New Senior Leaders often rush to make their mark, but what if the real mark of leadership was to avoid making any early decision?

Back in 2017, I was visiting a company in Dublin that was making good progress with Business Agility. I had been working in Dublin in 2016 during our work with Ding.com and both companies shared successful case studies of using Kanban and Flow Thinking to improve Business Agility.

This company had a new CIO. Within 2 weeks of his arrival, this CIO had decided that the company needed to abandon what they had done so far and to implement a full-scale SAFe program costing over €1m EUR.

You see, the CIO claimed that SAFe had worked in his previous company and, therefore, it was needed in this new company.

That was the last time I heard of this company doing anything exciting about Business Agility.

You've probably heard of this behaviour happening in many companies, right?

Why do new Senior Leaders do this?

• They probably need to be seen as decisive.

• They may feel pressure to make their mark as soon as possible.

• They may have (over)confidence that what worked elsewhere will work again.

In reality, this is a very outdated, and even damaging, mindset and style of management.

Why?

• The new leader does not know the company yet. They are in no position to make any wise and informed decision.

• The new leader has no historical context of why things are the way they are. Not everything will be great, but it may be that way for a reason.

• Believing that what worked in one company will work in another company is magical "copy and paste" thinking. Every company is unique and will require tailored solutions.

Making early decisions limited (or no) knowledge and awareness is a recipe for friction, failure and even disastrous business consequences.

Why would any company allow this?

What can a modern Senior Leader do instead?

• Companies should require any new hire (especially senior ones) to refrain from making any decisions for a considerable amount of time (3-6 months at least). Set that expectation from the start!

• During that time, focus should be on learning deeply about the organisation. Listen and immerse yourself in how work happens at the company (embark on a continuous gemba walk).

• Only when you have a reasonable understanding of the new company, then start making more informed and well-judged decisions. And do this a collaborative and experimental manner.

Make changes WITH people, not for people!