Onboarding and executive onboarding both aim to help new employees and new leaders deliver better results faster. Still, there are three fundamental differences to keep in mind when onboarding executives:
- Executives deliver through others in addition to with others.
- Executives generally have greater role than personal risks.
- Executives generally have greater relationship than learning risks.
These lead to the importance of using a Total Onboarding Program in onboarding executives, pushing them to jump-start relationships in their Personal Onboarding Plans and getting them the right support based on their relative strengths.
Total Onboarding Program
If I could waive my magic wand, no one would give anyone approval to start recruiting anyone until they had crafted and gotten key stakeholders aligned around a Total Onboarding Program. This involves thinking through the whole plan in advance, documenting it, and getting alignment around it – a significant step in reducing new executives’ role risk.
Personal Onboarding Plan
Co-creating a personal onboarding plan can be a great way for hiring managers and new executives to begin their working relationships. Ideally, they would work together to think through the job and its deliverables, stakeholders, message, pre-start, and day one plans as well as personal and office setup needs. Ideally, they would clarify who is doing what next. Doing this empowers the new executives to take charge of their own onboarding, knowing that their managers support them. In particular, pre-start conversations are a good way to jump-start relationships, helping to mitigate relationship risks.
Support
Executives need different support depending upon their relative strengths as they manage three processes: strategic, operational and organizational in pursuit of delivering results through others. An executive with relative strengths in some areas may benefit from additional support in other areas:
- An executive with relative strengths in strategy and operations could benefit from the support of a strong human resource officer.
- An executive with relative strengths in operations and organization could benefit from the support of a strong strategy officer.
- An executive with relative strengths in organization and strategy could benefit from the support of a strong operating officer.
- An executive with balanced strengths could benefit from the support of a strong chief of staff.
George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration