Leveraging Leadership
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Leveraging Leadership
Making Progress in Interim Periods: Focusing on What Has to Happen Anyway
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This episode shares practical ways to handle uncertain times at work by focusing on the tasks that need to get done no matter what. Emily Sander gives real examples, like mapping and merging data systems during a leadership shakeup, a Chief of Staff streamlining VP workflows after an acquisition, and helping two clashing teams start working better together while waiting for a new role to be filled. The main advice: find useful tasks that must happen anyway to keep progress moving and give teams direction.
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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:25 Interim Period Question
00:39 Do What Matters Anyway
01:12 Example One Data Integration
02:55 Testing and Iterating Fast
03:21 Example Two Post Acquisition Chaos
04:43 Reorg Focus for VPs
06:43 Example Three Awkward Promotion Limbo
07:48 Fixing Two Teams Conflict
12:07 Wrap Up Keep Momentum
Interim Period Question
Do What Matters Anyway
Example One Data Integration
Testing and Iterating Fast
Example Two Post Acquisition Chaos
Reorg Focus for VPs
Example Three Awkward Promotion Limbo
Fixing Two Teams Conflict
Wrap Up Keep Momentum
Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you. what do you do in this interim period? So this is a question that comes up with some frequency when I speak with chiefs of staff, and I've, have personal experience with this as well, so I wanted to share just some quick examples and things to think about. So the overall, principle here is find things that you can do that have to happen no matter what. So find things that you can do that have to happen no matter what. So you might be waiting for a decision. Are we going with option A or option B? Are, you know, are we going with this acquisition or this strategic plan? Are we going with this CEO or this president or whatever it is. If you're waiting for the official thing to come through, what are some things that have to happen either way? okay, let me just get, jump into some examples here. So my personal example is, this was early in my career, but basically, for a variety of reasons, there was a mass exodus of executives. So we had, like, seven senior executive roles open, and it was like, oh my gosh, like tumbleweeds were just going through the hallways'cause no one was there. And the board was going crazy, and we had some, like, interim president person, and we had some different internal candidates trying to say,"I can run the company," and external candidates coming in, and it was like, all right, that's all happening. No matter what, we have this proprietary data set that we're known for and our primary product and service is built on, and we basically had, uh, to make it short, like the, uh, key pieces, pieces of this data in two main systems. And so we were going to have to integrate these systems, and we're going to have to map everything in each system and then tie them together in one system. Not sexy, not particularly fun, but necessary. And it was like, look, this big, hairy thing is gonna have to happen no matter who's in charge, no matter if we're being acquired or we're acquiring, or if this person is our CEO, or if this person is a president role, et cetera, et cetera. Like, the data will have to be merged before we can do anything that, like, anyone would want to do with it. So I was like, okay, well, as all of this is swirling around, and I was kind of in some of these conversations, and I would overhear things, and I was like,"Oh my God. Oh, what if we, happens there?" Okay, put that aside for a second. Let's just figure out something that- Me and my team can do day to day that has to happen anyway. It has to happen regardless. Okay, let me do this thing. So we mapped out the systems and the fields and the integration points, and we did a, you know, beta test round of like, let's try these records. Did it work? No, it broke. Okay, in what way did it break? Okay, in that way. Now let's do a tweak and try those records again. All right, really close, but still this piece kind of is weird. Now let's do this... Oh, that way worked. That way worked. Now we can do batches of these data sets and bring them over. Okay. Anyway, that's an example. Another example, I was talking to a chief of staff, and, um, he was in this position where their company got absorbed into this much larger company, and the much larger company was like,"Run business as usual for what you were doing before." But they removed the CEO, and then the key executives were going to leave because the CEO had left, and they had been with the CEO for a while. And this person originally got laid off, and then he got brought back on, they brought him back personally. They were like,"Oh my gosh, you were part of the layoff round," but they didn't understand like who you were. And so people at the acquired company went to bat for him and said,"No, no, no, he has to stick around." And the, um, acquiring company said,"Okay, fine, bring him back in this kind of newly created role." So he was kind of in this whirlwind, and he was like,"I'm gonna try to wait this out and see how this goes until end of year," uh, which I think is very valid and fair. And we were talking about like what he can