Executive Onboarding

Executive Onboarding
there will often be a predominant business situation or key task
that you, as a leader, will need to prioritize.
When the key task is to get a new business or project launched,
you are faced with a start-up situation, where the primary task is
to carry out the actions required to get the business or project off
the ground. However, when the business that you are taking over
is in dire straits or is moving in a troubled direction you are more
likely looking at a turnaround situation, where the primary task is
getting the business back on its feet again. If it is only a part of the
business that is in trouble, you are looking at a realignment
situation, where the primary task is to revitalize the troubled unit,
product or project while preserving the well-functioning parts.
Finally, when the business that you are taking over is successful,
you are in a situation where the challenge is to sustain success.
Here, the primary task will be to preserve the vitality of the
organization and take it to the next level.
During each of these four business situations, employees’
attitudes and emotions vary, and as depicted in figure 5 their
perceptual foundations depend on the specific business situation
and cultural offset. As a leader, you must, therefore, be sensitive to
this and apply various approaches depending on the prevailing
perceptual foundation and culture. As the STaRS model (Figure 5)
depicts, in the sustaining-success situation, people are often (too)
complacent; thus, your task will be to invent a new and engaging
challenge or raison d’être in order to shift focus and activate
employees.
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