Executive onboarding: Nicklas Saved an Entire Working Year

Have you ever wondered why some executives make a huge impact in short time and why others never succeed?

It can take a year before a newly hired executive makes results in the organization. We expect highly skilled leaders to make an impact from day 1 but in real life there are many obstacles in a new position, and you don’t get a second chance. Within 100 days, ACO Nordic's Managing Director, Nicklas Lionett has managed to gain understanding of his management team and optimized his personal leadership style. That is one of the reasons behind his rapid success in the CEO chair.

New executive appointments are expensive investments, and there are high expectations that they will deliver from day one. The reality is not that simple, the CEO role is not always easy. New executives must be able to quickly adjust priorities, understand teams' abilities, the work culture, and how to achieve success with new strategies.

Birn+Partners has made market research with 600 executives in Europe about onboarding new executives. It shows that 70% of new executives do not have a plan when starting the job and 98% did not make any changes in the first 100 days due to lack of a solid basis for decision. As a result, 35% of them vacated the position before 18 months.

Therefore, we offer to stay by newly hired leaders’ side for especially the first 100 days or longer, as a neutral sparring partner, says Mikkel Birn CEO at Birn+Partners.

Nicklas Lionett, who was hired as a Managing Director in ACO Nordic A / S in 2020, went through the onboarding process. He believes, it would have taken him four times more, to get to the same level without the onboarding program which is also named FIRST100.

"I have previously tried a similar recruitment process, where I was just handed over to the employer after the recruitment. That way, it usually takes up to a year or even more before you are completely comfortable in the new role. With FIRST100, on the other hand, I had an external sparring partner, with whom I could manage the challenges and whatever I encountered during the first 100 days through relaxing dialogues" says Nicklas.

And it is precisely the purpose of the program: To ensure the company's investment in management provides returns as quickly as possible.

Nicklas Lionett's FIRST100 Mentor was Executive Consultant at Birn + Partners, Lone Vinther. She is aware of the many unpredictable challenges associated with being a newly hired talent in a new organization.

“Leaders who come into a large organization, they know which job they’ve entered. They have signed the contract. After that you enter the everyday life in the new organization. There may be different considerations about the task you thought you were getting into. It may not necessarily have the same ‘colour or scent’, as you thought from the beginning,” says Lone Vinther.

A Strategic Personal Program

A FIRST100 program is strategically structured with six modules that focus on the challenges and issues that Birn+Partners has found through the market research of 600 executives. They touch on everything between setting and identifying the scene in the new organization with new colleagues and analyzing the professional competency and personality of the management team to be able to set a new direction.

Six intensive modules are touched upon in a FIRST100 program, but they are not all crucial to each candidate. At the start of FIRST100, the consultant, newly hired executive and recruiting manager meet to create a plan for the program. Lone Vinther explains, that it is the new leader who sets the bar.

“We are there for the new executive's sake and have sold the company time to spar with the newly appointed. Therefore, it is often the leader who is allowed to set the agenda. We have the six points that we go through, but it is not always slavishly followed. It is more the leader's needs that defines what the theme of the conversations are during the process,” says Lone Vinther.

Behind every leader is a human being, who has his or her own challenges and issues. Birn+Partners findings show that some leaders feel overwhelmed by fear of failure or fear of making unwanted changes. Others are overconfident and underestimate the challenges ahead.
By making a clear plan for the first 100 days the program seeks to create solid base for facing each candidates’ individual challenges.

For Nicklas Lionett in ACO, the most important thing was to get to know the people in his management team and the team in general, before starting to implement changes.

“I believe we’ve touched every single one of the six modules. However, it gave a good start, that we agreed to do a personality analysis of the leaders who report to me. In same process I was transparent with my personality analysis which in the management team gave us a great common platform to communicate from. I could have spent three to four months doing it myself. With FIRST100, I performed faster and so did my team,” Nicklas Lionett says.

