Onboarding new leaders: changing the approach. The subtleties of adaptation of leaders and HR-managers to a new place of work The most successful strategy of behavior in the adaptation of a manager

The onboarding process for senior managers begins with the presentation of printed documents to the accepted leader. Next, the manager is inaugurated - the CEO or HR director introduces a new employee. There is an inspection of the unit, acquaintance with employees and familiarization with the enterprise as a whole. The personnel management service seeks to help the new leader to join the team, providing the necessary information about the traditions of the organization, the potential of each employee, about the features of the socio-psychological climate in the team.

Even if from the professional side the manager corresponds to the position held, in the process of socio-psychological adaptation, as practice shows, most often one has to face problems that are as follows:

1. At first, it is not always possible to find a common language with subordinates due to their vigilance. The team does not know what to expect from the new leader, because at the beginning of work, a person, as a rule, demonstrates his positive sides and carefully hides the negative, and enough time must pass before the team will be able to form the correct opinion about the leader.

2. There is a danger of inconsistency between the level of the manager and the level of his subordinates. If the leader is head and shoulders above the team, subordinates will not be able to adequately perceive his demands or orders based, for example, on a non-standard approach, and the leader will be in the position of a general without troops. If the opposite happens, then the team turns out to be a “herd without a shepherd” - this option can lead to emotional tension, especially in the case when the former boss had a higher professional level.

3. Acceptance of a new leader by the team is associated with comparing him with his predecessor and the lack of emotional connection with him.

The experience of the enterprise has shown that the use of a complex of professional and psychological adaptation of a new specialist turns out to be more effective and economical than an unsuccessful completion probationary period and the search for new and new candidates for the vacant position.

How to adapt to managerial positions, especially managerial positions

Most Russian companies there are simply no special adaptation programs for managers. Some have programs designed for all employees without exception, including managers. They are created in order to introduce the rules of the company and introduce a new person to colleagues. The higher the position of the leader, the more individually the adaptation program should be built. Some companies invite a special trainer for this purpose. Adaptation must be consistent. First, an individual assessment is carried out with an attempt to impose strengths on the strengths of the organization and its specifics. The next stage is drawing up an adaptation plan, which can include trainings, coaching, and internal mentoring. The main thing is to show the newbie what his actions, habits, business qualities can be a useful resource and which obstacle to work in the company. Even an experienced leader often needs help from the company. Firstly, a huge number of people appear in his life who need something from him, especially if he is a leader. Sometimes the company's task is simply to organize the process of informal communication correctly and in a timely manner. In the professional plane, the following types of labor adaptation are distinguished: adaptation of the worker, specialist, manager. Adaptation of managers is the most difficult, because the latter, adapting to the new production environment, must meet the level and expectations of new subordinates, and choose the right management strategy. The success of adaptation here depends on what kind of relationship the adaptive manager with direct management can build. The most important prerequisites for the adaptation of a leader is a preliminary study of future subordinates, the experience and work style of the predecessor, as well as the presence of competencies demanded by this organization.

Rice. 3.

The adaptation of leaders is especially difficult. This is primarily due to the discrepancy between the niches of their level and the level of new subordinates. If the leader is head and shoulders above the team, the latter will not be able to perceive its requirements.

There can be several strategies.

1. Expectant. Consists of a gradual study of the situation, the problems of the unit and the features of the work of the predecessor. It is characterized by increased caution, a detailed clarification of the work of the predecessor, the general situation, acquaintance with unrealized projects and only after that the beginning of active actions (usually no earlier than 100 days).

2. Critical. Based on the assessment of all the previous as unsatisfactory, and those around them - as complacent routines and Attempts to immediately bring everything back to normal. This strategy tends to fail quickly.

3. Traditional. Assumes actions on the road beaten by the previous leader and the use of previous techniques.

4. Rational. It is based on the selection of several areas of activity in order to solve the pressing, most troubling problems within 4-6 weeks and thereby improve the state of affairs. She can bring success to the beginner, show his skillful leadership. In the process of implementing this strategy, it is necessary to gradually teach subordinates to work in a new way, setting them specific goals, in case of difficulties, do not give up, remembering that the force of inertia is often great.

Subordinates and supervisors have their own interests and expectations in relation to the new employee. The new leader is under pressure from both above and below. Therefore, the changes should not be abrupt, creating the danger of disrupting the work of other departments. In this regard, stakeholders are immediately encouraged to make it clear that their interests will be taken into account in all transformations, but do not rush into practical actions. Difficulties also arise due to the fact that the acceptance of the new leader by the team largely depends on his comparison with the predecessor. A new leader will be able to succeed only when he is well-versed in internal relationships and rely on key figures, for example, on the temporary holding of these duties before him. It is advisable to ask him for advice in the first place and discuss the possibilities of cooperation.

The process of entering a new leader into the team is also facilitated by a preliminary study of future subordinates, their advantages, disadvantages, potential opportunities; asserting himself from the first day as a decisive person, but at the same time prudent, careful, not changing everything at once, but immediately eliminating serious obstacles in the work, attentively considering the opinions and suggestions of subordinates. At the same time, one should not criticize the former leader.

UDC 316

annotation♦ The article examines the problem of adaptation of an employee to changes in the conditions of the external and internal environment at the enterprise in the conditions of a modern, dynamically developing society.

Keywords: labor activity, adaptation, adaptive behavior, innovation.

In the very general view adaptation of personnel to changes - the process of adaptation of an employee to changes in the conditions of the external and internal environment at the enterprise. And in a modern, dynamically developing society, in conditions of fierce competition, this environment is constantly changing. Thus, the task of studying this problem is becoming more and more urgent. One of the ways of its comprehension is offered by the thesaurus concept of humanitarian knowledge. In the light of its main provisions, the picture takes on the following form.

Reasons for changing conditions labor activity people are diverse: entering a new job, moving to another department, to a new position, introducing new forms of labor organization, remuneration, etc. significant release and, therefore, redistribution work force, an increase in the number of workers who are forced to either master new professions or change their workplace and the collective, the importance of the problem of adaptation increases even more. This problem in one way or another applies to all categories of workers. A change in the workplace or working conditions is often associated with a change in profession, type of activity, which gives adaptation a new, more complex character.

