{"id":898,"date":"2014-01-08T11:43:22","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T00:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=898"},"modified":"2014-01-08T11:43:22","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T00:43:22","slug":"how-new-leaders-can-build-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=898","title":{"rendered":"how new leaders can build trust"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Meet with as many individual contributors as possible<\/li>\n<li>Develop a plan based on their insights<\/li>\n<li>Report that plan back to them once it is developed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a style=\"line-height: 1.5;\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/12\/the-best-way-for-new-leaders-to-build-trust\">http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/12\/the-best-way-for-new-leaders-to-build-trust<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"pageHeadline\">\n<div>\n<h1 id=\"pageTitle\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/\">HBR Blog Network<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"pageFeature\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"20131216_1\" src=\"http:\/\/hbrblogs.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/12\/20131216_1.jpg?w=580\" width=\"580\" height=\"215\" \/><\/p>\n<h1 id=\"articleTitle\">The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust<\/h1>\n<p>by Jim Dougherty\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 8:00 AM December 13, 2013<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">When I took over as CEO of Intralinks, \u00a0a company that provides secure web based electronic deal rooms, the company was hemorrhaging so much cash that its survival was at stake. The service was going down three times per week; we were in violation of the contract with our largest client; our chief administrative officer had just been demoted, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"articleBody\">\n<p>So, what I do on my first day? I spent more than four hours \u00a0listening in to client support calls at the call center.\u00a0 I shared headsets with many of the team, moving from desk to desk to speak to the reps. To say they were surprised is an understatement: Many CEOs never visit the call center, and virtually none do it their first afternoon on the job.<\/p>\n<p>I made this my priority partly because I wanted to know what customers were saying\u2014but also to make an internal statement. I knew there had to be some radical changes to behaviors, expectations, and attitudes.\u00a0 There was no time to be subtle.\u00a0 I needed to show I was different, that things were\u00a0<i>going to be<\/i>\u00a0different, and I needed to establish trust as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>In leading various companies over the years, one of the most valuable lessons I\u2019ve learned is that establishing trust is\u00a0<i>the<\/i>\u00a0top priority. Whether you are taking over a small department, an entire division, a company, or even a Boy Scout troop, the first thing you must get is the trust of the members of that entity.\u00a0 When asked, most leaders will agree to this notion, but few do anything to act on it.<\/p>\n<p>Without trust, it is\u00a0<i>very<\/i>\u00a0unlikely you will learn the truth on what is\u00a0<i>really<\/i>\u00a0going on in that organization and in the market place.\u00a0 Without trust, employees won\u2019t level with you\u2014at best, you\u2019ll learn either non-truths or part truths. I see this all too frequently. Sometimes employees will go out of their way to hoard and distort the truth.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to start building trust to take the time and meet as many individual contributors as you can\u00a0<i>as soon as you can<\/i>. In addition to meeting customers, meeting rank-and-file employees should be your top priority.<\/p>\n<p>This is not a common approach. Many leaders see their role as directing and giving information, rather than gathering.\u00a0 There is pressure to \u201ccome up with the answer\u201d quickly or risk looking weak.\u00a0 Too many new leaders believe they\u2019re expected to know the answer without input or guidance. Nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n<p>Doing this correctly takes time\u2014but less than you might think. The meetings can be on one on one or small groups.\u00a0 The sessions can\u2019t be rushed.\u00a0 In the first few weeks I\u2019d suggest you spend up to half your time in these meetings. Take a pad and take notes.\u00a0 Listen intently.\u00a0 A simple but effective open-ended question is: \u201cIf you were put into my role tomorrow, what would be the first three things you\u2019d do and why?\u201d\u00a0 Or: \u201cWhat are the three biggest barriers to our success, and what are our three biggest opportunities we have?\u201d Really great ideas can emerge from these meetings\u2014along with some really mediocre ones\u2014but it\u2019s your job to filter and prioritize them. First, gather the information.<\/p>\n<p>Later on my first day at Intralinks, I began arranging meetings with individual contributors. That\u2019s where my learning really began. Over the next few weeks I met with over 60 individual contributors. Not only did I learn a lot, but I convinced them that I cared what they thought and could be trusted with the truth.<\/p>\n<p>In the middle of my first week as CEO, one of the company\u2019s original VCs called. \u201cSo, what\u2019s your plan?\u201d he asked. I said I have to spend a few weeks learning. He was incredulous that I did not have a pre-baked plan. I was incredulous he thought that I should.<\/p>\n<p>Over those weeks I learned how unhappy clients were with our complex bills, why service went down so often, why our pricing gave our clients headaches, that 80% of the customer calls could be eliminated with a simple fix to our service, and that clients wanted predictability of expenditures with us.<\/p>\n<p>After six weeks, I had enough information to return to the management team with specific recommendations on what I thought we should do. Instead of just laying this out in an all-hands meeting, I began laying out the plan in one-on-one meetings in which I talked about how each individual\u2019s feedback had helped guide my thinking. This created a tremendous buy in among all levels of the team.<\/p>\n<p>By mid March, after only 10 weeks on the job, we rolled out the new plan. By the end of the year we\u2019d signed 150 new long-term contracts (up from zero), revenue was up by almost 600%, our burn rate was cut by 75%, and we\u2019d positioned ourselves to raise a $50 million round of financing a few months later in the heart of the dot.com winter.<\/p>\n<p>None of this could have happened without building the trust of the team. New leaders must remember that many of the best insights on how to fix a company lie with employees further down the org chart. Creating a trusting, honest dialogue with these key personnel should be every new leader\u2019s top priority.<\/p>\n<div id=\"jp-post-flair\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"articleFooter\">\n<div>\n<div id=\"articleFooterMoreBy\">More blog posts by\u00a0<a title=\"Posts by Jim Dougherty\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/jim-dougherty\/\" rel=\"author\">Jim Dougherty<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet with as many individual contributors as possible Develop a plan based on their insights Report that plan back to them once it is developed http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/2013\/12\/the-best-way-for-new-leaders-to-build-trust HBR Blog Network The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust by Jim Dougherty\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 8:00 AM December 13, 2013 When I took over as CEO of Intralinks, \u00a0a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/?p=898\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">how new leaders can build trust<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-management-and-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":899,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.panicola.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}