I really enjoyed reading back last night an article about Yahoo!! CEO Scott Thompson’s New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan wrote by George Brandt on www.forbes.com in January 5th, 2012. From May 3rd Thompson is no longer with Yahoo and immediately replaced by Ross Levinsohn. Thompson was with Yahoo only for 130 days with a compensation of $7.3 millionnnnnnnn waoooooo unbelievableIn January Brandt wrote “Sometimes new leaders start new jobs as if they’re jumping onboard moving trains and must accelerate just to land. But when a new leader jumps onboard a train that has already left the station, things are particularly tricky” and it seems to me that we have guessed right in 🙂
Then He goes to say that “Any new leader is better off if he or she follows the onboarding basics by getting a head start, managing the message and building the team“. The three ideas of getting a head start, managing the message and building the team are always appropriate. The next 100 days are going to be the last 100 days, we always need to treat the next 100 days like they are the first 100 days of the rest of our careers.
A. Fisher says that “About 40% of executives who change jobs or get promoted fail in the first 18 months. One way to avoid that is to lay some crucial groundwork before your first day”. Thompson failed after only 4 months but apparently is not his fault but the Board that failed to exercise appropriate diligence and oversight in one of its most fundamental tasks – identifying and hiring the Chief Executive Officer
One reply on “New Leader’s 100-Day Action”
The ramifications of a CEO failing to onboard well go far beyond whatever money was wasted on the CEO. CEO pay and termination expenses are part of the direct costs of failure. Added to that are the indirect costs in terms of the impact on others’ performance and reputations. But arguably the greatest cost is the opportunity cost of the failed CEO not doing what he or she was expected to do.
I was talking to one executive of a private equity firm who was explaining that most of their acquisitions were based on achieving a certain level of results within 5-7 years. The year plus of lost time with a failed CEO meant that they had almost no chance of getting back on track with their plan.
This is why everyone involved needs to take onboarding seriously. This is why we’re all new leaders all the time.