There are many strategies for the behavior of company employees in the context of the introduction of any innovations. And they depend primarily on how we are going to classify adaptation. For example, in the process of adapting a person to a production environment, many questions arise: is it necessary for an employee to take the environment for granted and adapt to it with all his might, or to demand changes in the environment itself, what are the ways and means of influencing a person and the environment, where the criteria for the possibility and necessity of taking into account requirements of the employee, etc. Therefore, in this case, one can distinguish between active adaptation, when an individual seeks to influence the environment in order to change it (including those norms, values, forms of interaction and activities that he must master) , and passive, when he does not strive for such influence and change. The most effective seems to be their symbiosis, adaptation as a process of active adaptation of an individual to a changing environment with the help of appropriate control action and use various means(organizational, technical, socio-psychological, etc.). In addition, it is possible to distinguish between primary production adaptation, when a person first enters into permanent labor activity at a particular enterprise, and secondary - with a subsequent change of job. In the first case, a person has no experience of work and existence in a work collective, and the acquisition of such experience will take some time. But this factor also plays a positive role, such a person will more easily accept the existing conditions prevailing at this particular enterprise. In the case of secondary adaptation, there is a possibility that it will be difficult for a person to adapt to the peculiarities of the new environment, because he will be hampered by his previous experience. Although this same experience can be very useful in the new environment. Obviously, these two types of adaptation will be different and will require different measures aimed at facilitating the process of adaptation of an employee to new conditions for him.

Taking into account these differences, the adaptation process can be conditionally divided into four stages. The first is an assessment of the level of preparedness of a person, it is necessary to develop the most effective adaptation program. The second is orientation, practical acquaintance of the employee with his duties and the requirements that are presented to him by the organization. The third is effective adaptation. This stage consists in the actual adaptation of the employee to his status and is largely due to his inclusion in interpersonal relationships with colleagues. And finally, the fourth is functioning. This stage completes the adaptation process, it is characterized by the gradual overcoming of production and interpersonal problems and the transition to stable work. Adaptation, as a complex phenomenon, can be viewed from various positions, highlighting its psychophysiological, professional, socio-psychological aspects. Each of them has its own object, its own targets, performance indicators.

Psychophysiological adaptation - adaptation to work activity at the level of the worker's organism as a whole, which results in smaller changes in his functional state (less fatigue, adaptation to high physical exertion, etc.).

Professional adaptation is the complete and successful mastery of a new profession, that is, addiction, adaptation to the content and nature of work, its conditions and organization. It is expressed in a certain level of mastery professional knowledge and skills, in ability, in accordance with the nature of the personality and the nature of the profession.

Socio-psychological adaptation of a person to production activity - adaptation to the closest social environment in the team, to the traditions and unwritten norms of the team, to the style of work of managers, to the peculiarities of interpersonal relations that have developed in the team. It means the inclusion of the employee in the team as an equal, accepted by all its members. Some authors distinguish not three, but four types: professional, psychophysiological, socio-psychological, organizational, highlighting separately organizational adaptation, which involves familiarizing the employee with the structure of the organization, defining his own role in it.

As we can see, there are many types of adaptation, but from the point of view of enterprise personnel management, it makes sense to consider the adaptation in relation to the employee to innovation. How do people feel about innovation, and how has this attitude changed over time?

Research in this direction has already been cited, and many behavioral types of participants in the innovation implementation process have been described. So, for example, Yu.D. Krasovsky uses a role-based approach:

Innovators — they are initiators who propose and defend their own go. They are absolutely confident in their own righteousness and can often provoke conflicts, fighting for the implementation of their ideas. At the same time, they are easily carried away by new ideas, not bringing those already expressed to their logical conclusion. It is important for such people to develop a broader vision of the problem, it is important to be aware of their initiative proposal in comparison with a wide front of work on their implementation. It often turns out that their initiative proposals are very insignificant against the background of existing tasks.

Advocates of innovation- these are those who very quickly perceive new things when they are convinced of its importance. This is the main reserve of the leader when introducing innovations. But the main condition here is the correct argumentation of the proposed innovations. Without a complete understanding of the problem, these people will not support innovation.

Wavering about innovation- these are employees who either misunderstand their importance, or see more "minuses" than "pluses". They cannot always appreciate all the advantages of the proposal, since they do not understand its meaning. They often strive to discern first of all what does not correspond to the accepted standards. Most often, these workers are erudite, and therefore others always listen to their opinion. This shows that erudition does not mean penetration into the essence of a new idea, and it is not always possible to rely on the “intellectual” elite of the unit when introducing innovations.

Neutralists Are those who are indifferent to new proposals. But showing indifference can also be a certain attitude. The leader must understand that they, most likely, will not help with implementation, and under some conditions, they can take a conformist position, falling under the influence of those who only pretend to be rebuilt, but in fact want to leave everything as it is.

Skeptical- these are the employees who are looking for innovation first of all Negative consequences... However, they usually do not take any practical steps to prevent it. This does not mean that they will always resist. Such people often accept innovation over time, under pressure from the majority, and as innovation becomes commonplace.

Conservatively inclined towards innovation- these are those who resist the new. They are dominated by traditionalism in the perception of innovations. Such people feel comfortable only in a calm, unchanging environment and resist change with all their might. They accept innovation only when it becomes a tradition, and in this case they begin to actively defend it against further encroachments.

From the point of view of psychology, an alternative typology of people, depending on their attitude to the new, is presented in the works of A. L. Zhuravlev. He identified the following socio-economic types:

Active reformers(want economic changes, know how to work in new conditions and are active);

Passive reformers(willing, able, but not acting);

Passive - positive about innovation(basically they want to change, but they don't know how and don't act);

Overcoming themselves(they know how and act, but do not want to change);

Ineffective(willing and acting, but not able to);

Expectant(they know how, but they do not want to and do not act);

Blind performers(there is no expressed desire, they do not know how, but they act in the direction of change with the help of others);

Passive opponents(do not want, do not know how and do not act);

Active opponents(do not want, do not know how and act against changes)

A. L. Zhuravlev notes that the distribution of the listed types in primary labor collectives is constantly changing, so it is impossible to say that they are homogeneous or consist of any two or even three types. In the context of socio-economic changes, people's desires, knowledge and actions can change unexpectedly quickly, in the direction of both positive and negative attitudes towards transformations.

