Don't Derail Your Journey to the Top | BTalk Australia

(16min 28) Many people make the mistake of thinking that the skills that took them to the top job will serve them when once they’re there. That’s almost certainly not the case.

In this edition of BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie talks to business analyst Kathy Rozmeta who has worked for many top organisations. Find out why many rising stars come off the rails when they land the top job.

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• Today’s Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello I’m Phil Dobbie and welcome to BTalk Australia. You’re on the way to the top of your company a rising star but have you got what it takes? Well today’s guest reckons now is the time to take a long hard look at yourself.

People who rise quickly in their company don’t always make the best bosses. There’s always the case, of course, of people being promoted beyond their level of competence or perhaps you have the attitude but you’re just not ready for that dream promotion, and as companies downsize this year I suspect there’s going to be a few awkward shuffles happening. And to help you prepare for these senior roles I’m joined by Kathy Rozmeta who’s a management consultant who’s worked for many years in organisational development including senior roles at Coca-Cola Amatil and the ANZ Banking Group. Now Kathy I guess the big difference as you rise up through the ranks is switching from a hands-on operational focus to being more of a strategic thinker, is that the biggest shift?

Rozmeta: Yes that’s the biggest shift. When people become leaders at the front line they make a shift from being one of the team to being a leader but most people actually get that difference, it’s well understood. But then they get promoted and they start to think, well geez I’m good, I’m really good. And then they might even get promoted again and by this time they’re so clear that this is the formula for success and that’s usually hands on, it’s meeting deadlines, it’s all that sort of action heroes stuff, you know?

Dobbie: Yes

Rozmeta: And they become very convinced that that’s the formula for success. So when they then get promoted to a more strategic role sometimes that transition is just not so clear to them.

Dobbie: Because they’ve not had to think strategy at that level before.

Rozmeta: That’s right and they still think that they’re going to be given reverence for the action stuff and they will, they will but they have to do more than that now.

Dobbie: Now you mentioned they’re saying I’m good, I’m good so does arrogance become a part of it and the ugly beast that they become stuck with?

Rozmeta: It is and they mightn’t appear to be arrogant in the traditional sense but they’ve become convinced that they know the formula to being successful and so that is a kind of arrogance but sometimes it’s just lack of education or lack of insight and that’s one of the things that I try to do in my programs too is to say listen you really have to be more adaptable now. You really have to think longer term more than short term, past the monthly results.

Dobbie: In one of your presentations you’ve got a great quote from Charles Darwin which is so relevant isn’t it? It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, but the one that’s most responsive to change.

Rozmeta: That’s it, that’s it.

Dobbie: And that adaptability I guess is the key but for a lot of people they’ve not had to do that before so how do they suddenly learn it when they find themselves in the top job?

Rozmeta: Well there’s traditional ways of learning it through programs that give you a lot of insight. There are lots of strategic programs around. Usually somebody might just call you aside. A mentor is great. Somebody you see has that ability just to sort of go and say, look, what should I be doing and how do I do this? Some people just don’t have it. They do not have strategic ability so they need a friend. They need to have somebody, you can just about get to the top with any type of style as long as you have insight to yourself and your strengths and your weaknesses because you can always get a buddy, a member of the team to provide that gap.

Dobbie: It’s part of the problem though if you’ve worked in the one company and you get promoted you do become part of that us and them mentality. You were one of us and now you’re one of them and it becomes hard to keep that channel of communication with your fellow workers, some of them for example may resent the fact that you’ve risen to the top so quickly.

Rozmeta: Yes that tends to happen a lot at the more junior level of management. But by the time you get up to the more senior level it’s not quite so much a problem. They’re too busy sucking up to you anyway once you arrive in the very senior levels. It’s expected though that you do take on the bigger issues. You still have to have your people skills. You still have to, you’re excelling in the bigger things, the mission of the company, the change in direction, I mean leading change is one of the things senior managers have to do or the company will suffer.

Dobbie: Absolutely but isn’t there a reticence as well once you’re in that role you’d be scared to make a lot of change, wouldn’t you, because you’d be thinking I don’t know enough yet to make some substantial changes in this business and yet the business can’t also wait for you to acquire those skills.

