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Execs On Board
A corporate initiation approach called "onboarding" is helping executives avoid the sink-or-swim introductory periods of the past.
The fall of 2001 was a tumultuous time for Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. The big defense contractor had spent billions of dollars buying other companies and, for months afterward, worked hard at integrating the myriad operations. Just ask any Northrop Grumman manager. Employees were coming and going, and executives with long-standing jobs were not exempt from the confusion. Getting them oriented as quickly as possible was, to say the least, a high priority. "I remember that we had a very senior executive, who was responsible for facilities, which meant he was responsible for choosing which facilities to keep and how people would be moved around. And even though he had been with the parent company, he was now in a completely different role, which was very challenging," says Carolyn Brizzi, director of executive and management development for Northrop Grumman's Information Technology sector, which is based in Reston, Va. "It's a real hiccup for us trying to blend [some] 20-odd organizations that have come together, thanks to acquisitions over the last decade," she says. "We're trying to build a culture and [we] have to start at the beginning. And we can't wait until everyone has been on board for awhile." With that challenge before them, Brizzi and her team employed the onboarding approach. "We teamed up with [the senior executive in charge of facilities] for a three-month period and did vision exercises -- looking at management philosophy and priorities," she says, "and it turned his group around. There was a lot of confusion, understandably, with all the integration. But the onboarding gave everyone focus. The executive, in particular, has truly been transformed in how he views his function. By using onboarding techniques, it became a whole new playing field." A couple of years ago, some human resource professionals may not have even recognized the term. A message board on Yahoo in May 2001, for instance, derided onboarding as being the latest in a long line of meaningless human resource buzzwords for employee orientation. Yet, the onboarding strategy is increasingly becoming a valued tool for acclimating new employees, or existing employees who are taking on completely different roles. And this is no mere form of orientation. What It Is, What It's Not Onboarding involves an intense, protracted period of coaching that's designed to help a new employee -- often a senior-level executive or manager -- not only adjust to a new environment, but also establish a set of priorities. Companies designate their own internal specialists for coaching duties or look to outside specialists to do the job. Either way, onboarding is supposed to help the employee more quickly adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with his or her immediate group or team and find productive ways to achieve necessary goals. "There were many buzzwords for this, like assimilation," says Richard Marcus, a licensed psychologist and former managing consultant with Manchester's Executive Services Consulting Group now working as a private consultant in Philadelphia specializing in executive assessment and development programs. "And it really is something of a new term. But it does have a distinct purpose, and it's usually reserved for people in leadership or managerial roles." Why try onboarding, though? As Marcus explains, as many as 40 percent of new leaders fail in their new roles to meet an organization's expectations, according to a recent report in the Manchester Review. This, he says, is a hefty percentage by any standard. By employing onboarding, a company is really ensuring that an important investment pays off. Given the costs involved in recruiting, interviewing, contracting and, often, relocating a new senior-level employee, a company would be foolish to put such a new manager in a sink-or-swim situation without providing some assistance. "You want to do everything you can to assist them so they don't become part of that 40 percent statistic," says Marcus. That's no easy task. During the second half of 1999, when statistics began to be compiled, nearly 270 chief executives were forced to leave their companies or simply resigned, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based outplacement firm that follows employment issues. Since then, the pace has quickened -- in 2001, 929 chief executives departed and another 749 followed last year, according to the firm. Leaders often fail for a few common reasons, according to Marcus. Among them are unclear or outsized expectations; a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders; a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough; a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from underlings and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people. Looked at this way, he says, failure looms larger than some may think. "The stakes are very high," says John Bahouth, senior vice president of global HR and learning at DBM, the New York-based outplacement and employment consulting firm. "Basically, I look at onboarding as an insurance policy that the hire will work out." Onboarding isn't necessarily something a company should consider for all employees, though. Resources are scarce, particularly in a tight economy, and the amount of money invested in hiring high-level employees demands that the investment is protected. By comparison, employees further down the ladder may occupy important roles and can fail just as often. But they may also benefit equally from a more standard form of orientation. Starting the Process With that said, how does a company actually go about onboarding? The best way to start is by establishing clear objectives, and the easiest way to do that is to identify four functional levels in which the new employee can view the new job, according to Brenda Hampel, a partner at Executive OnBoarding, a Columbus, Ohio, consulting firm. The first level involves creating the big picture by determining what the company needs and then providing the executive with all