Many modern authors adhere to a point of view similar to them, thus it can be considered generally accepted. . All of them are of the opinion that the natural evolution of types consists in strengthening those features for which there is a "demand", and attenuation (damping) of features that for some reason turn out to be unnecessary. You can purposefully influence the employee, shaping his behavior and typological features necessary for successful participation in the implementation process.

The choice of an employee's behavior strategy in relation to innovations is influenced by many factors, and you can try to highlight the main ones. For convenience, let's divide them into three categories:

1. Defining:

• Providing the necessary freedom in developing an innovation, providing innovators with the necessary resources and equipment, and support from top management.

• Conduct systematic discussion and free, encouraged exchange of ideas.

• Maintaining an effective exchange of information with the team, other departments, external organizations.

• In-depth understanding among the personnel of the organization.

2. Contributing:

• Development and support of workers' aspirations for continuous professional development.

• The ability to express your own opinion about the changes being made.

• Systematic holding of meetings of working groups.

• Continuously maintaining an atmosphere of receptivity to change.

3. Blocking:

• Mistrust of managers to ideas from below.

• The need for a lot of coordination of the idea.

• Intervention by other departments in evaluating innovative proposals.

• Tight control of the innovator's steps.

• Backstage "decision-making on an innovative proposal.

The task of any leader is to reduce the influence of negative and increase the influence of positive factors. Moreover, this should be done not only at the stage of introducing an innovation, but also at the stage of its development. The attitude of staff to innovation is one of the main factors influencing the success of an innovation and should not be underestimated. It should be borne in mind that not all changes can be "healthy" and the presence of resistance can be a beneficial factor.

From everything described above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

V different classifications the attitude of staff to innovations has a common feature. All of the listed types of human behavior can be represented as a gradient of a person's attitude to innovation, the extreme points of which will be: full support for innovation and sharply negative rejection of innovation. The number of elements and terminology within this gradient are not so important, the very principle of a smooth transition is important. All other types, with one approximation or another, can be reduced to these two.

Thus, the whole variety of behavioral reactions of personnel to the introduction of innovations can be reduced to two global strategies of behavior (and, accordingly, to two main thesaurus constructs):

1. Striving for the introduction of innovations;

2. Fear and resistance to innovation.

In this case, the reasons and factors that prompted the employee to choose one or another strategy remain behind the scenes. Only a qualitative assessment of a person's attitude to innovation is important.

It should also be noted that a person's attitude can change in the process of introducing an innovation, and the more detailed the given classification, the more accurately it is possible to determine the place of a person in a given coordinate system. This means that the choice of a particular strategy of behavior is not definite once and for all. The attitude of people towards innovations can and should be changed.

NOTES

http://www.cfin.ru/management/people/pmanbook.shtml [archived at WebCite

See: E.V. Maslov Human Resources Management: Tutorial/ Ed. P.V. Shemetova. M .: INFRA-M; Novosibirsk: NGAEiU, 1999.

See: Denisova A.L., Karkulenko N.G. Actual problems development of higher and secondary education at the present stage. " Samara: Publishing house SGEA, 2004.

See: Yu.D. Krasovsky. Organizational Behavior: A Textbook for Universities / 2nd ed., Revised. and add. M .: UNITY-DANA, 2004.

See: Zhuravlev A. L. Psychology of managerial interaction. M., 2004.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Denisova A.L., Karkulenko N.G. stage ". Samara: Publishing house SGEA, 2004.

Zhuravlev A. L. Psychology of management interaction. M., 2004.

Krasovsky Yu.D. Organizational Behavior: A Textbook for Universities / 2nd ed., Revised. and add. M.: UNITY-DANA, 2004.

Maslov E.V. Enterprise personnel management: textbook / ed. P.V. Shemetova. M.: INFRA-M; Novosibirsk: NGAEiU, 1999.

Personnel management / ed. T. Yu. Bazarova [ Electronic resource] // Corporate management. 2001.26 June. URL: http://www.cfin.ru/management/people/pmanbook.shtml [archived in WebCite] (date accessed: 27.06.2008).

Bykovsky Roman Evgenievich- candidate of sociological sciences.

Recently, in my papers, I dug up old handouts for the management skills training that I conducted in 1996 ... I don't even know whether to admire or be horrified :) of this anniversary. For 20 years I have been working with managers of very different levels, but, as practice shows, the problems in their work remain the same. I'm not afraid of this word - "eternal" problems :).

One of these "eternal" management problems- this is adaptation of a manager to a new position... The nature of the personnel reshuffle is not important: promotion or demotion, transfer to a new area of ​​work / to a new department or organization / to a new large-scale project, etc. It is important that such movements are often not carried out on the initiative of the employee himself (" I was offered, well, I agreed"), and do not always coincide with his career and work expectations (" Actually, I would like to work in a position ... and it would be more interesting for me to study ... A career choice (“fork”) is offered, where each alternative has its own “pluses” and “minuses.” This choice is not always simple (something has to be sacrificed), and from the point of view of psychology it is a situation of professional stress, and sometimes even leads to a professional crisis.

The most severe stress arises when a manager "jumps" to another career level: he was an ordinary employee, but became a lower-level manager (foreman, head of a department, etc.); was a specialist, but became a middle manager; was the head of a division, and became a top manager, heading an entire enterprise or responsible for a separate line of business / market of the company. Psychologically, it is most difficult to "jump" from an ordinary worker (or specialist) to a lower / middle level manager. Especially if you need to manage your colleagues with whom you talked on an equal footing yesterday. And today you are no longer "your own", but "bosses" :). It is necessary to change the entire previously established system of relations, to re-"put" oneself in the team already in the role of a leader.

How to do it ===>

Entering a new leadership role can be called professional adaptation of the head... I recently came across a monograph A. Reana "Psychology of personality adaptation. Analysis. Theory. Practice" (M, Prime-Euromark, 2008; flip through;)), which has a pretty good chapter on managerial adaptation.

I will bring her short synopsis(plus some of my comments, plus some valuable usefulness at the end;)), I hope it will be useful for novice managers:

"...term "adaptation" can be used in relation to a situation when an employee is appointed (his own or accepted "from outside") to a managerial position. In this case, we can introduce the concept of "managerial adaptation" ("adaptation of the manager"), by which we mean the process and the result of active balancing with the changed professional environment, which allows to effectively achieve the goal and is based on a number of personal new formations. "

I will translate from the psychological language into the usual one :) If you want to be effective in a new position - learn, develop, change yourself! "Personal neoplasms" are new knowledge, abilities, skills, habits, competencies, etc.