do in the meantime. are we gonna get a new CEO? Is it gonna be from someone internally, externally? Are we just gonna get an executive from the acquiring company kind of saying hi to us every once in a while? what is that gonna look like? I don't know. But in the meantime, there were these VPs and, the, there was a reorg, and so how the VPs were aligned was different than before, and how they were aligned meant that they had to have a more, uh, more streamlined process, but just like a different relationship and a different type of process, and a whole bunch of information would need to be gathered and then shared, and then a whole new system and mechanism for doing business and doing handoffs and, decision-making and all those things would have to be revamped. So all those types of things would have to happen regardless of whether or not a CEO would be backfilled this year, next year, who would that be, what exactly his role would be going forward, if he would be continuing going forward. Like i- from between now and end of year, these pieces with the VPs has to be done, and it's something that he is in Good position to do, and it's something that he's actually good at and he likes doing. So he's like,"Okay, this is, this is my task." okay, I need to create something for myself and for the team that would be a pin that we could try to get close to. Like, here's the pin, here's the marker, let's try to hit it. And it kinda gave people a point of focus when all this other stuff was swirling around. Like, hey, I know that stuff is happening, but right now let's document what each team is doing, and then let's redocument basically, let's recontract, okay, here's the new way we're going to have to do this as a overall group, and then we're gonna have to understand and document that's what, that's what this means now for my particular team. So hopefully that makes sense. So basically there was this whole revamp and whole readjustment of how these VPs and how their functional groups were going to be working together and interacting, and that whole revamp and kind of level set and redocumenting stuff and getting people's buy-in on the new way of doing thing at the VP level was going to have to happen anyway. So in that interim period, you might as well do that. Okay, third example here. This is a, another individual who there was a big reorg in their overall department, and there is a newly created job as well, and she's she's kind of, the leadership had made this role with her in mind. Not saying that if they have a rainbow unicorn of a candidate elsewhere that they wouldn't get the job, but this person is kind of like, okay, we're thinking of moving her into this type of role. We think this type of role will be beneficial for all these different functional groups, and so we're going to make a job description, post that internally, post it externally, do the full candidate round. And so there's this full kind of interview loop and ecosystem happening, and there's an interim period between The role she's in now and if and when she officially move into the new role, and so it's like,"Ah, what, what do I do?" And it's, there's some awkwardness in certain areas because certain other colleagues are applying for the same one, and they both know it and all these different things. And, uh, basically she's like,"What do I do?" like in the interim. And we went through this exercise of what types of things would need to happen anyway, and one big issue they're having is two main teams are butting heads and are having r- big, big problems that are affecting other internal teams, other stakeholders, and also the customers. So this is getting to a point where it's like,"Hey, guys, like you c- you can't, you cannot do this. You're just being, tit for tat, egocentric, and like,'I wanna have the last word' type of thing, and it's, it's affecting our customers negatively, so we, we gotta stop it." So in her current role, she's kind of interacting with these groups, and in her new role she would absolutely be in charge of overseeing these two groups and having them get along better. So she's in a little bit of a tough spot where it's like I kinda, like I'm not officially in that role so I can't, tip my hand too far or I can't like say, you know,"Do it'cause I said so, I'm the new boss,"'cause I'm not quite yet. But in her current role she still has to interact with these two teams, kind of at more of a peer level, and a little bit of a go-to person for,"Hey, can you be the tiebreaker?" type of thing. And so we were talking about,"Okay, can you start having a little bit different conversations with these individuals on these two teams?" So you're having conversations with them now, but it's more, a little bit more tactical and like let's just, you know, fix this one thing, fix this one thing, and then know it's gonna break again or know other things are gonna make people upset. And it might be around, okay, w- why are these teams so entrenched against each other? what are some of the crux issues and the crux problems that, um, lead people to behave like they're behaving? Is it... I mean, some of them are like,"It's just always been that way, so like we just hate that team'cause that's what we do. We hate that team," uh, for some team members. But after some we're like,"No, no, no, like it didn't used to be this way." Like what, what, what was the initial impetus for creating this rift or creating