Supposing you are given responsibility for a segment of the business, or a functional role, that involves overall managerial responsibility for 100 people. What's the first priority, after your predecessor (assuming he or she existed) has cleared off?
You might be tempted to sit in the office reading the notes that he left you, or reading through what you were told were key files. Or maybe you think you should ask your key subordinates for some numbers to understand the state of the business. Or perhaps have a meeting of your direct reports. All good things to do, I suppose, but not, in my view, the number one priority.
Businesses succeed because of people -- and they fail because of people too. So if you want to know what is going on, talk to the people. Who are the leaders, both in terms of team leadership and as individual contributors, among the 100? Find out, and make a lot of time in your diary to speak to each of them individually.
So often I have seen managers who are a year into the job, and are yet to have a one-on-one conversation with many of the key people in their organization. The 20 hours that you spend doing this in the first two weeks will pay great dividends. You will learn -- if you show that you are open to listening -- what excites them, what frustrates them, and what worries them. Themes will emerge, and so will red herrings. You are the leader because you have the brains to sort one from the other.
Armed with what you have learned from these conversations, you can begin to think about what you want to change, what are your goals, and most important, who is going to be crucial to achieving those goals. When you start to work on staff development, you will know who is itching to move on to another role in the organization, and who wants to stay there and do the best possible job in their technical specialty.
There will be some people in most organizations who are too junior in grade to feel comfortable coming to chat in the boss's office. And anyway, you need to get out of the office. A good challenge for anyone taking over an organization is that by the end of the first two weeks (unless you are dispersed too widely in the world, in which case three weeks) you should have been into all the work places for which you are responsible.
Think about your manner, what you are looking for; find out in advance what is going on in each room and who is working there -- at the bench, the terminal. Talk about safety not in a judgmental but in a questioning way. See who is around early in the morning and late in the evening, not to take attendance but to get some idea about workload and motivation.
Not only will you learn a lot by doing this, it is a lot more stimulating and fun, and a lot more memorable to you and to the people you meet, than reading papers in your office.
About Leadership:
About Leadership is a series of 52 columns on corporate leadership - essential skills, leading teams, managing your career, the strategic and business practices to make a company and its leader distinctive from competitors. These columns will be of interest to people leading small and medium sized companies today, many of whom have not had much formal training in management skills and techniques; for the many people in big companies who aspire to senior management; and for anyone who thinks: Give me a hint, how can I do this better?