Quotes About Organization

The Stakeholder Checklist As you transition into a new business unit or company, you'll need to identify those people inside and outside the organization who can help you push your agenda forward.

The first and most important step, then, is to understand what the culture is, at a macro level, and how it's manifested in the particular organization or unit you're joining.

Even a few hours of preentry planning can go a long way. Begin by thinking about your first day in the new job. What do you want to do by the end of that day? Then move to the first week. Then focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three-month mark. These plans will be sketchy, but the simple act of beginning to plan will help clear your head.

Accelerate everyone. Finally, you need to help all those in your organization—direct reports, bosses, and peers—accelerate their own transitions. The fact that you're in transition means they are too.

What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face in the near future)? Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges? What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth? What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities? If you were me, what would you focus attention on?

Having identified potential threats and opportunities, the group should next evaluate them with reference to organizational capabilities.

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization. If

Building "ambidextrous" organizations that can do both of these well is a challenge. See Michael L. Tushman and Charles O'Reilly III, Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal, rev. ed. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

You'll also need to establish new, more formal channels for communicating your strategic intent and vision across the organization—convening town hall–style meetings rather than individual or small-group sessions, or using e-mails and video more frequently to broadcast your messages to the widest possible audiences.

it is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can. The more efficiently and effectively you learn, the more quickly you will close your window of vulnerability.

Negotiate time lines for diagnosis and action planning. Don't let yourself get caught up immediately in firefighting or be pressured to make calls before you're ready. Buy yourself some time, even if it's only a few weeks, to diagnose the new organization and come up with an action plan.

Accelerate the development of political connections. In effective onboarding processes, companies identify the full set of critical stakeholders and engage them before the executive formally joins the organization. Typically, a point person from HR touches base with the new hire's boss, peers, and direct reports to create this list. This point person also may encourage and support the transitioning executive in setting up and conducting early meetings with these stakeholders.

The situational diagnosis conversation. In this conversation, you seek to understand how your new boss sees the STARS portfolio you have inherited. Are there elements of start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success? How did the organization reach this point? What factors—both soft and hard—make this situation a challenge? What resources within the organization can you draw on?

Decision making becomes more political—less about authority, and more about influence.

They must also be expert in the principles of organizational design, business process improvement, and skills development and management.

As you move to higher levels, however, it becomes increasingly important to get good political counsel and personal advice. Political counselors help you understand the politics of the organization, an understanding that is especially important when you plan to implement change.

Expectations Alignment No matter how well you think you understand what you're expected to do, be sure to check and recheck expectations once you formally join your new organization. Why? Because understandings that are developed before you join—about mandates, support, and resources—may not prove to be fully accurate once you're in the job.

However, even if your new organization doesn't have formal transition support, you should engage with HR and your new boss about creating a 90-day transition plan.

To adapt successfully, you need to understand what the culture is overall and how it's manifested in the organization or unit you're joining (because different units may have different subcultures). In doing this, it helps to think of yourself as an anthropologist sent to study a newly discovered civilization.

he'll need to identify both the core challenges and competency gaps he faces, and then organize himself to deal with them most effectively. He'll have to exercise personal discipline to do things he normally wouldn't, build a team that complements him, and think hard about what advice and counsel he'll need and how he'll use it.

Programming is a lot like construction. Imagine a contractor building a house for you without a blueprint. Yikes! You might end up with a house that has 12 bathrooms, no windows, and a front door on the second floor. Plus, it probably would cost you 10 times the estimated price. Programming is the same way. Without a plan, you'll likely struggle through the process and waste time. You might even end up with a program that doesn't quite work.

Tolerance for failure is a very specific part of the excellent company culture—and that lesson comes directly from the top. Champions have to make lots of tries and consequently suffer some failures or the organization won't learn. Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr. In Search of Excellence

The system isn't something you bring to the business. It's something you derive from the process of building the business.

A business that looks orderly says to your customer that your people know what they're doing.