Christine explains that any new leader has their own desire to hit the ground running, plus there are often high hopes for what the ‘new blood’ will bring. But when these combine, the results aren’t always positive.

She cites a report from the Center for Creative Leadership showing that within 18 months as many as 40% of all new executives fail. The cost of failure is estimated to be as much as five to 20 times the leader’s annual compensation. The higher the position, the higher the cost, and the negative impact on the brand.

It is with all this in mind that CCS Consulting – and WDI Consulting – advocate the use of transition coaching. ‘Increasingly, organisations are waking up to the importance of investing in this vital make-or-break time so that they are able to get new leaders up to speed faster and accelerate their impact on the business,’ says Christine.

She explains that transition coaching involves specific targets that the new leader must hit at the 30, 60, 90 and 120-day milestones – plus a communications plan setting expectations for what people will and will not see happen in the first 120 days. 

The first 30+ days are to listen and learn. This avoids one of the common pitfalls for new leaders – which is thinking they have the answer and therefore being under pressure to start making things happen.

Christine explains that, for many high-powered leaders, taking the stance of the learner can be a challenge. ‘The coach works with the new leader on how to listen, ask questions, learn and accept the personal stresses of coming up a learning curve.’

In the first 60-days, Christine suggests a good metaphor is ‘inside-out’ as the first changes by the new leader are immediately within the team and only in the simple daily routines.

It is from then that the new leader will begin to formulate the long-term strategy, in conjunction with the coach and the boss. The coach may, at this point, conduct a pulse check to find out early impressions of the leader and how they are measuring up against their aims.

At about the 90 to 120 day mark the executive will need to have a clear change plan and a compelling narrative – what led us up to this moment, the challenges and opportunities within reach, and where he or she is taking the organisation.

Christine says: ‘Many executives I have coached and observed are able to make changes that are more significant at the 120-day mark than at most other points in their tenure. By following the best practices of a well planned and executed transition, the executive is maximising this rare opportunity to utilise a fresh point of view about the business and drive change when people are already predisposed to expect it.’

She concludes: ‘Transition coaching not only benefits the executive but it also benefits the organisation. Studies have indicated that the ROI for a successful transition can be many multiples of the coaching fees. One Fortune 50 company using transition coaching quoted a massive 1,400% ROI. The case is pretty compelling for this targeted use of professional coaches.’

But very often businesses focus on the engagement and delivery phases of leadership development, rather than the critical but perhaps more difficult ‘transference of learning’.   

This is where we come in – Transference Coaching is all about translating the learning into everyday working. And increasingly our clients are looking to us to deliver targeted coaching that maximises the organisation’s ROI from their development spend.

Our coaching objective is to build individual accountability for learning by focusing our coaching on:

• Supporting the transfer of learning from leadership, management development or skills programmes, workshops or events
• Engaging candidates prior to the learning event to ensure they develop clear outcomes
• Accelerating the application of new skills, knowledge or behaviour to improve performance in the day job
• Identifying barriers to application of learning before developing measurable ways to overcome them
• Alerting line managers to the importance of their role in the successful transference of learning.

Our approach works – don’t just take our word for it. You can hear how Transference Coaching worked in practice and enabled a senior manager from a construction and civil engineering company to lead his team in a more positive way.

Read our case study here.

Transition coaching is – in simple terms – getting new leaders up to speed faster, ensuring they are productive as quickly as possible, and accelerating their impact on the business. Who wouldn’t want to do this?

With the current trend for organisational restructuring on the increase, it’s becoming ever more important to coach new appointees as well as coaching those who are retaining the same titles and grades but whose roles and responsibilities are changing dramatically.

Our coaching objective is to build organisational sustainability, thereby increasing organisational resilience, talent and succession by focusing our coaching on:

• Accelerating confidence, competence and personal resilience to deliver in a new role
• Increasing the quality of early decision-making by applying best practices during the first 30, 60, 90 and 120-days of the transition
• Ensuring organisational and cultural change aspects are built into their plan
• Equipping individuals to perform in an evolving role to deliver more effectively
• Preparing future leaders to step up to more challenging positions
• Enhancing the retention of new appointees at a vulnerable time.
  

To find out more about the 30, 60, 90 and 120-day plan and how one Fortune 50 company using transition coaching quoted a ROI of 1,400% read here.

Many organisations recognise the need to change or evolve their organisational culture and leadership brand – and the way to do this is through Transformation Coaching. This helps embed core values and key competencies that will be crucial for future success.

We recognise that culture drives performance, but it is individual behaviours that drive culture and behavioural change is best supported by coaching. The creation of a coaching culture requires amongst other things, the development of line manager coaching skills, the appointment of internal coaches and often the use of external coaches. This is potentially a powerful combination, however not yet fully established for many organisations and we believe each role has its different part to play. 

With our external coaching, the objective is to build organisational and individual adaptability to aid future success by: 

• Creating a secure place to explore new and different ways of being and leading
• Reinforcing the importance of the organisation’s core values and how they translate to leadership behaviours
• Providing challenging and supportive feedback to increase self-awareness and areas of behavioural change
• Identifying potential ‘derailers’ and strategies to mitigate.

If you’re interested in finding out how this works in practice, read our case study here.

Empathy may not immediately spring to mind. But a study has revealed that a leader’s effectiveness is linked to the level of empathy they show to colleagues, clients and communities.

Called Empathy in the Workplace, the study by the Center for Creative Leadership says ineffective managers make up half of today’s management pool and that they are expensive – costing organisations millions of pounds each year. That’s why it’s important to develop more effective managers and leaders.