Rozmeta: Well that separates the really insightful clever ones from the not so. You do have to take your time when you’re new. You do have to learn. You do have to look around and size things up and not just jump into let’s go in this direction or that direction. And that’s where the good ones really come out because they do know the timelines. They think alright, they’ll access information about what changes are going on that are impacting their company and they will have to adapt to those changes. And it is scary, you’re right it’s very scary. Some of these changes well in fact most changes are resistant.

Dobbie: So your strengths sometimes can be weaknesses, can’t they? Someone can say something which paints a positive light on you, but actually you can read it the other way as well. You can kid yourself almost, can’t you?

Rozmeta: Well what happens is one of the great sources of derailment is one manager builds you up and says, oh I really like you you’re an action person, you know? And so you get this little label in your head, I’m an action person. And the next one comes along and says you’re reckless. You don’t think, stop and think before you act. So it’s one day rooster, the next day feather duster sort of thing. You have to really, this is one of the things you really have to do, you have to stop and say I’m in a different context now. I’ve got new people that I have to appeal to so maybe what was once a strength, like maybe in my last role I was called a team player, the new guy thinks that I’m mucking around too much and taking too long and he or she doesn’t value that kind of thing as much.

Dobbie: Yeah like people who say that they’re great people, people. They’re not necessarily that good at managing people they’re just great at being friends with people.

Rozmeta: That’s right, for one person to say you’re a great people person, another one’s going to be suspicious of you. Thinking you’re too easy. That’s the real essence of derailment is that you’ve got to keep understanding that the context keeps shifting and the people’s opinions of you keep shifting. So I keep coming back to self awareness. If you do understand that you’re very, very say intelligent and clever and all this other thing, just keep asking yourself am I coming across as intimidating? Am I sort of selling people short because they haven’t got my level of intellectual ability or something. Just keep asking yourself and get somebody you can trust to say sort of say, yes these new people they’re not very impressed by your brilliance anymore.

Dobbie: Now I don’t know if many businesses still do it but I mean we did go through a phase, didn’t we, where the whole 360 evaluation where you know you’ve got your views on management from all sorts of different people at all sorts of different levels. I know managers used to dread them but they do need them, don’t they?

Rozmeta: 360’s alive and well. I’ve argued to a lot of companies and it’s still, there’s a lot of feedback and a lot of that sort of thing and yes it is a really, really useful tool. The informal feedback is best though. If you can just get used to asking what should I be doing more of? What should I be doing less of? And getting feedback from people to say you’re just not communicating enough of the vital information but to frame it in not what’s wrong with me because Australians are not good at giving negative feedback but if you say what should I do more of people are quite OK then and you can get the sort of feedback you need to keep adjusting.

Dobbie: Do you also need an attitude of pushing the barriers to be a successful senior manager or is that dangerous? Do you also need an element of realism about your decision? I know you’re going to sit on the fence answer with me here but if you had to jump on one side which side would you jump on?

Rozmeta: It depends on the nature of your company. You can be more conservative in some companies and get away with it. If you were in a company that’s got to be very dynamic, say you’re in an IT business with changes happening all the time you would have to be the jump quickly type. You just can’t sit around and be conservative. But in a different sort of company you could probably get away with it. It really is about that wisdom of knowing your company, knowing you know the game that you’re playing.

Dobbie: But I guess also being a good network becomes important as well, doesn’t it? When you’re in the more junior ranks of an organisation you might deal with suppliers at the same level as yourself, when you rise to the top those strategic partnerships that you have become a much more important part of the job.

Rozmeta: You’re definitely correct. When you’re senior the broad networks are absolutely important to you. The people that are forming strategic partnerships with their suppliers are just really successful these days. Instead of trying to screw the supplier for the last cent, you know? They don’t do that now. They’re too clever. They say, we’ll both win here. So you do have to have the big picture about how you’re going to make that company be strong in the future and that usually does rely on good supply.

Dobbie: And again that’s really taking a long-term view isn’t it, rather than, the example of well let’s just screw our suppliers for the lowest price is a pretty short-term view because your suppliers aren’t going to be around for very long. So I guess it all does relate to a long-term versus a short-term view.