"The adaptation process is especially important for a specialist, appointed to a senior position for the first time... As our pilot studies have shown, about 43% of the interviewed managers experienced difficulties at the very beginning of their managerial career, another 18% described their then situation as very difficult. This was most often due to a lack of managerial skills and only secondarily due to a lack of specialized knowledge. "

I’ll add on my own ... I conducted this kind of questionnaire among experienced managers. In fact, 100% of executives experience difficulties early in their careers :). The only question is how they perceived these difficulties then, and how they remember it now. It depends on the personality traits: there are optimists who "do not dramatize"; have high self-esteem (and believe that "everything is normal, everything is under control"); and there is a property of human memory to selectively preserve mostly good memories. As a rule, even if in the questionnaire a person answers that at the beginning of his career there were no difficulties at all, then in the course of an in-depth interview with him, he recalls a bunch of these very difficulties :)). He just treated and treats them relatively easily.

Those who immediately recall the beginning of their managerial career as "very difficult" have either objective reasons (the company was in a deep crisis, and the beginning of their career happened as an anti-crisis manager), or their career began with some serious mistake, and this they remembered a life lesson for a long time.

“As recent studies by Australian scientists show, well-established engineers are not natural leaders at all. This is primarily due to the fact that many engineers, who turned out to be leaders of large organizations, were mainly focused on achieving short-term benefits. in the background, which inevitably led to difficulties in changing the environment ".

Typical story :). It is very difficult for a person who is accustomed to be responsible for a specific limited area of ​​work to break away from micromanagement and switch himself to the mode of seeing the whole - strategic perception. That is why for newly minted leaders (even if they are not top management) courses / trainings / coaching will be extremely useful on strategic management and systems thinking.

"According to renowned management consultant Peter Fischer, the newly appointed manager should consistently decide the following seven tasks:

- actively meet the expectations of senior managers, colleagues and subordinates;

- establish and develop productive relationships with key people in the organization;

- constructively analyze the current situation from the point of view of the structure of interactions and development prospects;

- to develop a motivating range of immediate and long-term goals;

- to establish a positive climate of transformations based on all the positive potential accumulated so far;

- effectively initiate these transformations with the involvement of all employees;

- make productive use of symbols and rituals. "

Please note that here are not only the tasks of managerial adaptation, but also tips on how to solve them;)

-communications, purposeful building of relationships with all stakeholders;

-goal setting(and a certain novelty of these goals is important, so that the subordinates feel that "the new broom is sweeping in a new way" :));

OWN motivation system(here it is important to understand that any organization has certain motivational resources and mechanisms; but their effective use depends on the individual leader. It is extremely important for a novice leader to master the available motivational tools, demonstrating to subordinates what "sticks" and "carrots" he can and will use: ))

"Here is how IP Volkov describes the specifics of managerial adaptation in the most difficult, perhaps psychologically, situation - the appointment to a grassroots leadership position for the first time:

Let's say you have been appointed to the position of foreman for the first time. You still do not have enough experience in organizing activities in production ...

First of all, you need to get to know the people with whom you will work. Then you should study the state of production, the equipment of workplaces, the organization of work, the availability of technical documentation. You must also assess the level of labor and moral and political activity of workers, understand the relationship in the team. Start your acquaintance thoughtfully, slowly, talk individually, take your time with a meeting of workers. Meet the heads of all departments in the shop.

Having orientated in the situation in general terms, it is necessary to outline an action plan for "entering" a new position. Such a "entry" is not a matter of one day or even one month. For some beginners, this process takes one and a half to two years. It takes experience to feel confident in different situations. It is necessary to psychologically master the situation not only on your site, but also in the shop, even in adjacent divisions. Then confidence in decisions and actions will come. "

* * *

"We conducted a survey of 231 subjects (managers of various levels of organizations and enterprises, the length of service in managerial work ranged from one year to 16 years). open form: "After the first appointment to a leading position, I faced such difficulties: ...". A detailed analysis of the responses received showed that they can be divided into two fairly homogeneous groups.

The first group of responses from senior executives is difficulties in goal assimilation and goal setting when entering a new management activity. The most typical answers in this group were: “I didn’t know where to start work”, “I didn’t understand the tasks we were facing”, “It was difficult because there was complete uncertainty”, “It was difficult to navigate and explain to people what we were going to do further "and so on.

The second group of answers - difficulties in dealing with subordinates... Here are the answers that describe the difficulties in uniting, rallying everyone around a common cause, problems in relations with older subordinates, fear of being alone before starting a new business, etc. The most typical answers in this group: “It was difficult to establish business relations with some employees, since I myself used to be their subordinates "," More experienced employees and those who had a long work experience treated me critically "," Faced with low production discipline, incompetence of a number of employees ", etc."

“Based on the literature data and the results of our own research, we can approach the description of the main personal neoplasms of the adaptive leader.

First, a new leader (especially one who has received a leading position for the first time) needs to move to a different level of goals, which become broader and more complex in quality. If earlier the scale of tasks was not high and they were rather narrowly specialized, now the leader is faced with goals that are closer to the global goals of the organization.

So, the first important personal quality that a manager should develop after his nomination is the ability to identify, operationalize the global goals of the organization, turning them into the goals of the unit and tasks for subordinates.

Secondly, after being appointed as a leader, it is required to develop anew or expand the set of techniques, ways of interaction between the manager and his subordinates.

The second significant personality neoplasm for a manager in the process of adapting to a new management activities is the expansion of their role repertoire, adequate development and performance of roles, taking into account the characteristics of the new professional activity. "

Knowledge of the strategic (global) goals of the organization;

The priority of consistency and global goals over the private and momentary goals of the unit;

The ability to formulate the objectives of the unit, taking into account the global goals of the organization;

Ability to decompose goals to the level of personal tasks.

