Leadership through Eyes of a Coach...Alan Booth

Saturday, July 30, 2011

THE CHALLENGE OF GOING FROM BIG TO SMALL COMPANY CAREER CHANGE

Recently an executive at a private equity firm asked me about my experience with CEO's of mid-market companies who come from management positions of Fortune 500 size companies.

He related how the performance of such CEO's are consistently below his expectations - because of their outstanding success at GE, IBM, Goldman Sachs, etc. So what is the solution [besides lowering expectations]?

A sample of CEO's interviewed suggests we should pay attention to:


  1. More targeted interviewing around "success factors" specific to what is required of leadership to achieve in the given company


  2. Identification of potential weaknesses during the interview process - that can be a focus of future coaching when joining the new firm


  3. A structured on-boarding process that helps the newly landed executive develop trusting relationships before invoking change initiatives; structured dialogue around style and expectations of both the new executive and his/her team


  4. Focus on the skills to change the company's culture to better support execution of strategy


  5. Frequent feedback around progress, not only of goal achievement, but of the leadership required to accelerate achievement

One of the biggest barriers to a leader's success that I have observed involves the PE operational executives who either turnover an executive too quickly (and repeat the same problems of hiring and on-boarding) or their pride prevents them from asking for help at the first sign of leadership weaknesses that impact business results.

Coaching can make a difference but my personal preference is to help create the systems and skills that result in better interviewing-selecting-assimilation.

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