Rozmeta: There are plenty of companies still doing that though. You’d be surprised. There’s plenty of them that still can’t seem to go beyond the short term and they really will suffer from that perspective because yes your suppliers will want to screw you back if that’s the case and it’s not very good, all the modern ethical companies are into you know win-win.

Dobbie: With this need to build strategic partnerships can you really survive in the top job if you really don’t have a bit of the sales person in you.

Rozmeta: You can. There are plenty of people that are in the top jobs that aren’t sales people but they’ve always surrounded themselves with people who can do that bit. Many companies are headed by the sort of people with sort of maybe more financial skills. Generally though, you’re right, generally the person at the top is somebody with a lot of marketing. They’ve got vision. They’ve got future perspective. And then they’ll say well I’m not very good at selling but I’ll get someone in as my second in charge, but that strategic partnership at the top is very, very important to people. You’ll find a lot of interesting cases throughout history where the second person is almost the opposite to the CEO because they complement each other. You typically get someone who’s in engineering or a marketing guru becomes the CEO and they have somebody strong in finances as number two. That’s worked. Honda had a 50-year partnership like that. And he was a genius at engineering but he was terrible with people and terrible with money so he had an off-sider for 50 years and they really were successful.

Dobbie: So like all good marriages I think that’s the same.

Rozmeta: It takes exactly the same, yes. If you surround yourself at the senior level with people all like yourself, you’re a lunatic. It’s really a recipe for disaster. You’ve really at the strategic level, you have to say have I got somebody who can sell in the story? Have I got somebody who really can think strategically? Have I got somebody looking after the dollars, who’s a detail person? Nobody is all of those things or hardly anybody. It’s a rare person. So that’s why at the strategic senior level, the teamwork concept is just as important as it was down in the more junior ranks.

Dobbie: Now if you’ve got someone who’s in senior management who believes that they’re being groomed for the top job. They’ve been rising through the ranks quickly but they’re still pretty much in a middle management operationally focused role, what should they be doing right now?

Rozmeta: Well they should be getting a lot of self awareness. There are all sorts of ways you can do that but there is all sorts of tests, but feedback’s the best. You have to say you know what am I doing that’s really my strength and what’s going to let me down in the future and get somebody you can trust who’s truthful to give you that feedback if you’re in that middle section. You can always get education, you can get training but you need the experience so the best thing you can do is not stay in a narrow focus if possible, move around. Even if you’re only going to spend, like if you’re a sales person, if you can even have six months to a year in an operational field getting to know logistics you’ll be so much more equipped for those senior roles because you’ll understand the implications of your decisions on the whole business.

Dobbie: And is that really going to prepare you for that strategic focus? Do you need to undertake some sort of formal training as well to try and get you to think more strategically?

Rozmeta: Definitely, well, perhaps I’m biased. There are people who just have wisdom and can suck it in and get to know all the facets. But most of us are mere mortals and so some program that just gets our mental morals in line so we can know what we need to be learning out in the field. Formal courses will never teach you the same as life experience and mentoring and all that. They’re all much more important. It’s just that little time out that gives you a framework that you can put all the rest of those experiences into the right spot and understand what you’re seeing.

Dobbie: And have you seen, in your experience, many people who have risen to the top and have been great to a point and then they get that top job and they are just a complete disaster?

Rozmeta: Yes and there’s a great book available called High Flyers by Morgan McCall and it’s just full of those stories, just absolutely full of them, and usually it’s micromanagement. It’s too much hand’s on and they’re not seeing the works of the trade. Something’s lurking and they just don’t get it. Too busy with those monthly sales reports like they’ve always done and blow up.

Dobbie: I remember one boss told me about what he described as the dance floor on the balcony analogy. You’ve got to be down on the dance floor but sometimes you’ve got to be up on the balcony looking down on the dance floor and I guess it is having that balance, isn’t it?

Rozmeta: It is and you should never fail to go down to the shop floor or whatever it is. You’re a foolish CEO or senior person if you didn’t get out there and have a look. You’ll learn more in one day on the phones with the ordinary folk than you will with 10 reports.

Dobbie: Absolutely. Alright thanks so much for your time Kathy. It’s been a pleasure talking to you and hopefully we’ll talk to you again soon.

Rozmeta: OK, thank you.