this friction point? And so getting into those types of things, having a little bit of a follow-up question or a little bit of a deeper question, maybe a different kind of s- tone or slant to a conversation just to like get a little bit deeper and also kind of understand, huh, what's behind this? What's behind this? What's driving this? And also, equally, what would alleviate- people's need to one-up the other team. So there's this kind of like last word and like,"I'm gonna show you," and,"Oh, I'm gonna show you," like,"I'm gonna show you the last thing and be the last, uh, one standing or the last word said." And so what would help alleviate that and take that away where there's no longer an incentive to do that? The incentive is, hey, we have to come together, maybe disagree on something. Disagreeing isn't bad. Disagreeing isn't being mean to people. It's just disagreeing and having a conversation, and then moving forward with, with a path that we both agree on. And so having conversations around that, she's already having conversations with these groups, so it's not like out of the blue, like totally crazy, like,"Whoa, what are you doing now?" It's, no, you're having these conversations, but in a slightly different way, and it's more like gathering some intel, and it might be, we talked about it might be there's an opportunity in this interim period to find a path forward and be a tiebreaker in a more holistic way, not just a onesie-twosie, like this specific thing and this specific thing and that specific thing, and then I'll be the person you go to for the next one. It's, hey, we're gonna solve this problem, but also is there a way we can solve f- all future problems like this one or all issues of this like kind, we would solution this way. We would solution in a similar way. And so having little bit of, uh, adjustments or different slants to these conversations is something that has to happen anyway. Like, these two teams have to get along regardless. So if she moves into this role, if she doesn't, like, these two teams eventually have to find a way to move forward. So that was something that has to happen anyway, and something that she can work on, and is i- in position to work on. it's not out of the blue or totally out of scope for her to do these things, but that's something that she can do in the interim. So for you, if you're like,"Okay, I'm kind of in a similar situation, like maybe I'm waiting for the official thing to go through, or there's an interim period that's just gonna happen," don't just stop. Don't just get flustered. Don't let your team be in too much of limbo land where it's like,"We don't like this. We don't like this, and because we don't have something to do, we're just gonna sit here and kind of like flit around and be anxious and have a lot of angst around our team for weeks, months at a time." It's, it's let's do this. We have to do this any which way the shoe drops, we're gonna have to do this. And a lot of times it is giving your team something to do, right? So in this episode, we're talking about useful things that have to happen anyway. There's a whole other conversation that could be had around you don't want your team to be floating or lackadaisical or unfocused'cause they'll get distracted and all sorts of things will transpire from that. There's a whole school of thought where it's like, even if it's not the most important thing, enter this data into this spreadsheet is like at least you have something to do. Go carry water and dig a hole in the ground, like it's something like to do, and that gives people a structure and a purpose for that day or for that time period. So that's a whole other conversation to be had. But I think if you're managing people through a limbo and managing people through an interim period, have that in mind as well, where it's like, okay, I need to give them something to do, and I want it to be useful. So do all the things you normally do, which are explain why you're doing something, explain why it's meaningful and beneficial to the team itself, to internal stakeholders, to customers, et cetera, et cetera, and explain how their day-to-day goes to those overall objectives, and then track progress. Hey, we had, um, you know, we had 5% of the two systems merged, 5% of the two systems integrated. Now we have 10%. We just made progress. Good job, team. So all the normal things that you do in a business as usual type of cadence and type of flow, some of those same things you're gonna bring to bear here in this interim period. But overall principle would be ask yourself what has to happen anyway? What is gonna move the ball forward? And we can wait to do that for six weeks, for six months until this official thing comes through, but we will have lost six weeks and six months. So why would we do that? Let's just start now. It's going to have to happen anyway. All right. Hopefully, this helps you and your team. Maybe not now, but if the future, if you run into this situation, you can remember this episode or re-listen to it and go,"Oh, yes. Okay. That's the question. Let me go find those options and those ideas from the team and have us do that." All right. I will wrap it up there, and I'll catch you next week on Leveraging Leadership. This episode is brought to you by Next Level Coaching. If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about executive leadership coaching, please visit www.next level Coach.