the necessary information and perspective. Then, the executive and the coach should examine the goals for the business unit the new hire is going to run, and this would apply to most any executive or manager who is hired. After that comes what might be best described as the hands-on stage, or level -- learning about the activities involving the executive's actual team, which requires a more fine-tuned set of skills and goals. And finally, there's the personal level -- reviewing the individual's own goals for growth and success in the context of the new job. The message to those on the receiving end is that executives are human, too. Despite years of experience making complicated, far-reaching decisions, top-level managers can also use a dollop of reassurance and guidance, most notably when they find themselves in new situations where little, if anything, is familiar. The crucial aspect about onboarding, however, is timing. Onboarding advocates say the support and direction provided during the new hire's early days on the job help to avoid a full-blown crisis later. When viewed through this lens, experts say, it's clear that a brief, condensed orientation can be wholly inadequate for new, high-level employees who take on crucial assignments that will decide the fate of the company. As Hampel explains, the comprehensive assessment provided by onboarding is, ultimately, designed to allow the new employee to hit the ground running instead of walking. But this process doesn't kick in overnight. As one might imagine, it can take weeks -- in some cases, even months -- for the onboarding process to become effective. As Richard Chagnon, senior vice president for organizational consulting at Right Management Consultants in Philadelphia, explains, the process of understanding the "critical paths" that a new executive must follow is open-ended. "A new executive may be smart enough to pick up everything that's needed for the job, but it may still not be fast enough," he says. The Right Players Another important issue to consider is the person chosen to do the onboarding coaching. The approach outlined by Hampel suggests that onboarding requires not only a personality suited to dealing very closely with an executive, but also someone who can be trusted. That's extremely important, the experts say, because an onboarding coach will review the executive's personal goals and managerial style as part of the entire process of assimilating into the company culture. But can an insider be an effective coach? As Marcus points out, a good internal candidate is someone who isn't a mentor, but acts as a guidepost. He calls this person a "been-there" peer. By providing such a person, the company would hope to develop a level of trust between the new executive and the coach. An insider also has an intuitive grasp of the corporate culture that an outsider may lack. However, Chagnon argues that many companies can comfortably tap consultants with whom they work on a regular basis. Such professionals, he says, should be poised to offer similar insights into a client's culture, because they should possess a high degree of familiarity. Another key point about tapping a consulant as coach, he says, is that an outsider is free of the potential conflicts of interest that can easily arise when a peer -- who is, in fact, another executive at the same company -- attempts to provide insights and feedback into the new hire's views and actions. "There are pros and cons to each decision about the coach, but the outside coach can promise confidentiality and anonymity," he says. "And the outside coach can also put everything on the table without worrying about the political fallout." When it comes to choosing the right coach, the experts suggest HR executives and managers look for people who know the corporate culture inside-out. This choice can either be a long-standing executive or a consultant who has done a great deal of work with the company and understands its rhythms. There's yet another wrinkle, though, that human resource executives may face when trying to implement onboarding. And it won't come as a surprise, according to the experts -- don't assume that every executive will readily embrace the onboarding concept. When it comes to many seasoned and successful executives, onboarding may be a hard sell. On one hand, a new arrival probably won't take comfort in hearing about high failure rates. In an era of stock-market bubbles, corporate scandals and flagging economies, losing one's job is no longer an isolated incident that happens only to incompetents. Then again, a seasoned executive is just as likely to believe he or she has ample experience in adapting to new settings and calibrating expectations. And the idea of having a coach -- who might easily be called a shadow -- is likely to be abhorrent to strong-willed, independent managers who are used to operating on their own. "Let's face it," says Hampel. "Many people don't feel it's OK to ask for directions, even when they know it would be helpful. Some will say they've done it before and understand what's needed and how to do those things. Most executives don't want to say that they need help. So it's up to the organization to explain its culture." Encouraging the executive to participate in onboarding can be tricky. But Hampel suggests the new hire be given credit for previous experience, and then be engaged in discussions about situations to analyze successes, mistakes and how things might have been done differently. If necessary, she says, "count to 30 days to allow them to go through the process and then present five onboarding objectives." In the end, though, it's all about hand-holding. On an encouraging note, Marcus points out, most of the people who make it to the top tiers of management have well-developed people skills -- the ability to listen and relate to others. And they want to grow in their jobs, too. "But none of these programs will work unless there's buy-in and commitment at the top," he says. "And companies want to spend money on people they want to develop. For that reason, I don't think onboarding is a flash in the pan."
October 2, 2003 Copyright 2003© LRP Publications |
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