Everything seems to be correct, but missing three important points ... Goal setting - communication process, which strongly depends on the corporate culture of the company... For example, in some companies a list of global goals hangs on every wall, while in others it is a secret sealed with seven seals. In some companies, top management is open to discussing the consistency of divisional goals with organizational ones, while others have adopted a policy of "you somehow do it yourself" (but if you "do it yourself" wrong, you will be punished!). And many novice leaders "don't know what to do" precisely because they find it difficult to fit into "goal communication."

And the second point: goal-setting is very closely related to planning and execution... It is not enough to "cut" tasks to subordinates. These tasks need to be planned; communicate plans to subordinates; initiate the execution of the plan; coordinate and assist (as needed); monitor the implementation of tasks / plan. In my consulting experience, behind the words of novice managers “I don’t know what to do”, in fact, there is not a weakness in understanding goals and setting goals, but other links in the chain - planning, coordination, control, etc.

And third: it is impossible to organize other people if you yourself are not organized! New leaders often do not understand that the higher their managerial level, the more their personal self-organization affects the organization as a whole. If the manager does not set any goals / tasks for himself personally, does not plan his working day, does not own at least the "basics" of time management, if he does not have his own system of self-organization, then what kind of goal-setting and goal-setting in the unit / organization can we talk about ?!

And another opinion: unlike A. Rean, I would not reduce the second "neoplasm" to expand role potential... Of course good leader must be oriented in, and also be able to recognize and model their own role (s) in labor collective... But in reality, most "communication problems" with employees do not require any particular role flexibility or role reversal. For this individual communication skills or skills are enough... For example, such a skill can be, to defuse conflict situations, reduce stress levels, etc. Separate psychological trainings are devoted to "pumping" such individual communication skills, which I reviewed in this post :).

Can be described the four stages of the manager's onboarding process(they are presented as pairs of opposites: on the left is the result of a successful passage of the adaptation stage, on the right is the result in case of unsuccessful adaptation).

1)Identifying goals - lack of vision... The first thing that begins the process of adaptation of a manager is a clear understanding of the global goals of the organization, its mission and philosophy. These long-term benchmarks should combine efforts and underlie the work of all parts of the organization. Proceeding from this, the manager should be very clear about the goals facing the unit that he was assigned to lead, as well as the goals of other main divisions of the organization, and above all those with which he has to interact directly. This stage of adaptation of the manager is based mainly on the operationalization of global goals.

2)Distribution and Organization - Detached Management... At the second stage of the adaptation process, the problematic task is to define tasks for subordinates (based on global goals), as well as to organize their joint work. Along with the availability of special knowledge, this requires the implementation of basic management functions, the establishment of a network of interpersonal contacts, the organization of information flows and decision-making.

In the implementation of these tasks, the planning of both joint work and the activities of other departments (employees) becomes important.

3)Solution new task- broadcast instructions... At the third stage, the manager, who has understood the goals of the organization and the department, who has managed to organize subordinates to fulfill the plans already outlined, now needs to direct joint efforts to solve a relatively new task - for example, the introduction of a new method of organizing production.

The successful solution of such a task will allow the manager, on the one hand, to recognize his subordinates in somewhat unusual conditions, and on the other hand, to show others and himself that he is a real organizer. This gives you the necessary confidence in yourself, in your subordinates and in the common cause. Successful completion of the third stage implies that the manager will delve deeply enough into all the subtleties of the new problem, "accompanying" the course of its solution from start to finish. At the same time, he will be required to actualize the whole range of his managerial roles, but references to the global goals of the organization and their "decomposition" for subordinates are gradually fading into the background.

When a manager cannot offer anything relatively new, being only a transmission and distribution element in the management hierarchy, there are great difficulties of authority among subordinates. The holistic picture of interpersonal interaction is violated and significantly impoverished, autonomous functional subgroups are formed, even the emergence of personally significant problems does not contribute to the convergence of the points of view of the minority and the majority.

4)Initial Delegation - Online... The main problem of the final - fourth - stage of the manager's adaptation process is the formation of the skill of assigning tasks and delegating authority. To do this, it is necessary to determine, based on the results of joint work, several (or at least one) subordinates, who could be entrusted with the independent execution of an integral part of the work. Gaining the first experience of assigning some of his responsibilities to competent and executive subordinates, the manager gets the opportunity to better coordinate the work of the unit and pay more attention to promising goals. Introspection of what has been achieved, identifying strengths and weaknesses your management style in order to improve it. In these conditions, the use of roles and the concretization of global tasks for each subordinate are somewhat reduced in volume.

When a manager cannot determine the circle of subordinates capable of working quite autonomously, this leads to the need for constant total control, which, in turn, causes inevitable nervousness, haste, and the impossibility of long-term planning.

Successful passage of all four stages leads, in our opinion, to a fairly complete adaptation, that is, to the development of skills for interacting with management and subordinates to achieve the goals of the unit and the organization.

On my own behalf, I will add that I generally agree with the identified stages of adaptation. But the problem is that, for example, a situation can easily arise when a new leader is appointed to a newly created subdivision / to a completely new direction of work or project... That is, he immediately enters the third (in A. Rean's model) stage of adaptation, and he has to "give birth" to new tasks at his own peril and risk. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to link them to the strategy (stage 1) and well-established business processes (stage 2).

But I agree that even if a completely new task arises for a new leader, it still makes sense to take two steps back and first decide on strategic priorities; then build some kind of work / communication system; well, and only then engage in innovations.

Further A. Rean offers a holistic two-dimensional model of management adaptation... At the initial (1 and 2) stages of adaptation, it is important to determine the operationalization of global goals, and at subsequent stages (3 and 4), communication skills and abilities become more priority (Rean calls this "role expression"). The two-dimensional model looks like this:

"As follows from the diagram, at the first stage of adaptation, the skills of operationalizing global goals play a leading role; at the second stage, both personality neoplasms are already involved (role behavior is added), then the performance of roles for solving a new task comes to the fore and, finally, at the last stage these two qualities are involved to a lesser extent, which means the completion of adaptation. "

Duration passing through the four stages of adaptation can be different. If everything turns out well, then you can turn from a novice manager into a seasoned manager :)) in about one year. If difficulties arise at some stages of adaptation, the process can take 2-3 years.

According to A. Rean adaptation to leadership position may be unsuccessful... But this does not mean that the manager is incompetent, or that the career has finally come to a standstill. The best solution would be to demote or return to the previous (or similar) position, but at a higher professional level(i.e. with great functionality, responsibility, authority, remuneration, etc.).

