EP47: Navid Nazemian Executive Coaching - Executive Transitions Best Practices (With Navid Nazemian)

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

Joining us this week is author and executive coach Navid Nazemian of  Navid Nazemian Executive Coaching who shares why effective senior executive onboarding is critical to ensure the success of a new hire.

‍

‍

‍

Transcript

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

‍

Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes.

My name is Lydia, and with us today is Navid Nazemian, founder and CEO of executive coaching company, Navid Nazemian Executive Coaching.

Welcome Navid. Thank you for joining us today.

Navid: Thank you, Lydia, for the warm welcome, and very much looking forward to our conversation.

From HR to Coaching: Navid Nazemian’s Journey

Lydia: Absolutely. I think this is going to be a very interesting conversation about executive hiring, and also executive coaching and how that relates to recruitment. So, tell us about your firm. What's the story behind it?

Navid: I shall say that my company is a very young one. I set it up about a year ago, but I have been working in large multinational companies for the last 26 years, of which I spent the last 20 years working for some multinational and international heavyweights. And those 20 years I spent in the HR function, the recruiting and talent topic is something that's very close to my heart and something I have a lot of experience to share.

I have been coaching now for about 11 years, and working in HR means that I've always had permission from my employers to be able to do that. So, my coaching practice is not new, but my coaching organization is a new one. And so since August last year, I am doing this full-time. I have my full-time coaching practice and I do a little bit of keynote, speaking, and promoting my best-selling book on the side.

Defining the Role of an Executive Coach

Lydia: Yes, we will get to your book shortly. There are some interesting points that I noticed in there. But going back to your experience as an executive coach working within the HR function especially, how would you define the role of an executive coach? And what are the primary objectives that you hope to achieve with clients?

Navid: Allow me by saying this first. CEO Today, named me the number one coach globally last year, and this is a real honor The reason I want to mention this is because the coaching field is very crowded. There are many different types of coaches out there.

You have what I call the scholar coaches. These are people who typically have a professorship at a university or an institution, and write and blog about coaching the theory and the practice behind it. The reality is, most of these people don't really coach in the real world. So, while some of those articles and definitions might be exciting to hear and read about, oftentimes they don't solve real-world problems.

Then you have life coaches. These are people that helped people like you and me to become more skillful in our overall kind of management of our lives. So, things about family, integrating work-life balance, and anything that's related to the overall aspect of our lives. But I consider myself to be more in the leadership development/transition coaching space. And this is a particular field that speaks to executive leaders. Without using any formal definition of what is actually an executive coach, I would say, “Executive coaches are there to support leaders to become better at what they do.”

Now, if you're a good leader, an executive coach can help you to become a great leader, if you're a great leader, an executive coach can help you to become an outstanding leader. So, there's always this notion of improvement that a coach can help you to get better at [what you do.]

Lydia: What sort of metrics do you use to ensure that the good goes to great?

Navid: If the CEO is a chairman or a chairwoman of the company, and a CHRO in that case, we sit together and get input into what would a great outcome look like. And let's collect those no more than two or three of them. Then towards the middle, and towards the end, there is a review session on how things are going. And so that, for me, is the simplest measure of success.

It's about the stakeholders and those that are working with them to be able to come to the same conclusion. That's the simplest way to measure success. And of course, the reality is, there are many more sophisticated tools that we can apply. One of them is a 360 assessment and many more instruments that you can apply to be able to measure the actual outcome of a coaching engagement.

De-risking Executive Transitions

Lydia: Those are really interesting points that you've made. And you also spoke about your specialization at the moment of being executive transitions, right? Then that leads to onboarding and integration into a company. And that's a key role, especially now we are in a fragmented workforce.

So, what are some methods to de-risk executive transitions, so to speak, and make executives more productive and faster?

Navid: So, first of all, I have dedicated an entire chapter about this one topic in my best-selling book. The analogy that I use is always to think of the golden thread. I use the analogy of a golden thread because, for me, it's like going to the gold mine and starting to dig out the gold. The reason I mentioned this right away is because there are three different stakeholders that need to play a role in order for the transition to be more successful.

First and foremost, and this is where the majority of the responsibility lies, that is the actual executive. So, this is the CEO, CFO, and CHRO. Whoever the person is, they need to play a role because there are concrete things they can do to de-risk and accelerate their transition.

