Page 217 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

202 Just Promoted!

11. Vested interests. It is often a shock to young managers to learn that
people do not always do something because it is right and just. Instead, they
often act out of self-interest.
When Vanessa became principal of an urban middle school, she was filled
with energy for creating a school that would put the needs, concerns, and
learning styles of students first. She wanted a new curriculum, new materials,
new teaching methods, and new technology to help students. Proposing her
ideas to her faculty, she was stunned by their negativity. She had expected they
would greet her ideas enthusiastically. She was sure they shared her observa-
tions about the school’s failures and that they would welcome changes that
would do the right thing for the students.
But not every member of her organization saw her ideas as helpful. Apply-
ing their own self-interest, many saw Vanessa’s plans as essentially disruptive
to the organization and to their well-ordered and sometimes protected lives.
They felt her ideas would require hours of planning, learning new skills, and
new problem solving and that they would not improve student performance
materially, or improve the school. They didn’t see their own self-interest in
the change.
Similarly, when Dennis decided to move his group to larger, more mod-
ern quarters, he encountered unexpected opposition from some of his senior
employees. Many felt the new space was too expensive, was a longer commute,
provided more space than was needed, and was more than the group could
reasonably pay for. Again, senior group members did not perceive their ben-
efit in the change, and they opposed it.
The most demoralizing experience of Suzanne’s 10-year career was an
organizational renewal effort initiated by Jay, her new boss. Jay, who had been
a successful executive at a large West Coast industry leader, was recruited to
Suzanne’s East Coast–based company to improve research and development
in an organization whose strength was primarily operations. Jay immediately
began by naming six task forces to analyze the organization’s strengths and
weaknesses and provide recommendations to an executive committee of four.
Suzanne’s task force met once with Jay, then met on its own, weekly, over the
next three months. Suzanne spent an additional four to six hours a week on
the task force’s work. Over the three-month life of her task, she devoted per-
haps 120 hours to her task force, including some evenings and Saturdays that
she spent catching up on her regular work.