The CEO Plaint: A Better 100 First Days

. . .that soul imprisoned in a body, itself a prisoner within that dungeon, and from out that double incarnation of flesh and stone, the perpetual plaint of a soul in agony . . ..
-- Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris

I was struck yesterday by a book I was reading, George Bradt's The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan, and an item in Business Week noting that 1,112 chief executives are gone this year and CEO turnover is on a pace to exceed last year's record 1,322 exits. So what do those 1,000 -plus new CEOs do to get themselves and their troubled assignments on the fast track?

In Who Says Elephants Can't Dance, Louis Gerstner, Jr. had a positively leisurely time going around talking to customers, senior managers and the rank and file before he came up with his strategy. In today's nanosecond business world, two Wall Street quarters go faster than a New York minute for troubled companies, and there wouldn't be a new CEO there if it wasn't a troubled company.

So I was struck by the single minded on-boarding focus of George Bradt. He's got it down. Like the pre-planning for Operation Overload's D-Day invasion of Europe, Bradt's approach comes from preparation (that T-minus D-Day planning), delivery and follow-through. He recognizes that the success of the CEO's team requires the alignment of people, plans and practices around a shared purpose.

It all sounds pretty simple. Bradt has a very clear approach on how to manage the different stages of on-boarding. I also checked out his website at www.primegenesis.com. He looks to increase the Tactical Capacity of the new leaders.

Interesting, huh. Tactical Capacity not Strategic Capacity. Oh yeah, you can have those long-night sessions to develop strategies or hire the top Big Think shops. The best strategies, though, can be written on a napkin in a bar or put together in forty-eight hours. Then what do you do in the next 2,352 hours (viz. 98 days)?.

Bradt's got it down. You define your

• Imperative
• Milestones
• Early Wins
• Team Roles
• and Values

You execute like crazy. Heady stuff? Sounds too easy. Well, remember that 40% of new leaders fail in their first 18 months, according to the Center for Creative Leadership. And those men and women weren't stupid in the first place. They and the Boards that selected them thought they knew what they were doing. The cost of that failure is millions of dollars and possibly thousands of lives -- not just the life of the CEO.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins found that most CEOs don't get their businesses humming until their seventh year in office. Wow, if you're a new CEO, you better be good real fast. Those first 100 days could be a real agony of the soul for the toughest Al Dunlap. Good thing George Bradt's got it down because the best way better be up with some pre-planning and a sound tactical approach.