Page 88 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Entering Your Boss’s World 73

Sally, an internal consultant, was asked to plan a one-day problem-solving
conference in which the department would come together for the day to iden-
tify solutions for some organizational problems. Her boss had decided that a
workshop was the best way to identify the organization’s problems and iden-
tify solutions. Sally spent three days interviewing people, identifying the crit-
ical problems, and planning the workshop. But in the one-day workshop, the
group of 35 did not get beyond defining the problems or identifying possible
solutions. Her boss, disappointed with the group’s progress, blamed her. In
retrospect, Sally doubted all along that the goal could be accomplished in one
day, and she wished she had used better approaches. She should have
rethought the solution to the problem instead of accepting her boss’s solution
at face value.
Diane is the marketing director for a financial organization in a large city.
Her manager contracted with an advertising firm to design the annual pro-
motional campaign. The agency designed a $685,000 program that included
image ads in a local business magazine, the local mass audience magazine, the
daily newspaper, and some mailings. Fortunately, the large budget gave both
Diane and her boss pause to reanalyze the problem. When they did, they came
up with a different solution, including more direct sales, a larger sales force,
and more face-to-face contact with qualified customers. The ad campaign was
scrapped, and the new program worked for about one-fourth of the cost.
Diane was lucky—the shock of the large budget gave her and her boss cause
to refocus on the problem. But even while changing direction, Diane was care-
ful not to outdistance her boss or to make her boss’s original decision seem
like a bad one.
Pay attention to your boss’s expectations about the role you will play and
what you will accomplish. But you should not assume that you have his
or her mandate to do what you’re doing. Nor should you assume that
what you are handed is exactly what you have to do without discussion and
negotiation.
Another of your boss’s expectations regards the pace of your work. You
may feel lots of pressure to make something happen, to be decisive. As part of
your hiring discussions, you should have agreed on how your transition will
progress, with a rough timeline. In the continuing discussions, you need to
remind your boss of those agreements and to keep your commitment about
regularly discussing your progress. Reiterate that the first major part of the
transition may take up to six months, that your boss should not expect to see