Executive Assimilation Coaching is essential to preventing slow or failed executive transitions
There’s a 50% chance a new executive will fail or leave the organization within their first 18 months.1
The cause of most transition failures is not poor selection or gaps in competence, but rather what happens during onboarding and assimilation.
Executive assimilation coaching is a structured learning process designed to introduce and integrate a leader into the culture, norms, and relationships of their new team and organization. The result of the learning process is an understanding about the organization and the team the executive leads that drive executive success.
1–HBR The Biggest Mistakes New Executives Make by Sabina Nawaz May 15, 2017.
Executive assimilation coaching
To ensure executive transitions are successful, avoid misteps, and don’t end in failure, organizations should include providing the transitioning executive an executive transition or assimilation coach as part of onboarding to a new role.
Executive assimilation coaching involves working with leaders to:
- assess and learn the culture and norms of the organization and teams they are on and lead
- integrate into the culture and teams
- build relationships with key stakeholders
- build cohesive teams
- create a plan of action to achieve positive, visible impact
Executive assimilation coaches act as a trusted advisor and sounding board in the critical early days of a new executive’s role which are often the most challenging of their career.
Executive assimilation programs should focus on:
- supporting the executive in learning the culture and building relationships
- accelerating the value the executive brings to the new role, team, and culture
- improving the effectiveness of the executive in the new role
Avenue Leadership’s Executive Assimilation Coaching Program
- Increases the speed of onboarding. Decreases the time to integration and execution
- Reduces executive missteps or mistakes that lead to slow or failed transitions
- Creates a transition that is smooth for the executive and leads to executive and team engagement
- Maximizes transition results with minimum time required of the executive, HR, and organization
- Enhances company’s existing transition program to maximize integration
- Combines onboarding, assimilation, integration, coaching, feedback and team development into one cohesive program
- Efficient, simple, and cost effective
- Sponsor (hiring manager) and stakeholder engagement, expectation setting, and feedback
- Four facilitated sponsor and leader check-ins
- Five executive coaching sessions with a certified executive coach focused on adapting style to the context/culture/role’s needs
- Leader and team assessments
- Two facilitated team development sessions
- Technology enabled program delivering onboarding process, tools, and videos to the executive’s email
- Pre “day 1” sources of success and avoiding transition pitfalls
- Understanding expectations and navigating culture
- Identifying, building, and evaluating stakeholder relationships
- Shaping a vision and plans for the new role/team/organization
- Direct report team assimilation, assessment, alignment, and development
- Change management and vision communication principles
- Hiring manager, board member, or HR leader who is hiring or promoting an executive
- Transitioning executive who has been asked to come up with their onboarding and transition plan
- Anyone who needs a comprehensive onboarding plan to increase the speed, efficiency, and success of a new or transitioning executive
Learn more about executive assimilation and onboarding
Executive onboarding and transition timeline, toolkit, plans, and templates-essentials including an executive transition onboarding plan, template, roadmap, checklist, pillars, and communications
Executive onboarding and transition fundamentals: the what, why, and who of executive onboarding programs and coaching– the essentials of executive onboarding, transition, integration, and assimilation including programs and coaching
Causes and solutions of executive transition failure– the costs and causes of executive transition failure, the typical approaches to onboarding, what is actually needed by executives in transition
Top challenges executives face during transition– the top challenges executives face during transition and onboarding and how to overcome them
Mistakes made in executive onboarding and transitions– common mistakes and how to prevent them
About Me
I am a certified executive leadership coach. Although every executive is unique, through my 17 years of experience working with executive leaders, I understand the particular challenges executives face. Learn more about us including testimonials and outcomes of our work.
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