Guide to being the best new CEO!

New CEOs wear a crown of thorns. An article to help you charge up fused workforce under you.

Congratulations on becoming a new CEO. You always worked hard for it and you must deserve this great opportunity to be the boss. Now that you have settled in your seat, you may certainly realize it is not that easy to sit on that seat, anyway you adjust. In a Corporate where winning is not a norm but a necessity. Being a new CEO, you may often hear your sub-ordinates tell you “But this is how we have always done it!” The phrase itself realizes the flaw I wish to enlighten you with. The “we always have done it” is the focus area of this article. This phrase signifies the constant need of your sub-ordinates to work in a mode that they are used to. This mode of work is the work culture of that organization.

Every Organization works on a work culture. Change in leadership needs change in the work culture. Work culture of an organization can further be divided into – “values systems” and “operating norms – the way daily business is conducted.”

Practicing solid values can never assure results unless they are backed by ardent commitment to performance standards that are integral part of the organization’s norms.

Question now arises “Does the organization’s norm drive performance or do they weaken it? I am sure you agree to the later ideology. Operating Norms of any organization are the only performance dampeners a CEO has to face. The challenge every CEO faces is to change these norms of a triumphant work culture without diminishing the positive elements in it. Work culture change in any organization is never an easy task. Transforming a healthy work culture is even more difficult. This is so because organizations are made of people and they never understand why a change in an operating norm is necessary when it is providing results. This is omnipresent specifically with people in the organization in all levels who have spent entire careers working in the organization. They are the ones who specifically are rigid to the process of change. With constant change in working environments, work culture needs to evolve into more performance oriented. The only way a leader can bring these changes is by being enduring, forthcoming and meticulous in insisting on changes at all levels of the organization or they will instantly snap to the earlier mode of operation the moment the pressure is off.

Let us take a hypothetical organization with such disorder. This Organization often tends to reward loyalty where they need to reward performance. Poor performances of people are excused on the pretext or the other only because they stood with the organization in the storm of change. Senior managers may tend to diffuse responsibility of performance, making it difficult to know who the culprit is. Instead of removing such poor performers, others shielded them from responsibility. These performance norms related directly to the organization’s inability to deal with conflict. In such organizations, managers show inability to tolerate open conflicts in meetings. Disagreements over issues tend be taken as personal attacks. Majority of people may think that everyone needs to agree before a decision. As a result, there are delays in decision-making process and conflicts are hence dealt with in an indirect manner.

In such an organization, a CEO needs to install a closed loop performance management. Although this sounds obvious, I have seen many firms lacking such necessities. This obviously means changing attitudes of the organization towards work and replacing such managers who are not ready for change. Many managers are unable to develop at the rate of growth of the business, their job profiles expand due to the change of culture, but with old habits, they often remain the same. Often CEOs and organizations tend to fail to take tough calls in assessing their management assets. This is disastrous to any organization’s growth. Please remember Managers are the most important feature of an organization for brining success to the organization. Due to rapid growth in business often, we see that organizations fill up the ranks of managements with people who are either old loyal supervisors or managers with less or no experience.

Creating Work Culture Changes

Evolve your meetings with constructive conflicts by creating a challenging atmosphere. To do so ask probing questions, insist your managers to present each situation in objective manner rather than sugar coating it for you. This may lead to criticism. Delve into the matter and question every aspect until satisfied. Empower your managers with responsibility and understand each process to determine the responsibility division.

An organization with strong work culture, success only takes time. It is often necessary to evolve a successful company’s world culture to prepare for the ever-changing work place environment. Extra-ordinary results are just waiting to happen if you are ready to indulge in the mechanics of the organization and keep evolving the work culture. Keep a stern eye on performance and be ready to let go of old paradigms to set new growth patterns. Reinforce your management and enable your company evolves through time.