Coaching Senior Hires: Transitioning Potential Into Performance Quickly!

By Chris Edger and Martin Tucker

External Senior Hires are expensive! Also, research has shown that 36% experience OUTRIGHT FAILURE whilst 60% have DELAYED PERFORMANCE issues. Why? The reasons include poor selection decisions and/or risible onboarding programmes which fail to get Senior Hires ignited fast enough. This book - the first of its kind in this area - advances practical solutions and a defined methodology. TARGETED TRANSITIONAL COACHING (TTC) focuses upon resolving the BIG 6 TASKS faced by Senior Hires and helps organisations to transition Senior Hire potential into performance QUICKLY!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Libri Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781911450412

Chris Edger

Professor Chris Edger PhD is a former Executive Director of blue chip businesses. Having founded the Academy of Multi-Unit Leadership in 2010, he has taught and coached over 800 corporate executives on his post-graduate leadership programmes. He is the author of eight books on leadership, the inventor of the ELQ9 perceptual gap model and holds four degrees and a Level 7 Advanced Award in Coaching and Mentoring (with distinction).

Book preview

Coaching_Senior_Hires_cover_chosen.jpg

Coaching

Senior Hires

Transitioning Potential into Performance QUICKLY!

Targeted Transitional Coaching (TTC)

of the Big 6 Tasks Using the

BUILD-RAISE Method

Chris Edger and Martin Tucker

Imprint

First published in 2019 by Libri Publishing

Copyright © Libri Publishing

The right of Chris Edger and Martin Tucker to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

EPUB 978-1-911450-41-2

EPDF 978-1-911450-42-9

MOBI 978-1-911450-43-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in its contents.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library

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Figures by Helen Taylor

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About the Authors

Professor Chris Edger is a leadership author, academic and high performance coach. He is the author of more than ten leadership and coaching books including: Franchising – How Both Sides Can Win (shortlisted for the 2016 CMI Management Book of the Year and rated a ‘Top 5 Must Read’ book on franchising by Reed Commercial in June 2016), Courageous Coaching Using the BUILD-RAISE Model – A Practical Guide for Leader Coaches and Coaching Star Performers – Reframing Negative Drivers and Feelings. He holds four degrees including an ESRC sponsored PhD from the Warwick Business School (which examined executive behaviour during critical events) and an MSc (econ) with distinction from the London School of Economics. He has a Level 7 Advanced Award in Coaching and Mentoring (with distinction) and is a Fellow of the CIPD and Higher Education Academy.

Appointed to Professorial status in 2008, Chris founded the Academy of Multi-Unit Leadership a decade ago (where he has coached over 900 corporate managers), teaching at the Warwick Business School (winning numerous teaching awards on the MBA Programme), University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University. Described by some commentators as the UK’s leading expert on 'multi-site retail management', Chris frequently features in the media having appeared on/written for outlets such as Channel 4 News, ITV, BBC News Online, City A.M., Propelinfo, The Retail Gazette, Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph, Retail Week, Drapers etc. Previously Chris had a successful career in the leisure and hospitality industry spanning 23 years, incorporating Executive Director-level positions in UK- and internationally-owned organisations.

Martin Tucker has spent the last three decades supporting organisations hire and develop senior leaders. During his career he has worked in large multinational organisations, a ‘Big 4’ consulting partnership and small privately owned businesses. Until 2017 he was Chief Executive of one of the UK’s leading executive recruitment and talent advisory businesses working across the public and not for profit sectors. Joining in 2006, he helped grow the organisation from a small, boutique search agency and supported a successful exit of the founder in 2014 through a private equity backed management buyout. In 2019 he founded Faerfield, a business which combines academic research and data-driven assessment to support organisations build better leadership teams.

During his career he has advised a wide range of organisations and individuals on their senior talent management strategies and has overseen the appointment of hundreds of Chairs, non-executive and executive directors to boards and management teams. His coaching work has focused particularly on leaders who transition into new roles and at the interface between the public and private sectors. He has a keen interest in and a well-developed understanding of publicly funded organisations and the challenges faced by public servants in the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

Introduction

SECTION 1 – The ‘BIG 6 TASKS’ for Senior Hires

Task #1 Achieve OPERATIONAL Grip

Task #2 Drive STRATEGIC Clarity

Task #3 Navigate CULTURAL Sensitivities

Task #4 Shape TEAM Coherence

Task #5 Facilitate STAKEHOLDER Alignment

Task #6 Optimise PERSONAL Impact

Summary and the 6 ‘R’s of Interference

SECTION 2 – Targeted Transitional Coaching

Transitional Coaching

Reframing and Magic Questions

Targeted Transitional Coaching Using the BUILD-RAISE Model

Build Readiness

Uncover Aim

Identify Interference

Locate Solution

Determine Execution

Case Study – Targeted Transitional Coaching

Conclusion

Bibliography and Further Reading

List of Figures

Figure 1 — Performance-Potential Model

Figure 2 — The BIG 6 TASKS

Figure 3 — Lifecycle of an Organisation Model

Figure 4 — The BIG 6 TASKS

Figure 5 — The GAPPAR Model

Figure 6 — Value Proposition Model

Figure 7 — Paths to Growth Model

Figure 8 — Strategic Pyramid

Figure 9 — The Cultural Web Model

Figure 10 — Team Development Lifecycle Model

Figure 11 —Points of Power Model

Figure 12 —Influencing Without Authority Model

Figure 13 —Johari Window of the ‘Self’

Figure 14 —BUILD-RAISE Coaching Model

Figure 15 —Support/Challenge Model

Figure 16 —BIG 6 TASKS and 6 ‘R’s of Interference

Figure 17 —BUILD-RAISE Coaching Model

Introduction

Externally recruited Senior Hires are an expensive investment! Their high potential must be transitioned into high performance QUICKLY so they become Star contributors to the organisation! How can this be accelerated? This book will show you how this can be achieved through Targeted Transitional Coaching (TTC), focusing upon the Six Big Tasks that confront all Senior Hires.

Figure 1: Performance-Potential Model

Why is this an important subject? First, external Senior Hires constitute 30% of all transitions within executive ranks over a typical year but their failure rate is high. The Centre for Creative Leadership estimates that 38% of new hire executives face outright failure in the first 18 months of their tenure. The result? A tangible financial loss of up to five times that employee’s salary (including search fees, wasted training, wasted interview time, productivity loss from disruption and negative morale) and the intangible opportunity costs for the business resulting from picking the wrong candidate! Second, the expense incurred through delayed performance from those that eventually succeed can negatively impact short-term momentum. Egon Zehnder research in 2017 (588 executives recently hired at VP level) found that 60% of Senior Hires said that it took them at least six months – with 20% citing more than nine months – to have a full impact on their new roles. Typically organisations want an ROI from their Senior Hires within the first 100 days, rather than waiting 6 to 9 months for some meaningful impact. After all, the motivation behind selecting the candidate in the first place (whether due to replacement, regeneration or reinvigoration) will have been heavily influenced by the belief that they could make an immediate, tangible difference.

What are the reasons for the outright failure or delayed performance of Senior Hires? Based on our combined senior operating experience of over fifty years, we would pinpoint seven main reasons:

o Cultural Mismatch – a failure to move from ‘outsider’ to ‘insider’ status through understanding, respecting or ‘fitting’ in with the norms,