Leadership Transitions
Silver Award - Performance Support Outcomes Category, 2002 Excellence in E-Learning Awards
Harvard Business School Publishing
300 N Beacon St
Watertown, MA 02472
Phone: 617-783-7878
Purpose
Whether
taking on a new position in their current company or starting in a new
organization, Leadership Transitions will help managers succeed. This
performance support resource, built with the expertise of Harvard
Business School Professor Michael Watkins, arms managers with the
knowledge they need to succeed during the difficult transition period.
The program consists of a wide array of assessments and planning tools
that learners can use throughout the transition period.
Solution
Supports performers through best practice processes.
Leadership
Transitions is a best practice process. Within each topic, there are
individual processes the user should go though. The program provides
guidance to managers as they make the transition into a new job, role
or organization. The program provides best practice processes, tips,
guidelines, assessments and tools around the following 8 topics:
Diagnosing Your Situation - How to identify your type of transition to understand the challenges and opportunities you face. Assessing Your Vulnerabilities - How to recognize common transition traps to help you avoid derailment. Accelerating Your Learning - How to learn efficiently and effectively to speed up your transition process.Prioritizing to Succeed - How to build momentum by planning for short- and long-term successes.Working with Your New Boss - How to build a productive working relationship with your new boss. Building Your Team - How to assess your team and its process to create a strong team foundation.Creating Partnerships - How to build internal and external coalitions to support your initiatives.Achieving Alignment - How to align strategy, structure, systems, and skills to meet your ultimate objectives.Establishes, or aids in establishing, goals.
Throughout
all topics, the program establishes what is important to you: learning
goals, short-term and long-term business goals, and team development
goals for your specific situation. At the end of each section,
performers are guided through a reflection activity in which they
assess their current progress through their transition and set goals
for continued progress.
Example:
Defining Your Goals in the Working with a New Boss section of the program.
Example:
Aligning Goals, Incentives and Performance Metrics in the Building Your Team section.
Minimizes terminology translation or interpretation.
Based
on real managers' experiences in making real transitions, the program
focuses on real-world challenges that managers face and provides
practical, actionable advice. It is based on real managers' experiences
in making real transitions. It does not use jargon and theory; but
instead provides a very practical how-to solution.
Provides access to supporting resources.
Included
in the program is a resource section. Learners who wish to delve
further into the concepts, on which the program is based, can easily
access relevant HBR articles and other resources in the Resources section.
Examples: See resource sections.
Focuses on task(s), processes, and the natural flow of work.
While
a user may work through the entire program from start to finish, it is
meant to be a resource that managers can use over the course of their
transition and return to again and again as they work through their
daily tasks and workflow.
The
program includes tools to help the user prioritize and tools to help do
specific tasks through out the various stages of their transition
process.
Example: See Planning Early Wins
Reduces or eliminates the need for training/learning.
A
typical manager spends 3 to 6 months transitioning into a new role.
Unlike classroom training, Leadership Transitions provides day to day
guidance throughout the entire process. While the program can be used
with blended learning options, it is entirely self-contained.
Therefore, it not only eliminates the need for classroom training, it
actually provides much more guidance than a manager could get in a
single training session.
Supports performance FIRST and learning only as a secondary consequence of doing.
While
managers can delve into the concepts behind the tools, the program is
first a performance support resource. It was designed to be used on
the job and applied to actual situations and projects. Managers use
the tools and techniques to work through their own specific transition
challenges. The program also provides assessments to help managers
predict and analyze their individual styles, strengths, and weaknesses
and helps them learn to recognize and avoid common mistakes and traps
during their transition.
The
program is designed in short, 10 minute chunks of information to enable
a busy manager to jump in and out of the program as his/her time
allows.
To experience the program, first note one of the following user name / password combinations:
User ID: PDCOutcomes1
Password: harvard
User ID: PDCOutcomes2
Password: harvard
User ID: PDCOutcomes3
Password: harvard
UserProfile
A
typical user would be a manager who is new to his or her leadership
role, regardless of skill or experience level. With the consistent and
timely guidance from this performance-support tool, after the six-month
transition period, the manager is an established, respected and
accomplished leader in his or her new company, or new role within a
company.
Results: This program improves the productivity of new-employees and reduces the time it takes them to perform successfully.
OtherEvidence:
There are very few on-line training solutions that directly address the
issues that so many managers, who take on new leadership
responsibilities each year, are faced with. Leadership Transitions
provides day-to-day guidance that one can only get from a mentor,
making the user his or her own mentor.