This is the deck we used for a webinar presentation, along with HR.com, on how to handle and successfully manage individual and organizational transitions on the job.

1. Leading Through Transitions

2. Today’s Presenter
Maggie Walsh, Ph.D.
Vice President, Leadership Practice
The Forum Corporation
maggie.walsh@forum.com

3. Outline for Today’s Session
• Four types of leadership transitions with
high personal & organizational impact
• Seven ways leaders endanger their
transitions
• Three things to focus on
• Specific steps you can take

4. A transition is …
A high stakes
turning point
Image: Pete Keen/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

5. Transition PATHs
Knowing your type of transition will help you avoid failure
P A T H
PLACE ASSIGNMENT TEAM HEADING
Less than half deliver Involuntary turnover up
40-50% expected results for 50%
fail in the higher error 65+%
first 18 months1 37% average rate for new teams3 in the first
performance loss2 year after new
management4

6. Why All the Failure?
• Decelerators: The actions we think we should
take (and do take) often backfire.
• Accelerators: We overlook three critical
success factors and fail to apply them

7. The 7 Transition Decelerators
1. Neglecting to align
expectations
2. Racing to 6. Believing there
get a lot is an answer
done
3. Ignoring what 7. Focusing on process
you don’t more than people
know
4. Relying too heavily on 5. Devoting too much energy
past experiences to the wrong people
Photo Credit Mark McArdle, 2008, Wikimedia License, acobox.com

8. Transition Accelerators
Increasing your focus on these critical few action areas will help you navigate your transition successfully
CLARITY UNITY AGILITY
Alignment around Bringing the right Enabling self and
the situation and players on board team to adapt
direction quickly to new
circumstances

9. Accelerator: Increase Clarity
• Clarify the business situation
• Align expectations CLARITY

10. Business Terrains
Understanding the business context in which your transition is taking place is a critical success factor
Long-Term
PLATEAU Growth Loop RENEW
Succeed
Crisis Fall short
ACCELERATE
RESCUE
Succeed
LAUNCH

11. Terrain-Specific Leadership Actions
Launch Plateau
• Secure the right resources immediately  Maintain success while looking beyond financial measures for a
broader view of health
• First focus on outcomes, process later
 Establish leading indicators of internal and external events that signal
• Have a complete strategy others have
trouble and trigger you to take action
helped to shape
 Create a strategy for reinvigorating the business, initiative, product,
• Project confidence, set timelines &
etc. Think when, how you will know, what you will do
milestones and achieve early wins
• Stay open to emerging opportunities
Accelerate Renew
• Delegate – you can no longer do it all  Create a compelling business case for change and get buy-in through
participation
• Build growth-enabled processes and
structures (flexibility and scalability)  Find ways to overcome organizational memory
• Scale your team with a focus on team  Protect the people who provide renewal ideas
dynamics  Scale innovative new processes
• Enable effective action: establish clear Rescue
decision rights  Be realistic: acknowledge the truth of the situation
• Nourish stakeholders and support  Decide and act quickly; reflect and readjust later
networks  Be clear on the critical few priorities; align all goals with them
 Focus on keeping up morale and energy
 Find ways to recognize and reward small successes

12. Accelerator: Increase Unity
• Identify strategic alliances
• Build the right relationships UNITY
• Align interests

13. Friend, Foe, Ally or Adversary?
• Think broadly about all your business
relationships.
• Estimate the percentage that fall into each of
these relationship categories: friends, foes,
allies, or adversaries.
• Note your estimates for each category.

14. Beware of 3 Relationship Traps5
CONDITIONAL UNCONDITIONAL
AND TRANSITORY AND DURABLE
Mistaking
ALLY FRIEND
allies for
friends
WRONG
1
CATEGORY
Not Failing to
nurturing convert 2 WRONG FOCUS
allies adversaries
WRONG
3 ASSUMPTION
Confusing
adversaries and
Transition ADVERSARY FOE
foes
Leverage: Allies in
Waiting
Trying to
convert a foe

15. Use Your Influence Currency
A currency is something you have that is of value to another
person. Offer valued currencies to create mutually aligned
interests.
• Currencies contribute strongly to relationship capital.
• The other person determines the value of a particular
currency.
• They are universal—everyone has them.
• Most of us under estimate what we have to offer.

16. Sample Currencies
Personal Currencies Agenda-Related Currencies
• Training & education • Involvement in something with
• Experience significant impact
• Technical Resources • Achieve something important
• Organizational information • Access to more resources
• Customer connections, • Opportunity to learn something
knowledge, experience • Recognition
• Reputation • Visibility
• Relationships with others • Gain personal backing
• Visibility • Gratitude
• Unique information • Inclusion
• Expertise

17. Summary
Leading Through Transitions
• There are 4 types of costly transitions
to manage
• Know your susceptibilities to the
seven decelerators
• Focus on the three accelerators of
successful transitions
• The 5 business terrains each require
different leadership Actions.
• Increase clarity: align around the
business situation and actions
• Increase unity: invest strategically in
relationships

18. A Final Thought on
Leading Through Transitions
Critical now more than ever

19. www.forum.com/blog
Strategy. Accelerated. @TheForumCorp
Forum mobilizes people to embrace
the critical strategies of their Join The Forum Corporation’s
organization and accelerate results. LinkedIn Group
When you need to swiftly align your
people to tackle an opportunity or
Facebook.com/TheForumCorp
tear down a roadblock, Forum is an
essential business asset.
www.forum.com
800.FORUM.11

20. References
1. George B. Bradt, Jayme A. Check, Jorge E. Pedraza, The New Leader’s
100-Day Action Plan, 2nd Ed. (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2009).
2. The Forum Corporation, Leading Change program, 2007; Michael C.
Mankins and Richard Steele, “Turning Great Strategy into Great
Performance,” Harvard Business Review, July 2005.
3. J. Richard Hackman and Diane Coutu, “Why Teams Don’t Work,” Harvard
Business Review, May 2009.
4. Kevin P. Coyne and Edward J. Coyne, Sr., “Surviving Your New CEO,”
Harvard Business Review, May 2007; Pauline O’Sullivan, “Governance by
Exit: An Analysis of the Market for Corporate Control,” in Corporate
Governance: Economic and Financial Issues, Kevin Keasey, Steve
Thompson, and Mike Wright, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997).
5. Adapted from: Laurence J. Stybel and Maryanne Peabody, “Friend, Foe,
Ally, Adversary … or Something Else?” MIT Sloan Management Review,
Summer 2005
.