Managers, are you really aligned with your organization?
A thought experiment
Imagine that you got a brand new amazing job or won a lottery and retired. Your company is looking to fill your role with a new manager. There is a new energetic internal transfer candidate for whom your role is a big step up in scope and they are eager to do well. They are trying really hard to figure out what the org wants from them and to execute on that:
What would your reporting chain and peers in the org ask this candidate to do?
What would the organization reward them for doing?
What kind of behaviors would get rewarded more (promotions vs. ratings) than others?
And how are those things different from what you are doing in your role today?
My story
Two experiences inspired the above thought experiment: being laid off and interviewing for a new job. Being laid off after years of consistently high performance ratings was traumatic. It was the emotional equivalent of being punched in the solar plexus with effects lasting for a couple of days. And while I would not recommend it to anyone, being laid off also presented an opportunity: the generous severance meant that I had time to disconnect like never before and to reflect.
Reflecting on the sequence of events that lead up to layoffs made it clear that while there was an element of (bad) luck involved, my leadership did not value me enough to keep me. I have struggled to reconcile this with the consistently high ratings and the objectively stronger impact generated by my teams relative to other teams in the organization (as measured by the ratings of people on the team, $ savings, and partner feedback). However, the simple truth was right there, in front of me: while my teams have consistently delivered across complex cross-functional projects by moving engagement metrics and generating tens of millions of dollars in perpetual cost savings for the company, I was not aligned with the organization. While I objectively delivered value (and was recognized for it with ratings), it was the kind of value that the organization could do without. Surprisingly, the path to discovering what organizations value was lit up by my job interviews.
During my job interviews I found myself asking a lot of questions. In interviews with people from the reporting chain I asked about the goals of the organization and how the team could help achieve these goals and about the current challenges. In interviews with potential future partners and peers I asked about their past collaborations with the team (what worked well and what did not) and about their current needs. While these questions were motivated by my desire to understand the organization and to see if skills and interests are a match for the role, they also gave me a sense for what the organization wanted.
“What do you plan to do in your first 90 days?” was a question that one of the experienced interviewers asked. I responded with something along the lines of learning about the current goals (and progress), connecting with partners, and getting to know people on the team. However, I was not as well prepared for this question as I would have liked and this question reminded me about the book with a similar title. After the interview I picked up and read this book. The book contained a lot of advice around transition management for anyone switching to a new role or starting a new job. In addition to common sense advice around connecting with people in the organization, it also suggested to be mindful about politics (e.g. “make sure you know which projects were started by your boss and avoid trying to cancel them”, “figure out who has decision power and/or behind the scenes influence in the org” ). While I found this type of advice distasteful because of my idealistic views, reading this made me see the last piece of the puzzle: while I delivered on the explicit goals, I was not aligned with the implicit goals of the organization…
Before diving deeper into my own misalignment, I want to hear from you:
What were the results of the above thought experiment for you?
Are you really aligned with your organization now?
How do you plan to regain and/or maintain this alignment?