Typical Hiring Organization’s Mistake:

“We have hired a senior person. He/She should be able to figure it out on their own.”

 Typical New Executive’s Mistake: 

“I am a smart guy. I need to prove myself and make my mark as soon as possible.”

Consequences:   Studies have indicated that 30-50% of newly hired executives fail and leave within 18 months at a fully loaded cost of up to 10X salary!

Objectives of Onboarding Executives

1)  help onboarding executives understand the organizational context and performance expectations.

2)  Shorten the onboarding executives’ learning curve and enable them to performto their full potential.

• Learning - Getting up to speed
• Understand the organization
• Identify key stakeholders
• Building effective relationships
• Communicate and network
• Organizational and team-building
• Setting clear expectations
• Meeting performance expectations
• Monitoring performance

Executive Support Process

Executive onboarding is increasingly valued and important in today's competitive marketplace. Executive onboarding is the process that supports new executives in becoming productive quickly in their new environments. The executive is guided through a structured process that helps her/him to focus on the right activities in the right ways during their first few months on the job so that he or she is working in concert with their boss, setting the right direction for their team and making significant progress towards the most important deliverables.

To enhance competitiveness many organizations are hiring new outside executives or relocating an executive from one function or geography to another location. Unfortunately, many of these new executives falter.  Too often they are not meeting corporate expectations and are often forced to leave the organization after a very short period of time. As stated earlier, some companies estimate their failure rate as high as a 50%.

Outcomes

• Developing Accurate and Value Performance Scorecards

• Integrating Goals and Objectives into Performance Management Measures

• Understanding Process and Outcome Issues and Accountability

• Ensuring Effective Feedback Mechanisms

• Maximizing Engagement and Involvement

• Ensuring Maximum High-Performance Team Functioning

Challenges in Executive Onboarding

The speed of change and the complexity of tasks are variables that often force new leaders to take action and make decisions before they have adequately adapted to their environment or have had the time to acquire the requisite skill set.

Research from the Harvard Business Review indicates that it takes a new mid-level manager at least 6.2 months to reach the break-even point even in an organization where they are a good fit and have a good chance of success. According to ExecGlobal , the actual costs incurred from poor executive selection is incalculable.

Job fit and culture fit are key success factors that significantly influence whether new hires will meet corporate expectations. The challenge is not just with senior executives; shifts in organizational size, focus and complexity are also creating more key roles for mid managers who are critical in helping companies maintain their competitive edge.   Clearly, a 3-6 month  on-boarding program (including coaching) is critical to new executive effectiveness.

Our Approach to Executive Onboarding

Our executive onboarding coaching approach supports executives in assimilating themselves quickly and successfully into the new culture. The result: the organization gets the productivity it needs. Our program helps new leaders answer the questions, “ Do I have what I need to know?”,  Do I know what I don’t know?”  “ I’m in charge, now what?" and "What is the most effective action I should take?"   Our executive onboarding program design is simple, effective and results-oriented, so that the new executive is quickly assimilated into productive action.

The PerformanceVertical Successful Executive Onboarding System

Day 1

• Making Connections with the Right People
• Understanding Team Dynamics
• Learning Specifics of the Business
• Obtaining Clarification of Expectations
• Clarifying and Understanding Cultural Identity
• Identifying Key Job Fit Issues at this Level

Month 1

• Identifying learning priorities
• Identifying  executive's risk profile
• Identifying cultural alignment issues
• Identifying corporate job expectations and devising 90 day strategies
• Attaining clarity of relations with the boss
• Investigating team building, organizational, and restructuring issues

Month 2

• Identifying early wins to help develop a successful job pattern
• Attaining consensus on "A" item priorities
• Finalizing 90 day job strategy
• Clarifying  job expectations and resource requirements with your boss

Month 3

• Post 90 day strategy is clear
• Shared vision articulated and team engagement/alignment is agreed upon
• Action plans are in place to support execution of early wins
• Alliances are in place to support early wins
• A plan for re-structuring the team has been formulated and agreed upon with HR and Corporate
• A comprehensive plan for organizational  architecture is in place
• Regular and effective communication with peers and superiors is agreed upon and implemented