The first 100 days for a new CEO: Don't squander those first vital days; wrong moves could take years to repair. Here are the right steps and the critical areas to address.

AuthorSpencer, Janet L.
PositionOrganizational Leadership

IT MIGHT NOT BE FAIR, but it's true: Your first few months as CEO -- the time when you're just starting to grasp the challenges of your new job -- may well turn out to be the most crucial time in your tenure. Everyone with an interest in your company will scrutinize your formal decisions, informal behavior, and symbolic acts. Everything you do and say will send messages, establish expectations, and communicate directions for the new leadership group.

While these first 100 days represent a unique opportunity, they also hold incredible risks. How quickly you move will earn you a label as either rash, purposeful, or indecisive. Who you consult on decisions will feed the notion that you're inclusive or authoritarian. People will rush to categorize you as fair or arbitrary, and - most importantly -- as either a visionary leader or a cautious bureaucrat.

As Jeffrey Immelt, who succeeded Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric Co., said to a Business Week reporter when asked about the time it would take for him to leave his mark, "From a performance standpoint, I have no time. You're expected to perform from day one.

Your initial decisions -- in particular, with regard to setting clear objectives, filling top positions, and articulating and communicating a compelling overall direction -- will shape perceptions of you that may last for years.

It sounds obvious, but the key to your success is to approach this crucial time in a systematic way. You will need an arsenal of strategies, principles, and prescriptions to guide yourself through five critical areas that will demand most of your attention: creating a plan, evaluating personal attributes, engaging key constituencies, extending your leadership reach, and heeding red flags.

  1. Creating a Plan

    While many people believe your first step should be action, we suggest you resist that urge. Henry Schacht, who has led massive change at two very different companies - Cummins Engine Co. and Lucent Technologies Inc. -- suggests, "Think first: What is it you're trying to do...what's going on, where are you, what do you need to do first, and why?...A lot of things are going to go untouched for long periods of time, so where do you want to spend your time?"

    Use the first 100 days to build the basic plan that will take you and your company beyond the next few weeks and months. While the contents of a new CEO's plan will vary from one organization to another, one thing remains constant: the need for an integrated design that addresses each of the major elements of the organization, including strategy, structure, work processes, leadership, culture, etc.

    The following three steps will point you in the right direction:

    Conduct an Organizational Assessment: Start by undertaking an organizational assessment that will result in a roadmap that clearly identifies the major issues. A well-designed agenda must include metrics that can be used to monitor the organization's progress and make rapid course corrections. Involve your executive team and other key leaders in the assessment and development of your plan as a way to energize and empower them, and to signal your intent to listen to others.

    Select a Framework: To quickly make sense of how your company is organized and how it really operates, you need a systematic way to observe and understand the organization. In conducting a broad assessment, we find it helpful to think about organizational performance in terms of a framework known as the Congruence Model of Organizational Behavior (see diagram). This model can be a convenient way for you to accurately grasp the lay of the land. It will help you analyze what's working and not working well in your organization, and prioritize what needs to be done. This model views the organization as a system that translates strategy into performance through the interaction of four basic components:

    * Work: the basic, inherent tasks to be done by the organization and its parts.

    * People: the...

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