The First 90 Days (57 page)

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[3]

tougher.

7.
Going over the top.
All of these traps can generate dangerous levels of stress. Not all stress is bad. In fact, there is a well-documented relationship between stress and performance known as

[4]

the Yerkes-Dodson curve, illustrated in figure 9-1
.

Figure 9-1:
Yerkes-Dodson Human Performance Curve

Whether self-generated or externally imposed, you need some stress (often in the form of positive incentives or consequences from inaction) to be productive. Without it, not much happens—you stay in bed munching chocolates.

As you begin to experience pressure, your performance improves, at least at first. Eventually you reach a point (which varies from person to person) at which further demands, in the form of too many balls to juggle or too heavy an emotional load, start to undermine performance. This dynamic creates more stress, further reducing your performance and creating a vicious cycle as you go over the top of your stress curve. Rarely, outright exhaustion sets in and the new leader burns out. Much more common is chronic underperformance: You work harder and achieve less. This is what happened to Kipp Erikson.

[2]For an in-depth exploration of managerial biases, see Max Bazerman,
Judgment in Managerial Decision Making,
5th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2001).

[3]See Heifetz,
Leadership Without Easy Answers.

[4]This was originally developed as a model of anxiety. See R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson, “The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit Formation,”
Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology
18 (1908): 459–482.

Naturally, this model has limitations and is most useful as a metaphor. For a discussion of limitations, see “How Useful Is the Human Function Curve?” at
http://www.trance.dircon.co.uk/curve.html.

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The Three Pillars of Self-Efficacy

How can you avoid these traps? How can you create virtuous cycles that build momentum rather than vicious cycles that sap your strength? We will call the equilibrium you should aim for
self-efficacy,
a state that is built on a foundation with three pillars. The first pillar is adoption of the success strategies presented in the previous eight chapters. The second pillar is creation and enforcement of some
personal disciplines
. The third pillar is
support systems,
at work and at home, that help you to maintain your balance.

Pillar 1: Adopting Success Strategies

The strategies spelled out in the previous eight chapters represent a template for how to learn, set priorities, create plans, and direct action to build momentum. When you see these strategies work and when you get some early successes under your belt, you will feel more confident and energized by what you are accomplishing. As you progress through your transition, think about the challenges you are facing in light of the core challenges summarized

in table 9-2
and identify chapters to which you want to return.

Table 9-2: Assessment of Core Challenges

Core Challenge

Diagnostic Questions

Promote yourself

Are you adopting the right mind-set for your new job and letting go of the past?

Accelerate your

Are you figuring out what you need to learn, from whom to learn it, and how to learning

speed up the learning process?

Match strategy to

Are you diagnosing the type of transition you are facing and the implications for situation

what to do and what not to do?

Secure early wins

Are you focusing on the vital priorities that advance long-term goals and build short-term momentum?

Negotiate success

Are you building your relationship with your new boss, managing expectations, and marshaling the resources you need?

Achieve alignment

Are you identifying and fixing frustrating misalignments of strategy, structure, systems, and skills?

Build your team

Are you assessing, restructuring, and aligning your team to leverage what you are trying to accomplish?

Create coalitions

Are you building a base of internal and external support for your initiatives so you are not pushing rocks uphill?

Pillar 2: Enforcing Personal Disciplines

Knowing what you
should
be doing is not the same as doing it. Ultimately, success or failure emerges from the accumulation of daily choices that propel you in productive directions or push you off a cliff. This is the territory of the second pillar of personal efficacy: personal disciplines.

Personal disciplines are the regular routines that you enforce on yourself ruthlessly. What specific disciplines are the highest priorities for you to develop? It depends on what your strengths and weaknesses are. You may have a great deal of insight into yourself, but you should also consult others who know you well and whom you trust. (Some 360-degree feedback can be useful here.) What do they see as your strengths and, crucially, your potential weak spots?

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.

This list of personal disciplines can stimulate your thinking about routines you need to develop.

Plan to Plan.
Do you devote time daily and weekly to a plan-work-evaluate cycle? If not, or if you do so irregularly, you need to be more disciplined about planning. At the end of each day, spend ten minutes evaluating how well you met the goals you set the previous day and planning for the next day. Do the same at the end of each week. Get into the habit of doing this. Even if you fall behind, you will be more in control.

Judiciously Defer Commitment.
Do you make commitments on the spur of the moment and regret them later? Do you blithely agree to do things in the seemingly remote future, only to kick yourself when the day arrives and your schedule is full? If so, you have to learn to defer commitment. Anytime anybody asks you to do something, say, “Sounds interesting. Let me think about it and get back to you.” Never say yes on the spot. If you are being pressed (perhaps by someone who knows your vulnerability to such pressure), say, “Well, if you need an answer now, I’ll have to say no.

But if you can wait, I will give it more thought.” Begin with no; it is easy to say yes later. It is difficult (and damaging to your reputation) to say yes and then change your mind. Keep in mind that people will ask you to make commitments far in advance, knowing that your schedule will look deceptively open. Ask yourself, as my former colleague Robert Robinson so aptly put it, whether “future you” will hate “present you” for saying yes. If the answer is yes, say no.

Set Aside Time for the Hard Work.
Do you devote time each day to the most important work that needs to be done? It is easy to get caught up in the flow of transactions—phone calls, meetings, e-mail—and never find time to focus on the medium term, let alone the long run. If you are having trouble getting the real work done, discipline yourself to set aside a particular time each day, even as little as half an hour, when you will close the door, shut off the phone, ignore e-mail, and focus, focus, focus.

Go to the Balcony.
Do you find yourself getting too caught up in the emotional dimension of difficult situations? If so, discipline yourself to stand back from difficult situations, take stock from 50,000 feet, and then make productive interventions. Leading authorities in the fields of leadership and negotiation have long praised the value of “going to

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the balcony” in this way.

It can be tough to do this, especially when the stakes are high and you are emotionally involved. But with discipline and practice, it is a skill that can be cultivated.

Focus on Process.
Do you have good ideas but consistently find that you alienate others in trying to implement them?

Does the way you make decisions cause unnecessary dissension and disagreement? If so, discipline yourself to focus on
influence process design
before plunging ahead. Think: How are others likely to react to your ideas? How might you manage the process of consultation and decision making to increase your effectiveness? Remember: People will

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often go along with things they are not completely happy about if they perceive the process as fair.

Check in with Yourself.
Are you as aware as you need to be of your reactions to events during your transition? If not, discipline yourself to engage in structured reflection about your situation. For some new leaders, structured self-assessment means jotting down a few thoughts, impressions, and questions at the end of each day. For others it means setting aside time each week to assess how things are going. Find an approach that suits your style, and discipline yourself to use it regularly. Work to translate the resulting insights into action. Consider adopting the guidelines for self-reflection listed in the accompanying box.

Guidelines for Structured Reflection

The power of structured reflection is heightened if you pursue it regularly and are attentive to how your responses change over time. Consider setting aside fifteen minutes at the end of each week to answer the same set of questions. Save your responses so you can look back regularly at the preceding couple of weeks.

You will see patterns develop, both in the nature of the problems you face and in your reactions to them.

What do you feel so far?

On a scale of high to low, do you feel:

Excited? If not, why not? What can you do about it?

Confident? If not, why not? What can you do about it?

In control of your success? If not, why not? What can you do about it?

What has bothered you so far?