Small is Beautiful: Career Transition – Your First Ninety Days

My career spanning over four decades has been a witness to several transitions across companies, industry sectors and ownership patterns. A recent transition to a Govt. Outfit as the Principal Consultant must make for a compelling read here. Though specifically advised by the Admn. Head to report an hour late on Day One, temperamentally disciplined, I started my innings by reporting on time, attempting to be a role model for the small team of Subject Matter Experts, Consultants, Customer Relationship SPOCs, Accounts Head & IT Support Staff.  The office tucked away from public view in a nook in Delhi was a home to the team who flexed arrival and clock-watched departure, overstayed lunch and never counted tea breaks. Visits to the office of the Super Boss (CEO) located elsewhere were at will and work output was on a slow burner.

Unaddressed mails were usually met with employees' reposts for redressal of their unrevised salaries and benefits. Everyone seemed busy playing safe and doing punishment avoidance work. Correspondence Files in the office were in a disarray for a newcomer and stayed that way as the Documentation Assistant could not have justified his tenure otherwise. The red tape was long and knotted. Focus was on Efforts NOT Outcomes, on Formats NOT Content. Work tools, though available, served more as impediments than facilitators. I also observed a deep affinity of the team with the Accounts Head, who had adapted to this culture well and was at his unproductive best.

On the other hand was the mandate of this role staring me at both an execution and a strategic level. External stakeholders were mounting pressure as the loss of time meant the loss of revenue, and internal stakeholders (high-level committees) were in a rush to accomplish certain milestones. Decisions taken by them were pending implementation and required immediate attention.  Being Govt.. documentation, procedures& protocols hogged the spotlight and a large part of my time was invested in getting this right. Importantly, the CEO expected a 90-day plan to showcase to the Board. To design this, I had to pore over decisions taken at high-level meetings, and execution required a frenetic pace through communication, coordination and follow-ups with multiple stakeholders.                                                                                                           

From my past successful experience, I took a series of initiatives to “Turnaround the Situation and Realign the Team”, eager to put my stamp on the Organisation. Being the Principal in there my stakes were high & my personal credibility was on test as I came from an HR background.  Success seemed like a mirage as the team demonstrated behaviour dysfunctional to the organisation's needs. Opinions about me began to form within the team members who themselves were undergoing a passive transition.                                                                                                          

In the first two months itself to accelerate the pace, I put brakes on flexitime, tea breaks and roam at will. Redefined roles and responsibilities, prioritised work for each individual, asked for rerouting documents, and put a timeline for the disposal of client mails. Some business proposals sent to me were turned down due to a lack of due diligence by the individual. Leave was temporarily embargoed unless absolutely unavoidable; employee claims were kept under watch, and task orientation seemed to be an affront to the relationship orientation embedded in that culture. The need for so much change was lost on the team. Curbs on comfort with the timing, pace, low accountability, free roaming and a sense of laissez-faire were surely turning to resistance first and then acceptance, accompanied with huge discomfort.                                                            

However, to be fair, these changes were enforced on every employee, including the blue-eyed. A WhatsApp group was created for updates and positive strokes for a good job done. Besides walking the talk, I started demonstrating a “Problem Solving” approach, a departure from a “Problem Lingering” approach, especially towards external stakeholders. While knowledge was held close to the chest by most, working as individual contributors, I started by asking the individuals for transfer of “know-how” and created backups for uninterrupted work.

The remote oversight of the CEO was taken as support for the changes I was making at my level, and I enjoyed every bit. Frequent validations I did not consider, and in addition to my updates, I knew he had multiple conduits of information.

While the above changes were made with the “best intention” through modes that were tried, tested and successful, here is their IMPACT:                                                                           

Adherence to discipline was in form, not in spirit. Work continued to progress at a suboptimal pace. The quality of output was a concern for me as it required a considerable amount of “rework”, and timelines were beginning to lose their meaning.  With limited knowledge and therefore dependence on the team, important items moving to the desk of the CEO were fraught with avoidable errors. Skirmishes with the team, followed by skip-level meetings, were now becoming the order of the day. The style of execution was not in sync with that of the CEO. While my priorities became increasingly operational in nature, the plan discussed with the CEO took a back seat. Here, too, the alignment was lost. Discipline, I was told, was taking a toll on the employee morale and work output.  The Team needed to be handled with a greater amount of sensitivity. They required guidance and hence the CEO established a direct communication link with them. My conversations with the CEO turned to monologues and cordiality slowly gave way to stress.  Misunderstandings created by skip levels seemed to be the bane and left me justifying. The Team got a whiff of the developments. There was trouble brewing as I could sense it. The CEO was now saddled with pending work and a distraught team. Not one to give up so early, I figured that each day was not different or better than yesterday. Faced with a loss of credibility and frayed nerves, I decided to pack up within the First Ninety Days and move on!                                                                                                                                

Each Career Transition may carry some or all of the characteristics of the above Context. Reflecting on my experience, here are the key Learnings I wish to share with the Readers:                                 

1. Low-hanging fruits and operational issues, though urgent, may not be important                                 
2. Importing old solutions to new situations may well become your Achilles' heel                                    
3. High-impact decisions taken early boomerang due to inadequate knowledge about the unique history, culture and the environment of the organisation.                                                                                                                          
4. Enforcing change on a reluctant team does result in being isolated and undercut                                   
5. If the Work plan is not accompanied by your assessment of existing talent, need for reskilling or additional talent, the plan could stay “ On Paper” longer than imagined.                                              
6. Assuming silence as support, remote oversight as a latitude to act, being constant on a problem checklist with the CEO, Do Not work to your advantage.                                                        
7. Misunderstandings, vertically or horizontally, if allowed to fester, do stymie success                              
8. An imperative to act early and do too much in every direction reflects a lack of self-confidence and crystalizes resistance to such initiatives from people who could help                                                                                                
9. Learning about the technical issues and not about political ones is half the battle lost            
10. Last but NOT the least, alienating the Team chips away your personal and leadership credibility & in this case, the “ Reboot” button does not work.                                                                           

Is there a playbook, then, that can be referred to for a successful Career Transition? Watch this Column for a broad framework.

Share your thoughts in the meantime on this subject with [email protected].

By Ms Triveni Mehta

Senior Human Resource Consultant