And in conclusion, as I promised, the most interesting! ;) Rean believes that the success or failure of the manager's adaptation to the new position can be predicted... And for this purpose, he developed the POMA test questionnaire - Predictive Managerial Adaptation Questionnaire ( ). There are only 32 questions, you can answer in 5-10 minutes.

If you get 23 points or less - welcome to my coaching! - write to [email protected], let's agree;)

If you liked / found this text useful, be sure!

Let's start by looking at the problems of the line manager. The most common situation is when a successful specialist already working at Iskra NKU LLC is appointed to such a position. His main problem is "detuning" from his native team. The reason is the change in social status: yesterday he was with colleagues on an equal footing, and today he gives them orders. Some coworkers may not like this. To some, for example, the promotion of a former "fellow soldier" to a leading position may seem unreasonable. Someone himself counted on a promotion and now, having learned that his chances are zero, he harbored a grudge.

But the problem is not only in people who reacted negatively to the appointment. It will also be necessary to build relationships anew, based on a new role, with those with whom the specialist previously maintained friendly relations. Both are far from easy.

Despite the fact that the employee appointed by the head is familiar with most of the team, the manager of the PME LLC Iskra NKU must organize an official procedure for presenting him in a new position and justify his promotion. A clear and reasoned position on this issue will remove most of the negative in relation to the former colleague.

The next task of the manager of the OUP LLC Iskra NKU is to determine what personal qualities necessary for success in a new position need to be improved by the new manager. For this it is worth referring to his dossier. Once a person has already worked in the company and worked successfully, and even more so if he was personnel reserve, so he passed psychological testing, participated in attestation and evaluation, and his dossier contains the results of these events. Based on them, the manager of the PME LLC Iskra NKU can outline a number of necessary trainings for the new manager, for example, on the development of managerial skills, stress resistance, and the ability to persuade. Alternatively, in conditions of economic instability and the company saving funds for training and development of employees, HR can recommend self-development to a new leader, which will contribute to his successful adaptation in a new role.

It will be especially difficult for a new leader if the team he has to manage contains specialists who are older than him in age and experience, those with whom he has only recently studied. The task of the manager of the PME LLC Iskra NKU in this case, most likely, will be to advise the new manager on how, on the one hand, to delegate authority, on the other hand, to organize the control of subordinates.

For the adaptation of the newly hired manager to the company, the manager of the PMO Iskra NKU LLC should develop a special program. It is realized thanks to the coordinated actions of the direct supervisor of the adaptable and the personnel manager.

As a rule, the program can consist of several stages, for example, of five (Table 18). In terms of duration, it can be equated to a trial period. The developed program is approved by the general director of Iskra NKU LLC.

Having considered the adaptation of line managers, let's dwell on the adaptation of another group of status workers - top managers of Iskra NKU LLC. There is an opinion that a top manager, due to his professional and personal qualities, thanks to which he reached impressive career heights, does not need adaptation, that the process of his "acclimatization" in a new place is his own business. But this is not the case.

Table 18

Stages of adaptation of a new line manager at Iskra NKU LLC

The fact is that, given the high level of responsibility of the top manager (regardless of whether he came to new company or "grew out" of the team) and the fact that the efficiency of a large division of Iskra NKU LLC depends on him, his mistakes can cost the company dearly.

Adaptation in a new position is necessary in order to "negate" the possibility of such mistakes. In addition, even the most professional and self-confident specialist in the first days and weeks in a new position will benefit from help and support.

But if the adaptation of the top manager is nevertheless necessary, then the entire scope of measures for the adaptation of the top manager should be taken over by the HR director or his deputy.

The onboarding program for a top manager who comes to a new company is in many ways similar to the onboarding program for a line manager. However, there is also a difference: it is that the new top manager will have to adapt not only in the subordinate unit, but also in the team of the entire company. Establishing effective relationships at this level, establishing your authority is the key to successful adaptation of a top manager. And in this he can be helped not so much by the SUP LLC "Iskra NKU" as by his own wish fit into the team, study and accept its corporate culture, establish "feedback" with employees, establish favorable relations with them.

In this situation, the manager of the SUE Iskra NKU LLC requires the following actions:

• - personally conduct a new top manager for departments, acquaint with the team;
• - familiarize with organizational and administrative documents, job description, local regulations;
• - organize familiarization with safety regulations;
• - to develop a "Plan for entering the position" of a top manager, agree it with the general director, organize an assessment of the top manager's performance at checkpoints;
• - collect all Required documents and organize a meeting of the commission.

After the completion of the adaptation procedures, if the new top manager passes the probationary period, HR should assist him further development... It is important to understand that with the end of the probationary period, the process of adaptation of the manager does not end. The new leader will have to improve further, developing the necessary competencies in trainings, developing skills in seminars, studying professional literature using the benchmarking method.

In order to help the manager at this stage, the manager of the ISP LLC Iskra NKU must have information about the providers of training services, seminars and conferences, budget for the costs of individual or team training events. For those who continue their education today at their own expense, ISKU LLC SUP LLC can help to choose an effective training program, a good The educational center... Continuous improvement of knowledge, skills, skills, development of communicative qualities - all this is a contribution to the adaptation process not only in the position, but also in the profession. According to modern psychological science, professional adaptation is the final stage of mastering the profession, therefore the criteria for the adaptation of a specialist are at the same time the criteria for the success of this entire process.

Every newcomer to the company needs help from an employer in social and labor adaptation: from a courier to a top manager. But why is it so important?

It would seem that an adult is signing labor contract and takes on certain obligations, goes to work and begins to fulfill them, and not for free ... In these circumstances, adaptation, in theory, is exclusively a problem for the employee himself. But in practice, everything is different. Nowadays, the attitude of the employer to the tasks of adaptation of new employees has changed, and reasoning like: "He needs it, so let him get used to it faster" is now rather an exception.

