42. Avoid these traps if you are a new CEO, with Prina Shah

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change the Workplace with myself Prino Sharp. I love what I do. I'm a global leadership coach, a consultant, a trainer, a keynote speaker, a podcaster. I help you to develop your leaders, your teams, and I help you to optimize your organizational cultures. I'm here to help you find ways to change your workplace. Why? Because we spend more time in our waking day at work than we do with our loved ones. It has to be a good place to be. So in this podcast, you can expect a mix of interviews with amazing thought leaders and then some solo episodes from myself as well. Strap yourselves in. Avoid these trapped if you are a new CEO. First off, congratulations if you're tuning in and you've started a new job as a new CEO. You've worked hard to get to where you are today. And you've got excitement, nerves, and many many grand plans. Hooray! As a new CEO, you've no doubt got a mandate from your board and your key stakeholders or your shareholders or investors. Your new mandate could be to change the culture, to change the people or to change the internal systems. Your new mandate could be to instill stability within the organization. Your new mandate could be to address past reputational issues. I've supported CEOs facing all of this and so much more. Beyond the board and stakeholder mandate, you've no doubt got your own mandate. Your mandate could be to leave a legacy. Your mandate could be to nail your next opportunity in the next few years. Or your own mandate could be to simply leave the organization in a better position than when you started. The fact is all eyes are on you. The pressure to deliver is palpable. Your stakeholders all want a piece of you. Your board expects regular updates as they've taken a calculated risk on you. Yes, heavy is the head that wears the crown, as the saying goes. However, you've missed a massive piece of the puzzle. Your people. All too often I have seen new CEOs be very outward focused on the board, their stakeholders and their external relationships. But what about your people? What about your people? That's the trap that many eager CEOs fall into, only focusing on the external. They lack the internal focus. The truth is, all eyes are on you from your workforce as well. What have you done to address your workforce? What have you done to truly understand your workforce? And what have you done to focus on your internal brand? If what you've been focused on is only your external brand. So the missing piece is not connecting with your people immediately. And they're the ones who are going to deliver on your promises after all. Not enough new CEOs give time to this aspect, the internal workforce. When I worked in corporate, I experienced this in a few jobs. One CEO had been appointed to the role. She clearly was on the road to retirement and gave zero Fs about her people. That resulted in an internal broken culture where essentially her general managers created their own cultures. One area therefore had a command and control culture, and the other area had a compassionate culture. And both were such different cultures. Imagine having such different cultures within the one workplace. That resulted in the haves and have nots. Now what do I mean by that? People feeling smug that they work in the good area. And those working in the command and control area used to have so many sick days, so many people issues, and eventually it has resulted in a high turnover. Another new CEO in one of my past jobs would only talk with his general managers. The rest of us had no access to him for months. However, then all of a sudden he decreed that he wanted to get to know his workforce. And this was probably three or four months after he'd started, and he therefore decreed stand-up CEO updates every Tuesday mornings. So we would be stood for around forty-five minutes listening to his sermon, essentially, is how it felt like. Oh my gosh. I remember as we always walked back to our desks hearing the murmurs from my colleagues about what a waste of time that was. You see, once you lose the respect of your workforce, it's really difficult to regain, which is why I highly recommend to you, new CEO, to do it right from the get-go. So this CEO's internal brand remained beige throughout his stint at that place that I worked at. So what can you do as a new CEO to engage with your internal workforce? You have to be intentional. And you have to be intentional about meeting all of your workforce. It will take time, however, your workforce will really, really thank you for it, and your people will be eagerly waiting for you. One CEO I have supported ended up setting up CEO coffee sessions where her executive assistant would send a random sample, an invite to have coffee and basically shoot the breeze with the CEO. While it was scary to receive this invite, people also felt excited, they prepared. She disclosed a little bit about herself as well, absolutely so, and she built a great connection. So this is a really good way to break the ice and be approachable. Because remember, as the CEO, you have that positional power, and often in hierarchical workplaces, CEOs seem really scary, and it need not be that way at all anymore. Another way to engage with your internal workforce is to have all staff meetings, or yes, town hall meetings as they're often referred to as well. Now this comes with a caveat. Please don't run them as boring sermons about this month's profit and loss, blah blah blah. That can be read in an email. So if you do decide to hold town hall meetings or all staff meetings, use it as an opportunity to go over and be beyond what can be shared in an email. Create the all staff or all town hall meeting to be engaging and speak true to your desired culture. One CEO ended up deciding to invite a key customer to their all-staff meeting each month, and this key customer had to share their story. You know what? This was brilliant. It led to the workforce understanding how the work that they do in their role impacts the end customer. And what a great and fun and engaging way to use people's time. One CEO holds his all-staff sessions online and asks everyone at the end of this session how they're feeling. And these people, his workforce, type in their response to his question of how you're feeling, and in a couple of minutes, up pops a word cloud of how people are feeling. And the biggest word might be stress or uh joy or whatever, anxiety, or I don't know, whatever comes up. What the CEO does with that is really good though. He then shares this result with his uh HR team and they work in collaboration to actually address whatever has been said. How cool is that? And what a way to show your workforce that you are truly listening to their needs. Another way that you could engage with your internal workforce is to create an internal private podcast. Gone are the days of the weekly CEO blog, boring. I think we're all fed up of looking on the internet, go check your email, blah blah blah. People remember a lot by listening. Think about it. You're listening to this podcast. Guaranteed you're going to remember this point about considering creating an internal private podcast for your workforce. Now, you could have all sorts of topics on there from yourself to your lead team and so much more. Think of all of the silos that could be broken by such a thing as an internal private podcast and the real true connections that you could create as a result of something such as an internal private podcast. Another thing, new CEO, for you to consider is whenever you hold meetings or send emails, you could define your expectations of the culture. So one CEO I worked with used to end his internal staff emails with do your best today. Do your best today. What a great way to sign off an email. So much better than kind regards. WTF does kind regards even mean? And who even would say that out loud? Kind regards. So let's try this. So, no doubt you have taken many psychometric tests over the span of your career. If you're willing to be truly vulnerable, you could share your psychometric test results to show your work style. Guaranteed, this will allow people to tailor their style to yours. And what a way to break the ice. You can have some fun and create a culture of I'll show you mine if you show me yours. What a fun way forward. Now I've supported many organizations to understand each other through work styles using psychometric tests. It's really important because it enables people to move away from beyond the oh the CEO does my head in because they're always asking me for more, to reframing their thinking to the CEO style is detail-oriented. Therefore, I need to be prepared with all of the information when I meet with them. What a wonderfully different way to approach each other and truly understand each other from a different perspective. It makes my heart sing when you hear psychometric tests in this manner to really get people to collaborate, to connect with each other and to drive the culture that you desire. To summarize, the traps I see new CEOs falling into is not working on their internal brand and not connecting with the most important people, their workforce. So if you are a new CEO, go forth and prosper. And remember not to forget all the people in your organization because without them, you're nothing. If you're ready, then you need to join the Ways to Change Your Workplace Facebook group, which is linked in today's show notes. I'll see you there, and I'm looking forward to you tuning in to the next episode. Ciao for now.