Leaders Letter 202 - 365-Day Plan Outline For C-Suite Executives
Free Planning, Performance & Impact Framework
Dear leaders, how did last weeks newsletter on culture fit land with you?
Exec Problems? Did you know that executive tenure is slowly decreasing?
The average tenure for a CMO is as low as 16 months and many CEOs do not last more than 5 years.
Why? This is down to the pressure of the job and the performance in these roles.
In contrast; It’s uncommon to hear of a CFO leaving a role within a few years and they rarely leave their roles, often meaning they are the longest-serving C-Suiter.
In my exec coaching and regularly speaking with a breadth of c-suite execs, I ask about three phases of their role, (1) onboarding (& re-onboarding) (2) reviewing their own work and learning from this (3) performance and impact: improving their planning to perform at their optimal best and making the time to review the cycle.
The TLDR:
Onboarding and re-onboarding weren’t ever really considered.
Reviewing their (own) work and proactively asking for feedback wasn’t something they actively did.
Performance was based on official reviews and the performance of their teams, often leaving peers to have outweighed influence on their tenure.
Today I am going to concentrate on onboarding and planning and within this, I have included reviewing performance and owning as much of your leadership journey as possible.
Planning: Understanding The First 100 Days
Many mid-to-senior roles will ask you to map out your first 90-100 days, but what if the first 100 days aren’t the first 100 days on the job? (Read how to plan your first 100 days here)
Joining a company and connecting timelines is very different. Your first 100 days will be -30 days before joining. Not the day you join as an employee, so you should be planning between 130 and 160 days. (In the UK some executives have 6 month notice period, commonly three months, whereas in the US and other parts of the world, the notice period is much shorter - 14 days)
Many executives struggle to map out their onboarding and do not own the process, this means you are not taking the relevant steps to help you understand the business, your actual role (not just what is on the job description and tweaked verbally) and you own the expectations far more quickly and they are not crammed into week 1 when it is “make or break” for many of us.
My 365 Framework
If you are looking for a new role or entering into a new promotion into a senior role, below is a tweaked framework I share with coaching clients and recently shared with fellow CMOs in an active group.
When you accept your role, you have two options,
Onboard early and progressively or
Onboard in week 1, week 1 is a whirlwind and you have to hit the ground running and you will have a lot to consume and navigate.
You will know what is best for you, however, option 1 is best in 90% of instances and will set you up for week 1.
Before we dive in: Weeks-long listening tours aren’t accepted anymore even at the CEO level, so setting yourself up for success as early as possible is more critical than ever before.
I have placed day placeholders in the timeline below for a reference point of how I have planned my 365 days in a role.
Day -30 (30 Days Before You Join The Business)
Team Onboarding (meet and greet)
Exec Onboarding (drinks/food)
HR Onboarding - this will take until day 5 after joining
Handover from exiting C-Suite you are taking over
Review recent business financials
Listening Tour
Understand the MIM (most important metric) and North Star and how other metrics ladder up
Day 0 - 2
Organise 1-2-1s
HR check-in
Organise team lead check-ins
Find out how decisions are actually made (for example: HiPPO only, leadership team and filter down or more a Leadership - Strategic, Management - Tactical Or Operational Team Members)
Understanding vanity metrics and starting to de-prioritise from existing set-up
Week 1
Budget review and forecasting
Kickstart CFO relationship
Company strategy review & review associated goals
Undercover “The big problem to solve”
Internal relationship building
C-Suite relationship building
Understand company culture & sub cultures
Arrange CEO 1-2-1's (Or who you report to & organise skip with CEO)
Organise 1-2-1s
Identify the important skip levels or arrange monthly
Learn internal systems (especially software and tools if new to you)
Reporting and dashboard review
Review existing results & comparison (1-3 years)
Week 2-4
Kick-off Full Audit (Concentrating on)
Cross-functional deep-dive
Budget and spending
Numbers/Data review
Analytics Review
HVE (High-Value Employee) identification
Goals / OKRs review & development
Find out what the company/department/teams are hiding
Find out what has worked, what has not worked, and what could work via the recent ideation sessions
Implement your company-wide decision document
Product deep-dive & CPO relationship-building
Identify internal influencers
Identify the key cross-functional team members
Connect with board/investors (if CEO/CFO/COO this should be before day 1)
Userbase/Audience analysis
Infrastructure & tech stack review
CS ticket analysis and top-level review
Reforecast (if required or you require to move spend)
Build out your growth plan
Sales (Or Partnerships) relationship building
Review your impact and the actions taken to drive performance to date
Week(s) 4-12
Hiring Plan
Dedicated Firing Plan
Org design project and alignment to hiring and firing plan
Product Roadmap Review
External Relationship Building
Existing GEOs, markets review & development
Pricing Analysis
Markets review
Local
National
International
Connected global plan
First 90-100 day review - show the results made and upcoming results
Audit findings and action plan
Show how you are getting closer to resolving the big problem you are solving or how you have solved parts of it
Ramp-up phase of performance and optimisation of work streams
QBR planning and optimise discussions
Within 12 weeks if you have not shown real change and impact you will be in a difficult spot to improve performance and will struggle to know you have executive buy-in.
Week(s) 13-26
Kickstart new Department plan of action (aka your department “strategy”)
Agency(s) review
Leadership team meeting optimisation (this is critical and should be something you consider earlier, if inefficient move to before week 12)
Review personal performance alongside departmental performance and proactively seek feedback from colleagues and executive peers
Plan out training or personal coaching and book in (weekly to fortnightly is the best cadence)
Continue board and advisor (add investors to this if you are a COO, CEO, CFO and CMO) relationships
Week(s) 26-52
Annual Planning - department and company (optimise inputs, reporting and strategic planning)
LRP (long-range planning)
Arrange work getaway - whether this is 1-3 days and have hard goals from this session
Department reshaping (hiring and firing to be bedding in)
New agency pitch cycle &/ bring in-house
With this timeline you can revisit from week 2 and replan annually, reviewing, optimising and improving operational efficiencies.
The questions to ask yourself every week:
How do I unlock potential?
How do I unblock problems within my department?
How do I empower more?
How do I call out good behaviours?
How do we collectively problem-solve?
What was this week's performance?
What was our impact this week?
What are the biggest priorities next week?
Where can I optimise
Where is the next 10% coming from?
Although much of this is what we should do, most of us don’t and forget that political intelligence and relationship building are what make the real difference in most roles, especially new roles at new companies or in promotions.
Go and make a positive change!
>> Let me know what you are going to be adding into your plan moving forward by hitting reply or emailing me on leaders@dannydenhard.com.
Have a great week ahead.
Thanks,
Danny Denhard
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