From the moment a new leader enters your organization or transitions to a new position, it can take months for them to get fully acclimated. In the meantime, their onboarding costs your organization time and money. Our new leader installation process uses a data-driven approach to accelerate their transition allowing your new leader to integrate faster and start driving results sooner.
Our installation method leverages assessments to guide and facilitate productive dialogue that sets expectations and surfaces potential obstacles, like style differences and other barriers sooner, empowering you to build a strong foundation for a more effective relationship. This process is tailored to the roles and responsibilities of new leaders by identifying key stakeholders to success and developing an awareness of the challenges that they may face in these relationships. Our approach to working through these challenges provides a basis for establishing effective communication and agreeing on expectations about how you will effectively partner, exchange feedback, resolve conflict, and make decisions.
Installation in Action
We were approached by Health First to assist in the installation of two existing leaders into new roles. The positions would overlap and depend on each other for success, and Health First recognized that the new responsibilities would pose a unique challenge for these seasoned leaders, both of whom had been with the organization for some time. They would move from oversight of one hospital to four and would need to work closely as a unified leadership team.
The transition into a new role can often slow the effectiveness of a new leader as well as the productivity of the team. By engaging in the installation process, Health First achieved positive outcomes within the first 90 days.
Leaders who have worked together for some time, even in different facilities, often have narratives or stories they’ve written for one another. The installation process provides the opportunity to be vulnerable and transparent with one another, which allows leaders to truly understand how best to work together.
Leaders can have very different styles of communication. Add to that the narratives they had in their minds about the others, and these challenges could easily have derailed their success and caused irreparable damage to the relationship. By breaking these preconceived ideas down and gaining a better understanding of each other, these leaders were able to transition quickly into their new roles, lead united, and drive incredible outcomes within a short period of time and well into the future.
Installation Process
Our new leader installation process begins by interviewing the new leader’s direct reports to identify:
- Challenges, dynamics, and barriers within the dept/function/division
- What success looks like to the team
- Unique qualities and personalities of this team
- Team needs and wants from the new leader
Through a series of psychologically safe sessions both with and without the new leader present, we gather feedback from the team to gain insights into their early observations, assumptions and questions to get to know the new leader better.
We then conduct a follow-up de-brief session with the new leader and her/his boss, to discuss key themes and action steps that arose from the installation session.
