities. Transition into a new leadership role is an exciting time, bursting with opportunities that will not present themselves again.

First 100 Day Plan

When I have assumed new leadership roles (some successful, some ending in failure) I have used a First 100 Day Plan approach; focused on planning, engagement and delivery.

Key phases are defined; each with clear aims/targets and internally communicating completion of key commitments. Employee engagement is important: meeting all staff to hear their views on the organisation, clarifying which activities they see as important to the success of the organisation and identifying which areas, in their view, need attention or greater resources.

Feedback to employees, saying; “This is what I’ve heard from you, these seem to be your priorities,” is a powerful message. While very carefully avoiding over-promising or falsely raising expectations, integrating the most crucial of these issues in your plan for the business helps enormously to enhance widespread commitment and ownership of that plan.

Finally, identifying and realising “quick wins” helps to build credibility and to get some momentum going.

The last few weeks have truly witnessed extraordinary leadership change, the next few months will see more. There will be a new American president, a new taoiseach, maybe even a new lead presenter of Top Gear, and dozens of new chief executives in business. Assuming the selection process in each case results in appointment of the most capable available candidate, their eventual success will hugely depend upon how well each manages those first 100 days.

@careyonfood