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One of the pieces of advice in this podcast is to basically just listen for the first week, possibly for the first month, that any changes you make this early will spend your political capital and leave you with nothing for the next change you want to make.

 

Seems very reasonable, but here's my question/problem.  What if your entire purpose in being put into the new position is to "fix it"?  The organization is broken and you need to go in and start making almost immediate changes.  Possibly you can wait one week, but anything more than that and you lose that same political capital with the management that is putting you in to "fix it".

 

I get that it will cost.  You will lose with the direct reports, but can you afford not to?  How do you balance this out?

STEVENM's picture

"Possibly you can wait one week, but anything more than that and you lose that same political capital with the management that is putting you in to "fix it"."

It sounds like you know how long to wait then.  That aligns with the suggestion, doesn't it?  Whether more would be ideal or not, you can only work with the ammo you've been given.

For what it's worth on the justification front:  You're unlikely to implement effective, long term change when you don't have an understanding of the now (and the people in it).  If it's broken and needs changing so you were brought in, yes, that puts some pressure on you to act quickly.  But you still have to spend a little time to look at things.  If I can use a really bad analogy:

Going in and hacking away without observing the current state of affairs at all is like being a blind man trying to put bandaids on a child that ran through a thorn bush.  Can you try it?  Sure.  But what will happen?  You'll have to mummify the poor kid to be sure you got the wounds covered.  And he's not going to be able to move around very well after that.

Imperfect, but it gets the point across.

Take the time you can to wrap your head around the problems and let people adjust to the first change (you).  But once you have to go, go.

flexiblefine's picture

You write "The organization is broken and you need to go in and start making almost immediate changes." How well do you know the situation that you are being dropped into?

If you know the situation, understand what's not working, and understand what needs to be done to fix it, you are way ahead of the game. From your description, I would guess that you are already in this organization and know the people and processes you will be working with/on. It sounds like someone high up has said "I'm putting you in charge of Group X so you can fix their problems."

"Fit in, fit in, fit in" is the standard new-job advice, but that presumes you come into the situation unknown and uninformed. If you are already known and informed, I think you could move more quickly -- but make sure you get a real understanding of what's actually going on from the inside rather than acting on someone else's outside impressions. When you make changes, you want to make the right ones.

flexiblefine
Houston, Texas, USA
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