Onboarding leaders: good news and bad news

Today, many companies have an adaptation regulation, a detailed course of entry into the position, teaching aids for new employees: brochures, videos, memos. However, rarely can anyone boast of such a personnel adaptation system, as a result of which a newcomer begins to work with almost one hundred percent efficiency. HR specialists are especially pessimistic in their assessments: “Officially, it is our service that is responsible for the quality of adaptation measures. But even very strong HRs cannot objectively provide this quality if they are not helped by the whole company, including managers and mentors. And they are sincerely convinced that this is not their business ... "

The good news: HR specialists have already coped with the problem of lack of support, and therefore the tasks related to the adaptation of lower and middle-level personnel may not be the best way, but they are being solved. The problem of introducing tops is also not too acute. First, in principle, there are not so many leaders, and such a need arises infrequently. Secondly, their interest in getting into the business of the company as soon as possible is much higher than that of other new employees. Third, in this matter, top management is very active in helping, because otherwise there is a risk of harm to the entire organization.

Bad news: the most problematic category in terms of adaptation is line managers. They traditionally fall out of the sphere of attention of top management (not tsarist, they say, this is a business), and HR specialists alone cannot provide them with full support. As a result, most of all in need of help, attention and supportive control with regular feedback, the line manager does not receive all this. And he makes mistakes or, fearing mistakes, slows down the business process, which, on the contrary, was supposed to stimulate - for example, he re-checks the quality of work many times and disrupts the deadlines for completing tasks, which he himself assigned to subordinates; or individually makes absolutely all decisions, which is why in his absence it is impossible to settle any issue. There is an additional risk of poor-quality adaptation of line managers, which consists in a rapid decrease in their loyalty to the organization as a whole and top management in particular.

Leader onboarding is a reason for conversation

Meanwhile, the stability of the company is based precisely on middle managers, since only they can ensure the smooth and uninterrupted functioning of all business mechanisms. Long swaying, quick burnout, low loyalty of line managers are absolutely unprofitable for the company, but almost due to the current state of affairs. It is difficult for HR specialists to completely change the situation, but they can significantly reduce the risks. Let's look at an example.

Vera is a recruiting manager at a consulting company that is part of an international audit network with 135 employees (85 in Moscow and 50 in the regions of Russia and neighboring countries). As the only HR specialist, Vera does a little bit of everything: she selects employees, oversees training, and corporate events organizes - and is involved in adaptation.

The company has a human resources department, but Vera rarely interacts with colleagues on professional issues. It so happened: at first, personnel were part of the accounting department, and then they began to exist autonomously, subordinate to the executive director. Faith is directly subordinate to general director and has been working alone for all six years. Only recently did the management decide to hire another employee to help her, since the company is growing and soon it will be difficult for Vera to combine all HR functions in one person.

Vera says:

Our business is specific - highly intellectual. People are also not easy: young (average age - 26) and extremely ambitious. They are really specialists in their field, with excellent education and the constant availability of at least two alternative offers from competitors, and therefore they know their own worth and almost all "cats that walk by themselves", that is, complete individualists.

The company offers very attractive working conditions: high "white" salary, decent social package, education. Nevertheless, everything is by no means as good as it might seem. And the main problem is the adaptation of line managers. It is unlikely that we are unique in this: such difficulties exist in almost every Russian company, but our situation is complicated precisely by the specifics of the business.

The company has been on the market for 17 years. This is a lot for our sphere. All top management - general, commercial, financial and executive directors, marketing and regional policy directors - are the very young people who came here to work when everything was just beginning. Now they are from 37 to 43 years old, they have achieved a lot, they thoroughly know this business, they are constantly improving and are ready to share their knowledge with young people (we have a very democratic company).

Young people are graduates of leading domestic and foreign universities, many of whom, during their studies, managed to work for a year or two in the field of financial consulting. We select them by collecting information in professional Internet communities, requesting recommendations at the university, participating in career days and spending company days at the university. When young employees come to us for the position of an auditor, each step of their adaptation is regulated by the corresponding regulation, detailed plan entering the position and corporate standards of working with clients. In general, newcomers know or have the opportunity to find out what and in what sequence they should do, who to contact in case of any difficulties, what unwritten rules to follow, and can always count on the help of a curator (which is usually the immediate supervisor) ...

We attract four to eight people a year. The rate of turnover among young professionals during the trial period is small - about 10%. On average, such an employee has been working in the company for at least 3-5 years and, in fact, ceases to be a young specialist. Once again, I will make a reservation: our conditions are good, but with the immediate superiors of the newcomers - trouble.

Approximately half of the line managers are our employees who have passed all the intermediate stages: auditor - senior auditor - deputy head of a department - head of a department. Taking into account the crisis in the labor market, I would like, of course, that there were more managers of "our own production", but I have already mentioned the youth and overwhelming individualism of our employees. These are representatives of that very generation Y: they are not very eager to become leaders and often, having fledged, fly off to work in a large company abroad or work on a freelance basis, having almost the same benefits and much less control over themselves. Those who nevertheless decided to move up the career ladder face unexpected difficulties: they seem to be familiar with everything in the company, but for some reason they cannot manage their former colleagues. We trained promising in terms of career growth auditors' management skills, but this did not seem to have been enough. What can we say about the other half of line managers - those who came from outside? Yes, they are professionals and understand what financial consulting is and what is the peculiarity of Russian business, they have life experience, but they get used to it very badly.

So it turns out that the process stalls in the most important places, and this happens due to the lack of support from the top management. Line managers are left on their own and cannot cope.

Vera is right, characterizing her business sphere as specific. However, the picture she describes is typical, except that the problem is more pronounced here than elsewhere. A good specialist and a good leader are not the same thing. If a person has already worked in a company, imbued with its corporate culture, imagines the whole system of formal and informal ties, it is, of course, easier for him to adapt to a new role than for someone who came, figuratively speaking, from a foreign monastery and does not know the charter. And if he is not yet very motivated to master new functionality and managerial competencies? He knows that in the position of an ordinary specialist he can earn not much less than in a managerial one (the salary in the company is very high), and at the same time be less responsible; or may look for another place where there will be less workload, there are good proposals ... In short, the new line manager needs support in the adaptation process.

High-quality performance of key management functions - planning, organization, motivation, control - is possible only if there are three factors:

• access to information;
• organizational support;
• psychological assistance.