If you ask Nicklas Lionett’s sparring partner Lone Vinther, it is common that the understanding of teams and peers creates results.

“It really creates results when you take your peers in for meetings and tests. It is my experience, that the conversations with the new leader become better, once he or she gains insight into his or her managing team. And they open themselves. Otherwise, it takes a long time if you are new in the organization,” Lone Vinther says.

During Nicklas Lionett's first 100 days, it was also here, that the meetings with Lone Vinther peaked timewise, as they started meeting almost on a weekly basis.

“We had an ongoing dialogue for 100 days and fixed meetings once a month. When we did the personality analysis however, we meet more on a weekly or bi-weekly basis because it required more dedicated time,” Nicklas Lionett says.

Changes Require Understanding

Today, Nicklas Lionett believes that FIRST100 was the key for the success, he has achieved in the top position at ACO Nordic. The landmark was his tests and talks with employees and managers, which gave him the best opportunities to make the adequate changes in the organization.

“The most important thing for me in the first 100 days was to understand the employees, what they do and why they do it. Make sure to set aside time to talk to them. After hearing what people had to say, I was able to put things in the framework where you make things successful, give people new roles where required, and change the organizational structure making it fit for the future,” he says.

Gathering intel is the best way to start the process, according to the findings of Birn+Partners FIRST100 program. The first 100 days should be spent this way, as you can start making small changes during the next month, that may be considered early wins.

The changes that Nicklas Lionett has made for ACO are based on that understanding, but the initiatives are, of course, entirely up to him. It is also based on the intel he gathered during the process.

Consultants like Lone Vinther do not take control of what the executive decides or does. They only try to guide and make them reflect on said decisions through sparring.

“We do not know the organization in depth. Through sparring and pitching of ideas, we talk about what the leader has tried and how the different methods worked. We use our own experience, but also ask questions that may seem provocative, to push the leader forward,” Lone Vinther states.

The provocative questions have not only changed Nicklas Lionett's approach to the management team and colleagues. It has also made an impression on his personal leadership style. Although he prefers quick changes, after the program they were turned down a notch to be both quick and thoughtful.

“Lone has often said, that I am the one who makes the quick decisions. The fact that we included the organization has made me think one more time before making new changes. I still make quick decisions, but she made me more aware of it,” Nicklas Lionett says.

Authentic are Essential

Two underlying principles to succeed through the process for candidates like Nicklas Lionett, who go through a FIRST100 program, are honesty in the dialogue and the neutral sparring partner. Especially the honesty was crucial for Nicklas Lionett to get the best out of both the analytic process with his teams.
It made a positive impression on his peers, even though it was during the first three months.

“I was open to both Lone and my staff. In terms of the personality analyzes, we shared my own personality profile first and spent a lot of time just taking a chat with people individually. That in turn opened up the staff. I was no longer the new stranged managing director, and that was crucial to make it a success,” he says.

If you ask Lone Vinther, openness is also the most important thing to be able to start the good dialogue and sparring during FIRST100.

“The leader must be honest with us about the challenges they face. It requires willingness to be challenged on whether it is a challenge for everyone or whether it relates to him and his leadership style. It requires that the person is willing to listen, so that we as mentors can provide help,” she says.

Nicklas Lionett had no problems with honesty in his dialogue, which is why he got the best out of the conversations and sparring.

"Internal sparring partners in top positions often do not have enough time dedicated to the necessary sparring. Often there are also professional barriers, limiting what you can talk to a colleague about", says Nicklas Lionett.

“The position as CEO can be lonely. It can be difficult to get a sparring partner within the organization as it can be a little left-handed. Before this job, I used as a confidential sparring partner in my organization, but we could not talk about things that could be interpreted as professionally private,” he states.

The statement resonates with Lone Vinther, who does not believe that new hires are the only place where neutrality is valued.

“It gives a lot to new leaders to have a neutral sparring partner by their side, as is often the case in many of life's contexts. This is no exception,” Lone Vinther says as a closing statement.

//Birn+Partners