The Power of Consistent Listening
One of the key challenges of the first 100 days is to listen, and to be seen to be listening.
One way to do this is to ask the same questions of all your internal stakeholders.
This conveys a sense of consistency, of rigour, and of fairness...
Writing in CIO magazine, Sam Aruti quotes Carole Hymovitz quoting Kevin Sharer... who asked all his key staff the the following 5 questions when he walked in as CEO of Amgen:
1. “What do you want to keep?�
2. “What do you want to change?�
3. “What do you want me to do?�
4. “What are you afraid I’ll do?�
5. “What else do you want to ask me?�
Just as your first 100 days is a changce for you to inject fresh energy into a business....so it will be a chance for your team to push their agendas and frustrations. If carefully managed, this can be a good thing.
Any new executive will be subject to misled by internal factions...but you can help control the signals you get
with structured questioning...
Editor
Comments
Good friend of mine was appointed HR Director in one of our biggest subsidiaries. He was quite new to the subsid, and was an expatriate to boot. In his first team meeting he asked his (somewhat hostile) team to tell him:
"What do you know about me?"
"What don't you know that you want me to tell you?"
"What are the key areas that you think I need to focus on right away?"
Went down a treat apparently!
Posted by: David Thomas | January 25, 2006 8:41 PM