Can HR single-handedly provide support to the new line manager in each of these areas? As for access to information, it is doubtful, HRs themselves do not always know everything about what is happening in the company. Organizational support - timely training, preparation of premises, provision of teaching materials and, most importantly, checking the effectiveness of internal communications will be effective depending on how strong the position of the service itself is in the company. Remains psychological help. This is basically what HR managers have to do: motivate, console, smooth out sharp corners, argue, explain the situation in the personnel market ... However, all this can be realized only with the direct and very active participation of the company's top management, and it rarely burns with desire to help. Where is the exit?

Vera says:

In general, everyone in the company, including the directors, knew about the problem with the adaptation of line managers. And when a year and a half ago, two heads of departments "from ours" submitted applications for transfer to the position of an ordinary specialist (they were asked to return them to their previous position), and two more - from the foreign market - wrote a letter of resignation, no one was surprised. But you have to react!

First of all, I carefully analyzed the Regulation on Adaptation. It was approved long before I joined the company and was extremely progressive at the time. Actually, to this day, the Regulations have worked in terms of adaptation of both ordinary employees and tops. But there was no emphasis on helping line managers. And if the responsibility for the qualitative adaptation of an ordinary employee was distributed between his immediate superior (to a greater extent) and an HR specialist (to a lesser extent), then the responsibility for the induction of the manager himself hung in the air. It was necessary to make changes to the Regulations, and for this it was necessary to understand what motivation tools for involving top managers in the process of adaptation of line managers are better to use.

However, it is not enough to understand - it is necessary to make sure that others understand, accept and further implement these changes. I could not single-handedly correct the Regulation, or rather, I could, but there was no point in this: all the amendments would have remained on paper. It became clear that it was necessary to seek help from interested persons - line managers: let them say what kind of support they needed. In addition, the top management and the CEO were to be puzzled. I was sure of their positive reaction, but the discussion of the problem should have been started by formulating specific proposals.

In this example, the HR specialist has clearly defined the sequence of actions. If the company has a document regulating the process of labor adaptation (even if it was created for show), it is necessary to start with it. In this case, the Regulation turned out to be valid, but partially outdated. In fact, when it was drawn up, there was no trace of such problems in the personnel market of the country as it is now.

Further, in order to make changes to the adaptation system, information must be obtained first-hand, that is, from people who suffer from the imperfection of the existing model. It happens that HRs begin to reinvent the wheel, burdening the system with unnecessary activities and inevitable additional reporting, while it was much easier to ask. And finally, it is advisable to start the implementation of changes with the support of the authorities, and gradually, saving his time, involve the leaders in the process of restructuring the system.

Vera says:

I personally met with each of our line managers. I started with those who submitted applications for transfer or dismissal. Then I talked with those who came to a managerial position less than three years ago. I asked each of them three questions: what difficulties they had to face as a new leader; what helped them in the adaptation process; what needs to be changed to make the adaptation process faster and more painless? I wrote down all the answers (then I got the idea to use a dictaphone, but after thinking it over, I decided that it’s better without it - people don’t get pinched).

The answers of my respondents differed from each other only in the wording, the meaning was the same. They answered the first question as follows: a sharp increase in workload and, because of this, severe fatigue; growing demands from the management; lack of loyalty of subordinates (should be respected, but not respected); lack of time for personal life. I made a note: perhaps this is due to the lack of an induction program with established responsibility for individual items, control over its implementation, criteria for assessing the effectiveness of passing the probationary period - that is, everything that existed for the adaptation of ordinary employees, but was practically not applied in the case of line managers.

The answer to the second question pleasantly tickled my professional pride, as almost everyone noted the support of the HR manager. I have never really spared the time to talk to a person, find out his mood, advise a new line of behavior. Practice has shown that I did the right thing. By the way, there were several links to one-time support from some top managers.

But the third question made people think about it. It turns out that no one had any ready-made proposals, but in the end, several ideas were found. Thus, there was a proposal to conduct introductory training for line managers in the following areas: stress management; effective communication and protection from manipulation; self-presentation (note: this is by no means a purely business topic). There was also an idea to introduce into the Regulation on Adaptation, mandatory for top management, feedback sessions with line managers. And so that the more experienced ones teach the less experienced management tricks.

After processing the collected information, I turned it into a report with illustrations. What is possible, I presented in the form of graphs and tables, leaving only a few of the most emotional answers received during the survey (of course, without attribution): it is impossible without emotions at all. Then I ran the report on the commercial and executive directors - I saw how they react, what questions they ask. As a result, I finalized the report and only after that, having agreed in advance about the time, presented it to the board of directors.

In Russian business, it is not customary to ask the opinion of subordinates, and if this is done, then, as a rule, impersonally, at the level of filling out questionnaires. Vera could have gone the same way, but she chose the more laborious option. Any involvement in the discussion of those who are planned to be helped justifies itself.

The situation when there are complaints, but there are no clear proposals, is very common. Everyone loves to complain, but not everyone is ready to change something, and certainly few people know what and how to do this. This question must be asked without fail, but it is better not to wait for a quick answer. However, if people have already begun to think about this topic, then proposals will appear.

Vera also approached the presentation of proposals for changes in the adaptation system very professionally. Having warned that this topic would soon be raised by her, she checked the effect of the material received on two tops and only after that brought it up for discussion by the entire management elite.

Vera says:

They listened to me kindly. Few questions were asked. True, it was clear that some things did not fit well in the minds of our tops - for example, how you can get tired at work: they themselves live according to an even tighter schedule - the difference in the mentality of the two generations affects. All my suggestions were accepted. As a result of the meeting, it was decided:

1. Introduce amendments to the Regulation on adaptation concerning line managers, in terms of formalizing feedback measures with the top managers, assign control over compliance to the executive director; based on the results of the adaptation of line managers, carry out a specialized assessment procedure.
2. Invite a specialist psychologist. Previously, this issue has already been raised in connection with other aspects of the company's activities, but now it has been finally resolved.
3. Add stress management, effective communication and self-presentation to the introductory training topics in adaptation.
4. Create a club of young leaders in the company. For myself, I decided that now in the process of recruiting line managers I will use even more management cases.

The situation began to change. Our line managers grew up before our eyes. Surprisingly, the solution to this problem was not at all as difficult as it seemed at first.

The adaptation of line managers, alas, will not solve the problems of low qualifications and a lack of specialists of the required profile, and it will not change the specific features of generation Y either, but it will allow a person to be inscribed in a position in which he will manage others, ensuring the stability of the company.