How do you do this?

Business leaders, confronted by a real need for change, look at one another across the table and ask “who’s gonna do this?” The realities of paradigm change suggest that to best lead a timely and substantive transition, we’ll need someone with a perspective that comes from the outside. That makes sense.

However, just getting a new hire in the door does not constitute success. In hundreds (thousands?) of recent placements there are fresh hires who are not yet certain of their new roles. Based on the faith they know has been placed in them, too many are reluctant to demonstrate anything less than absolute certainty.  On the other side, the company, after an intense recruiting process, just assumes that the new person will know everything needed about their new role and the company. The company mistakenly presumes that the recruit shouldn’t need any help or direction — otherwise they must be the wrong person.  In essence, no one will accept ownership if there’s an operating misstep.

What a nightmare. Even when assimilation help is available, too often neither party feels any need to reach out for the help. A significant investment was made in this essential hire, yet it now seems OK to immediately shift attention to other things. Unfortunately, no placement can be declared successful until the new person’s tenure and performance approaches six months, at least.

We’ve regrettably seen new hires fail when they’ve not had the essential support, encouragement and mentorship to facilitate a leadership transition on their own. Who owns the responsibility to make it all happen? Ownership is jointly held by both the hiring executive and the new leader. If a new placement doesn’t take, they’ve both failed, and will share the price.

There’s another critical hurdle — the new leader was hired to foster business improvement, and improvement equals change. But incumbent employees will remain most comfortable in their current roles and routines if there’s no change.  Moreover, their experience and knowledge had positioned them for what to expect from their continuing employment. Now they sense jeopardy as they see their new leader as presenting a risk to be dreaded, even resisted, rather than as bolstering the familiar.

So how do you make this all work? Be honestly open with the current staff and other stakeholders about the state of the business. Underline the need for new leadership and the potential opportunity it brings for the company’s future and for employee careers. Craft a meaningful role for the staff in the new employee engagement process.  A new leader will impact a company and every one of its employees, colleagues, bosses and stakeholders. Don’t ever expect that just because the boss says so, that everyone will blindly embrace this new person who they don’t know. Some will. Most won’t.

We need to engineer change in the business.  But we don’t really want to commit to the preparation, rigor and follow-through that a transition of leadership will require.  So many of us would choose to effectively arrive at the needed change without changing.  How do we do that?

We don’t.

Stan Davis is the founder of Standish Executive Search. Standish works closely with business owners, boards and executives in New Hampshire to support company growth, change, or succession. Learn more at standishsearch.com.