Dear When I Grow Up,
I recently moved into a new director role.
A previous manager recruited me to join a group they are heading up. My position is newly formed and brings together three smaller teams that were previously not working very closely together. I spent the first month or so listening and learning, and as I have gotten closer to the work I am noticing some pretty big talent discrepancies.
Specifically, one team has a much lower bar for talent than the others. The work is a little different, and historically I get the sense they struggled to hire and retain talent. I’m not sure if this function is going to be part of the long-term strategy. While I’m figuring out the ultimate vision, I want all three teams to be more on par but don’t know how to start that process, while also keeping the work moving and taking care of customers. What do you recommend?
Need new talent
Hi new talent. This is a very common situation when you move into a new space as a leader, or when you bring organizations together. Kudos to your boss for bringing in someone they trust to assess talent and make the necessary moves.
It’s a tricky spot to be in because:
You’re the new leader and you need to establish trust with the team
You have limited information to work from
Managing talent requires a meaningful amount of time and attention
You have to accept lower productivity in the interim
People get nervous when you start making talent declarations and moves
That said, this is a solvable problem. Use this framework to create your plan.
Step 1: Do you keep the current leader?
I’m going to assume you inherited this group along with an incumbent leader. The first step is to make a decision about if the leader stays and helps you on the journey.
Yes, if you think the person is coachable/trainable and needs direction and some resources.
No, if this person is going to be a blocker to the future strategies you plan to put in place. You can’t have a middle manager holding up progress.
You need a leader in that seat who can help you do the next set of things. Make this decision first.
Step 2: Define destination talent across your organization.
Before you start making moves, you have to be able to answer: what does great talent look like in this organization? Look ahead 18-24 months and set a vision.
Do this exercise with your leadership team and leverage your boss’s input. If you were brought in to dive a specific strategy forward, make sure you incorporate that in the end state.
Look broadly and forecast the makeup of the desired team. Are there different roles required, different skill sets, etc?
When you talk to the team about this, make it about where you are going and the possibilities for them to grow and evolve (vs. what you see as lacking).
One of the big mistakes you can make is telling people they don’t meet the bar, without having first defined the bar and expectations. Doing so will kill the trust your team has in you as a leader.
Step 3: Draw the roadmap.
Now that you know the end state and have a decent sense of the current state, draw the path from here to there. Lay out what types of changes you are looking for: roles, skillsets, mindsets, etc.
If you need a different role mix - bring in HR and talk about how you reduce certain roles on the team and add others. For example: if you need a sales team and you have a service team, you probably need to redeploy some of the service folks and hire sales folks.
If it isn’t role-specific, try not to single out one team. You are rebaselining, so you might as well be inclusive and upskill the entire org!
If you need different skillsets - invite the team to go on the journey with you to learn the future state skills. Bring in training and make sure it is open to everyone. Provide resources. Offer coaching. Set up office hours. Engage your leadership team in figuring out how to teach these new skills to the team.
Let people opt OUT if they don’t want to be part of it, but you may be surprised by who raises their hand to come along. Some people may jump in on day one and others may hang back to see what it’s about before fully committing.
Step 4: Have tough conversations.
Some folks will decide not to come along. Because you were clear up front, they should have an idea of what the alternate paths look like (to different parts of the company or out of the company).
You will also have a group that wanted to come along but didn’t quite make it. These are not failures, think about it as a bad match between person and role. Do what you can to help these people find their next great thing.
Your job as a leader is to clear a path to the end state and support the humans along the way. Not everyone is going to be there at the end of the journey, and that is fine.
Keep in mind, a change like this will likely take you several quarters to implement.
Tactics: what to do during the process:
Communicate to your team. Set up regular channels and provide updates on a recurring basis. Cover not just talent and changes but also what you are learning and how you are thinking about the strategy for the group. By building the practice early, when you do have tougher messages to share people are used to hearing from you. DON’T only talk to the team when you have bad news.
Invite and respond to feedback. Set this up early on, before you start to do the more difficult work. Create a channel where people can send you messages (anonymously if needed) and show them that you receive and engage with their feedback. Again, establish the habits and channels so they are there when you need them later.
Deal with human emotions. Some people are going to blame you and make you the scary face of change. That is unavoidable. Don’t take it personally. Schedule 1:1 conversations with people who seem overly resistant. Hear their concerns, and understand the fear that is causing them to react in that way.
Don’t make it a black box. Unknowns and uncertainty cause more fear than clear, tough messages. Set clear expectations and timelines. Let people know what is coming as much as you are able to.
Understand how work is flowing through the system. If you are retraining people, expect them to operate at 30% or more less capacity. You might need to find temporary solutions to ensure all the work gets done, or deprioritize some things in the meantime.
Go along on the journey with the team. When you ask your team to learn new skills, go along for the ride. Join the training, put your beginner’s hat on, and let them observe you learning and growing as well. Don’t try to be the one with all the answers, be the one with good questions.
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