The Political Dimension of Onboard Coaching

A major consumer products company in the Southeast recently recruited a new marketing director for its North American region. To make sure that the executive's first 90 days were as productive as possible, the company asked Bill Tiffan to provide onboard coaching.

"My job was to help Andrew understand the kind of coalitions he needed to build, the company politics, how power struggles work," says Tiffan, a member of the WJM Associates coaching faculty who advises a broad range of clients, including many in sales and marketing management.

"The concept of new executives having a honeymoon is passé," says Kip Trum, senior vice president and general manager of WJM Associates. "When all is said and done, companies don't want that. They want newly hired managers to hit the ground running, and managers themselves like that as well."

Tiffan started working with Andrew before the marketing director even started his new job. "Andrew put together a one-page description of himself that told me a lot about his personality and management style," says Tiffan. "It actually was quite good, and helped me to understand the kind of person I was dealing with."

Tiffan then conducted individual telephone interviews with Andrew's seven direct reports to understand their expectations of their new boss. Their comments were summarized without attribution and gave Andrew a lot of good knowledge before he ever stepped foot in his office. One factor that emerged from these interviews was the failure of the previous marketing director to stand up to a strong-willed sales director.

"In the past, sales drove everything. That was part of the problem," says Tiffan. "The direct reports felt like sales walked all over them, that the previous marketing director couldn't stand up to sales and wasn't an advocate for them. So Andrew knew early on where the battle lines were drawn and with whom he needed to establish himself. As a result, he was able to set a tone with his counterpart in sales, his boss and other executives."

What was the result? Andrew is viewed in the company as a strong leader. In fact, the pendulum has swung a bit in the other direction and now the sales group feels that they're losing some of their clout, so Tiffan is working on bringing the two departments closer together.

Besides providing new executives with the perspective of an experienced third party who can observe and help interpret actions in a new setting, onboard coaching can yield another benefit. In many cases. the new executive's direct reports and peers approach the coach with candid comments and feedback that they might not want to offer directly to the new executive. "You'd be surprised at how much they welcome having such an avenue to pursue," says Trum.

When organizations look for leaders, they often seek out people who have the drive to succeed, possess the charisma to attract followers, and have a vision of the future that can inspire loyalty and dedication.

In other words, they are looking for people who are somewhat narcissistic.

As personality traits go, narcissism doesn't usually top the spec sheet of qualifications that companies look for in senior managers. "Yet in certain situations, including those where big, bold, transformational change is required, it may be desirable to have someone who's narcissistic at the helm," says Ben Dattner, Ph.D., a member of the WJM Associates coaching and assessment faculty.

According to the classic definition, narcissism is characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, and a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power and brilliance. It takes its name from Narcissus, a character in Greek mythology who became so obsessed with his reflection in a pool that he could do nothing but stare in the water … and ultimately died of thirst and starvation.

In contemporary situations, people with narcissistic personality traits are said to lack a degree of emotional intelligence, rendering them less sensitive to others' needs. They are willing to make personal sacrifices to succeed, can see the big picture and anticipate trends, and can make difficult decisions without being distracted by empathy, sadness or guilt. At they same time, they risk alienating others in the organization who don't share their perspective.

Flexible and self-aware organizations can devise successful strategies to maximize the benefits and minimize the risk of narcissism in their ranks. This would include surrounding narcissistic leaders with capable and confident advisors willing to offer contrasting opinions, monitoring the risks that narcissists take, and encouraging rationality and long-term thinking.

"We're all narcissistic to some extent, and some narcissism is even healthy," says Dattner.

It has been our observation that some women try to manage too many job-related details and fail to focus on the big picture -- their careers.

Take the example of an executive we'll call Susan. As one of only a handful of female executives in her company, Susan worked hard -- harder than some of her male colleagues -- to make her mark. She managed her staff well, kept a close eye on budgets, and put in long hours to ensure that all aspects of the job were covered.

Yet when one of her superiors retired, Susan was passed over for the promotion in favor of a man who, while producing results comparable to Susan's, had also made a point to develop relationships with several members of senior management.

Susan made the mistake of assuming that hard work and good results alone will create opportunities for advancement. The sad truth is, they won't. Something more is needed -- something beyond merit, performance and results.

What's needed is a focus on career and on handling the "80-20 split."

Simply stated, the 80-20 split refers to a division of time: Devote 80% of your time doing your job and spend 20% on the equally important assignment of managing your career.

By the time you have reached the director or vice president level, your job is really two jobs. One is the corporate function for which you have been given responsibility; the other is the management of your own career.

How do you perform a quality job by devoting only 80% of your time to it? The answer lies in prioritizing and delegation.

You can carve out the 20% of the time you need for managing your career by prioritizing tasks according to their importance and according to the level of corporate visibility they afford you. Then delegate the least important -- and least visible -- tasks to staff.

You should be able to delegate at least a third of your tasks to staff. This does not mean that you abandon interest in or responsibility for them; just let others run with the ball, keeping you informed of progress and potential problems.

You'll soon find that you've created time for the most important job of all: managing your career.

If you look throughout history at famous leaders, many of them were teachers. In fact, true leaders are almost always in teaching mode. That's how they get people to follow -- by inspiring, informing, and helping people to be more than they thought they could be.

As managers, our job is the same: to support the growth of others.

One of the problems with many of us is that when we reach a certain age, learning is no longer a priority. People learn from experience, which is sometimes a very costly, painful teacher, but they don't necessarily seek out formal learning opportunities.

Our job as a leader is to create an environment whereby people see learning as a critical factor for success. Our challenge is to get people excited and to commit to their own growth and development to the point where they are constantly on the lookout for new learning opportunities. We need to facilitate their learning, not to spoon-feed them every step of the way. Perhaps the goal should be to resurrect in the person the curiosity of a 3-year-old.

In a dynamic environment, people review their development plans almost daily. They should look at the priorities outlined in the plan and then look at their daily calendars to determine what opportunities for learning might present themselves. Opportunities for learning could include any of the following:

• A meeting or situation where individuals can practice the application of skills they want to improve (e.g., conflict resolution, listening, sales, etc.).
• Observing someone who is an expert in a particular field or who regularly exhibits a strong skill in a particular area.
• Seeking out people, internally and externally, who are subject or skill experts and asking questions.
• Classes, books, tapes and online resources that specifically address developmental opportunities.

In each learning situation, you can suggest that your team do the following:

• Listen, observe and/or practice, depending on the situation.
• Extract the key learning from the experience..."What did we learn here today?"
• Practice the learning..."What will we do differently?"
• Reflect on what the people did well and how they can improve..."What skills do I need?"
• Apply and practice the new learning and repeat these steps...Recognize the efforts of others.

Learning that results in significant behavior change is rarely a one-time experience. Learn, practice, reflect. Learn, practice, reflect. A great formula for growth.

Practice is essential. Consistently recognizing new behavior is what breaks old patterns and builds new skills and attitudes. Without recognition and your validation of new behavior people will stop learning because they are not rewarded when they try new ways of doing things.

As someone once said, practice doesn't make perfect -- perfect practice makes perfect.