Filling Shoes
Following in someone's footsteps can be tricky
Organizations have memories. We shouldn’t anthropomorphize legal entities but it’s true. History plays an important role in shaping decisions as well as in the sense that people make of events, communications, and behaviors, especially those on the part of the CEO. The transition from former to current CEO is a time of heightened sensitivity to signs that could indicate what is likely to change and what will remain the same. Most of this hypothesizing is motivated by individual self-interest but enough sharing of thoughts in the hallways or around the board table starts to turn idle speculation into beliefs, coloring perceptions and laying the groundwork for the culture that will be associated with the new CEOs tenure. Because we tend to think in contrasts as a way of clarifying reality, expectations for the new CEO are often framed in terms of how the CEO seems like or unlike his or her predecessor.
If the former CEO was successful and well liked, the new CEO faces an uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of the executive team, employees and board. No matter the new person’s competence, each act is contrasted with what the former CEO would have done under similar circumstances and whenever the outcome is less than perfect, points are subtracted. Worries begin to circulate and, if such outcomes occur frequently, may reach the ears of board members. Sometimes, worry is justified; more than a few CEOs have been bad selection choices even though they charmed their way through the interview process. Boards are nervous about this being the case, of course, so until there is enough evidence to the contrary, the new person remains “on trial”.
The new CEO is unlikely to be aware of these worries until they become severe because people want to give the new CEO a chance to prove themselves without undermining their confidence or creating rifts that might later be hard to heal. If worries intensify and discussions eventually lead to the removal of the new CEO as a result, that person is usually shocked to find that there is a problem. We’ve seen many instances of this taking place, followed not uncommonly by the former CEO returning until the cycle can be repeated again. Note that throughout this sequence of events, there is little ownership on the part of others for the eventual failure of the new CEO. Instead of providing feedback and support, people gossip behind the new CEO’s back until they have reached a definitive conclusion. By then, the ship has sailed and there is little the new CEO can do to change the direction of events.
If the new CEO follows a CEO who was either disliked or a failure, the challenge is not one of acceptance but rather one of meeting inflated expectations for a rapid turnaround. As people attribute all of the blame for their problems to the former CEO, their belief is that the new person, acting without the constraints posed by the limited ability of the predecessor, will immediately release the pent-up potential of each individual and the organization as a whole. Fantasies of the entire leadership team being fired and replaced by better, kinder, or smarter individuals are not unusual. Board members might expect their relationship with the CEO to go from exceedingly difficult to greatly satisfying. Shareholders are awaiting announcements of wholesale shifts in the company’s product lineup or business model to justify a huge uptick in the value of their holdings. The press invites the new CEO to be interviewed in publications and on prominent business shows because the new CEO will no doubt have something interesting to say about the future, which also allows juicy comparisons with what the former CEO was trying to do. Everybody loves to kick someone while they are down.
The point is that neither of these extreme cases of succession are easy to manage because the new CEO can’t control the mindsets of those around them. Others watching every move the new CEO makes for a sign of weakness or, on the other hand, deliverance from purgatory creates an untenable position for the new CEO. Unless expectations are acknowledged and held in check, the new person will be headed for an early dismissal.
In this regard, the emphasis that has been placed on the first hundred days in the new CEO’s tenure is only partially justified. While what the new CEO does and says is obviously quite important in setting the stage for what is to follow, the behavior of others is equally important. We would be well-served to remember that the success of the CEO doesn’t depend just on what they do but on what others do as well. First one hundred-day books have been written for leaders, mothers, chief information security officers, pastors and even mothers.
All of these guide the individual taking up the role on what to look out for. Each of these should have a companion book that explains to everyone else what they should be doing while the new person is trying their best to succeed. For citizens, the companion book would explain what the average person should be doing to help new elected officials serve them better instead of listening to pundits try to build them up or tear them down. In our modern society, the meaning of “citizen” has gone from its medieval origin of simply being a dweller in a city or town to being an active and responsible party in shaping the social, political and economic world in which they live. When citizens turn that responsibility over to others and then blame them for things not turning out as they had hoped, unhappiness is the result. When we do the same with CEOs, should we expect a different result?
Filling shoes can be difficult, either when they are much larger or smaller than our own. When legendary CEOs Jack Welch (GE), Roger Enrico (Pepsi) and Lou Gerstner (IBM) retired, their successors met together to compare experiences and offer support to one another. Jeff Immelt, Steve Reinemund, and Sam Palmisano did ok when many thought they would fail. There wasn’t a single formula to follow since each company faced a different set of circumstances but if there was one thing they did in common it was to provide a confident, steady hand on the wheel when people feared that without their former great leaders, things would quickly spin out of control. If they had been facing turnaround situations, things would have been different; instead, they recognized that not scaring people or the board by moving too quickly to make over the company in their own image was the right thing to do.
Keeping your focus on what the organization and other people need is probably the best advice for any new CEO, regardless of who their predecessor might have been.