One of the all-important skills possessed by an effective leader, according to the study of 6,731 managers from 38 countries, is empathy. This is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions and experiences of others.

The good news is that empathy can be learned. “If given time, training and support, leaders can develop and enhance their empathy skills through coaching, training or developmental opportunities and initiatives,” says the study.

It says organisations can encourage empathy in leaders by talking about empathy and letting leaders know it’s important; teaching leaders to listen; encouraging leaders to put themselves in others’ shoes; and cultivating compassionate and supporting leaders who care about others’ feelings and overall wellbeing.

All this is easier said than done. However we can help you – see What We Do.

The report sums up perfectly: “Empathic leaders are assets to organisations, in part, because they are able to effectively build and maintain relationships.”

As you might expect, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Intel Corporation, Siemens, Banco Santander and the Coca-Cola Company were all big achievers in the survey.

Perhaps more interesting is what makes these top for leadership and what techniques they use to secure their place at the top of the chart.

• Flatter organisational structures: the report explains that leadership, innovation and ideas coming from all levels of an organisation is a winning formula. We recognise this. One of our many skills is in Organisational Design – developing the right organisational structure to support your business strategy.

• Diversity: the report says “the Top 20 are responding to the challenges of competing successfully in a global economy by ensuring that their workforce and leadership reflect the diversity of their markets.” At WDI Consulting, we understand, and help our clients understand, different cultures and the cross boundary working that leads to greater collaboration, communication and ultimately success.

• Adapting the approach: the report says: “it should be no surprise that all of these companies are working to help managers adapt their approach to leadership more quickly and completely than other businesses.” We recognise that flexibility is critical to any business and we offer Executive Coaching to help leaders adapt and respond to new challenges, new markets and new ambitions. We also deliver Circuit Training workshops. These are bespoke bite-size development sessions almost akin to a boot-camp experience suitable for clients looking for a shorter, more targeted development solution.

The authors, Joanna Barsh, Josephine Mogelof and Caroline Webb, spent six years learning from more than 140 leaders who find the best in themselves and inspire, engage and mobilise others. These included the CEOs of Macys, Clairol, Avon, United Media and Novo Nordisk US.

This journey led them to identify five capabilities, which they call ‘centred leadership’. They claim that leaders who have mastered even one of the five skills are twice as likely as those who have mastered none to feel they can lead through change. So, what are those five capabilities,…

• Finding meaning in work: these leaders “convey energy and enthusiasm because the goal is important to them personally, because they are actively enjoying its pursuit, and because their work plays to their strengths”. The report says this requires the leaders to become great storytellers – touching hearts as well as minds and our work in the area of developing ‘strategic narratives’ supports this.

• Positive framing: this is converting emotions such as fear or stress into opportunity. The report acknowledges that some people frame the world optimistically, others pessimistically, but it says we can all become aware of what triggers our fears and learn to work through them to reframe what is happening more constructively. “Once we have mastered reframing, we can help others learn this skill,” it says. Many of our team are Neuro Linguistic Programming practioners, so we have the skills and expertise to help our clients learn ‘positive framing’ effectively.

• Leveraging connections and community: “simple hierarchical cascades – from the CEO down until the chain breaks – are becoming less and less effective for leaders,” says the report. It also discusses how leaders must become adept at building relationships with multiple stakeholders across organisational and community boundaries. The leaders must develop the skills to influence without formal authority and seek insights in to the motives and drivers of their stakeholders to engage with them in a truly collaborative way. In response to this, we have developed a programme aimed at helping internal business partners understand their stakeholders at a much deeper level using a range of psychological techniques. The result – they become effective at leveraging their connections and community.

• Acting in the face of risk: the report says encouraging others to take risks is difficult, uncomfortable and will involve the leader stepping away from their usual mindset and admitting they don’t have all the answers – but that ultimately it can unleash tremendous potential. The report explains the process Doug Stern, CEO of United Media, uses to help his people evaluate risks and confront the unknown. He asks the team to imagine and describe every bad scenario. Then they devise a detailed plan, thereby rehearsing the best response to each potential issue. We use Executive Coaching to help our clients mentally rehearse and prepare for success whilst analysing and planning for the potential risks they face.

• Sustaining the energy that is the life force of change: the report says that the initial energy, enthusiasm and commitment required to bring about change can often peter out. Therefore leaders need to “systemically restore their own energy (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual), as well as create the conditions and serve as role models for others to do the same.” Our experts in sports and organisational psychology and psychotherapy know a lot about managing our internal resources to reduce stress and maximise resilience.

This report resonated with us because so much of our Executive Coaching is about changing things from the inside out – focusing on vulnerability, connectivity, engagement, team dynamics and managing energy. We were particularly interested in ‘acting in the face of risk’ as it feeds into the Harvard Business Review article entitled Why should anyone be led by you? This says: “One of the qualities that makes a good leader is that they selectively show their weakness, which reveals their approachability and humanity.”

The article also struck a chord with us because it brought to mind an address on weakness and vulnerability by Brené Brown, Research Professor at the University of Houston, on TED Talks:

Brené has built a career on studying human connection, or our ability to empathise and belong. Brené found: “The people who have a strong sense of worthiness, a strong sense of belonging, fully embrace their vulnerability.”

We’d love to get your views on this: join in the debate and let’s exchange ideas.
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The Work Foundation has recently published a report demonstrating the business case for a proactive and integrative approach to wellbeing in the workplace which you may find interesting.  For more about the report, see The Work Foundation.