Fortunately, Wiggins’ new book, The New CEO, fills that educational gap by teaching you the 10 components that make for a successful CEO transition – whether you are a newly announced or newly appointed CEO.
These 10 components inform the chapters within
the book. “While the ideas are presented linearly, the reality is that some
clearly overlap, and others may resolve only to return again,” explains Wiggins.
The 10 components are:
Approaches…
- Getting The Message Right
- Act Discerningly
- Manage Yourself
- Burst Your Bubble
- Navigate The Crash
Priorities…
- Understand The Culture
- Set Your Team
- Engage the Board
- Assess The State Of Play
- Prepare To Win
Drawing on compelling storytelling and
groundbreaking research of hundreds of CEOs around the world, the book offers
an incisive guide on what to say and do as a new CEO, including how to define
your priorities, build your team, fast-track critical changes, work with the
board, and set (or reset) the organization's culture.
“My recommendation is to read the book from
start to finish to get a feel for the learnings in their entirety, and then dip
in and out to refresh on certain sections as challenges arise during your
transition,” shares Wiggins.
For his book, Wiggins spoke candidly with
top-level CEOs including PepsiCo’s Ramon Laguarta, Campbell’s Mark Clouse,
UPS’s Carol Tomé, Verizon’s Hans Vestberg, Forever21’s Winnie Parks, and many
more, as well as undertaking qualitative and quantitative research with around
200 new CEOs.
Pulling from these interviews, the book provides the details about what CEOs wish they had done differently and the advice they wish they had sooner – including how to:
- Handle the weight of responsibility of the job–and the loneliness.
- Define priorities and strike the right balance between patience and action.
- Score early wins and identify common pain points.
- Build a team by harnessing your gut and data.
- Burst the CEO bubble and act with curiosity over being right.
- Engage the board and investors early.
- Get the message right: what you say, and how you say it, sets the whole tone.
- Be honest about the culture—how you assess it, work to shift it, and ensure it does not derail your transition.
The teachings in Wiggins book are so
essential because as he explains, “Throughout your CEO transition, you may find
yourself feeling exposed and vulnerable, even weak as a leader. The state of
change is so radical that many of your information networks and skills are
temporarily blunted. It’s a bit like driving a new car in a new country—yes,
you are an experienced driver, but everything feels different.”
“It’s also a time where you have an intense
amount of attention and focus on your actions, your performance, and even how
fast or slow you walk. So now, you’re not only driving the new car in a new
country, with different rules and conditions, but you also have people in there
with you, scrutinizing every move, and quietly thinking they could do a better
job,” adds Wiggins.
In short, explains Wiggins, the result is that when you begin as CEO, you
can quickly move from a position of strength, one where you have been
performing at your best, to a position where you can feel out of your depth.
This loss of “capability” can rock your confidence and self-esteem. It can be
hard to find ways to steady yourself.
Finally, there can be situations when the
outgoing CEO becomes a key issue to mitigate in your transition plan and
consumes a considerable amount of your time, energy, and attention. Exactly how
much time, energy, and attention depends on the reputation of the CEO you’re
following and how connected they stay to your organization. Most often, a new
CEO will follow either a predecessor hero or villain.
“As with so many of the challenges you will
face early, part of the solution is to be careful with your communication; be
very deliberate with what you say,” explains Wiggins.
Wiggins describes in the book that when following
a hero, death by comparison is the risk here: they were so great;
you will never stack up; if only they were still here. While you are unlikely
to hear these words yourself, it is almost certain that people will be saying
it to each other.
When everyone in the organization thinks the
former CEO was near perfect, it leaves very little room for you to make improvements and you
may find yourself fending off accusations—silent or otherwise.
The other challenge is that, over time, you
may discover that all that glistened was not, in fact, gold, especially when it
comes to the state of the business. This makes for a very awkward situation
when you must shine a light on the predecessor as not as perfect as everyone
thought. "If you find this to be the case, then tread carefully with how you
disclose it. Use your newness to innocently ask questions that point in the
direction you need the board and organization to look," recommends Wiggins.
Following a villain. “While this is
often easier than following a hero CEO, it’s not without its challenges,” says
Wiggins.
The trap here is that you get promoted as the
incoming hero and it goes to your head. You find a willing audience to flog
your predecessor and you discover that you can buy extra time on their bad
behavior and any resulting poor performance.
It is helpful when it is evident that the villain’s decisions directly resulted in poor outcomes, making it abundantly clear that they “had to go.” However, what if you find that the decisions and actions were the right ones or were necessary? What if you agree with them and would have made them yourself?
"Discovering the villain is not as bad as people
made out is a tough spot to find yourself in. Remember boards are groups of
individuals who may make decisions based on bias, personal agenda, and personal
preferences. It is common to realize that the board or executive team were, in
fact, the problem and you’re now at risk of becoming the next CEO scapegoat," says Wiggins.
Sometimes, however, the former CEO who once
sat at the same desk and in the same office you are now in will help you make a
smooth transition. When this happens, you’ll have access to an outgoing CEO who
is supportive, helpful, and happy to be moving on. They will work to ensure
both you and the organization are set up for success. They will understand that
you will see the world differently and that you will make changes. They will
not only accept this but encourage it. “The good news is that this scenario
does happen often,” says Wiggins.
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Today, Wiggins shares these insights with us:
Question: Of
the 10 Components that make for a successful CEO transition, which one do many
new CEOs find most challenging and why?
Wiggins: Overall, the biggest challenge is finding the
balance between listening/learning and acting. How long do they take to learn
and understand the organization before putting their stamp on it? The pressure
to act is intense, externally and from themselves. They feel pressure to prove
they are the right person and up to the challenge. Yet this is the most
dangerous time as they have limited context.
Question: Which
is most difficult for a new CEO to follow -- a former hero or former villain
CEO -- and why?
Wiggins: A Hero. The pressure to match the hero CEO is
significant, but worse is that people reject and are disrespectful of the changes you want to make. They may also more vigorously
defend the established process and practices protecting the legacy of the hero
CEO. As mentioned in the book, sometimes everything that glitters isn’t always
gold, and the new CEO needs to highlight that the hero CEO was not as great as
people thought. This can be tricky. It is a very difficult balancing act to
talk about change while not saying anything is wrong.
Question: How
is the increased prevalence of working from home making it more or less
difficult for new CEOs to create the culture they want for their business?
Wiggins: In terms of their transition, the
impact of working from home is that it can take a CEO longer to really
understand the culture. Plus, it results in variations of the same culture
which the CEO will need to consider as they plan the strategy. One of the
things that can cause a strategy to fail is if it is at odds with the culture.
Question: What
should a new CEO do when it is clear employees are making a concerted effort to
undermine the new CEO’s best efforts?
Wiggins: Ideally, they should raise it directly
with the individuals and quickly get to a point where they align or leave. This
is the “won’t do” instead of “can’t do” and it is generally a very short
conversation. If the employees are the senior leaders, then the CEO will likely
need to remove them quickly and then work with the teams below to realign their
behaviors.
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Ty Wiggins is the lead of Russell Reynolds Associates’ CEO &
Transitions Practice globally, where he helps world-leading CEOs successfully onboard
and transition into their role.
Thank you to the book’s publisher
for sending me an advance copy of the book.
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