The second stakeholder in this equation is the HR function or the HR partner. Now, oftentimes, it is the CHRO or the HRD. Sometimes it can be actually someone like the head of the nomination committee. And then thirdly, it's the organization. Because again, when you think of sponsored engagements, and how the organization can support the executives, of course, it takes a bit of a commitment on the organization side, but also it takes a little bit of a budget to bring someone in, like me, and to help the executive that is going through a transition. So, this is just at the outset. If all three players get their parts right, then you have the highest likelihood of success. But as I said, there are many things executives can do.

One of the simplest ways this can be supported is by bringing in a transition coach. Because what we do as transition coaches have got some very concrete elements to it. This is an onboarding plan, a stakeholder mapping exercise, and a reflection exercise on what are the new challenges that the executive is expecting to be confronted with, and what is the degree of confidence they have around those.

That helps to inform our coaching and where we want to go deeper, potentially. But these are some of the things that the executive can do. But when we get to the executive level, or the C-suite, oftentimes, there is no dedicated process to that, and this is a missed opportunity. Because if you think of admin arrangements, business orientation, or induction courses, and legal and compliance training, these are all basics. Most of the companies get that right for the majority of the population. But when we get to the C-suites, you need to be thinking about what I call ‘higher-value activities.’ So, aligning expectations with the line manager and the direct reports. Organizing meaningful meetings with key stakeholders, and for that, you need to map the stakeholder universe facilitating cultural familiarization.

One of the top three aggregated reasons why 40% of executives failed when going through a transition is people, culture, and politics. And so understanding a little more about the culture of the organization, what is expected behavior, and what is considered a great leader in this company is helpful to inform the executive so that they don't fall into those traps and have an early exit as a result.

So, these are just some examples. I call them key interventions to make executive transitions.

Lydia: So, what is the cost of a sluggish or ineffective executive transition?

Navid: Yes, so the general rule of thumb is that attrition, bad attrition. Sometimes attrition is wanted and triggered by the organization. But involuntary attrition, let's call it, is costing the organization roughly two and a half times the salary cost of an employee, and this is universally true. I think you can easily imagine how, if you have someone that's just been hired, it will take them some time to come up to speed with understanding what the job is all about, the company, the peers, and all that.

Of course, if that position is vacant, there is a cost that comes with hiring the next person, and so on. So, all of that results in the 2.5 times the salary costs. Now, I have done the research and I, come to the conclusion that, at the very top, you're talking about a cost multiplier, that is somewhere between 10 to 30 times the cost of the executive. The ripple effects include things like low engagement levels as a result of poor leadership. It includes costs like a very expensive hire that's been done to the support of a search firm that didn't work out within a year's time period. And guess what, now you need to pay either the same or hopefully another search firm, to help you with hiring the next one. And so there is a real cost to this topic going wrong. And as I said, there are three stakeholders that can all play a role in making sure that it's going in the right direction.

Six Principles of Effective Virtual Onboarding

Lydia: We are seeing more fragmented teams and virtual hiring happening, right? With the rise of remote work and virtual teams, virtual executive onboarding has become increasingly common. So Navid, what factors make for an effective virtual onboarding experience?

Navid: What are some of the principles of effective virtual onboarding? There are six that I cite, that started onboarding a new leader remotely.

So the first aspect is learning. This is the onus on the organization to make sure that they provide a structured learning process. Many organizations had to really set this up from scratch at the outset of the pandemic because they really didn't think of this. Onboarding used to be a face-to-face kind of thing, a classroom type of training.

The second aspect that is important is that of goals. I think both executives with the leadership team and members need to be crystal clear about short-term objectives. They really make sure that everyone understands what is the task during the next week, the next month, and the next quarter, and not necessarily having just the annual objectives in some system and really circling back on those 12 months down the line.

The third aspect is around stakeholders. And again, I find that quite surprising that even some of the most established successful companies have not done this properly. And so this is one of the instruments I use in my coaching with leaders, which is, “Let's sit down and map out the stakeholder universe. And by the way, let's also think of external stakeholders.” Because not every stakeholder will be an employee of your company. So we may be thinking about the board of directors and members of those bodies such as the NomCom and the RemCo. We may be thinking of governmental institutions, ministers, and associates that are critical to the success of your organization.

The fourth item is assigning a virtual onboarding body. So, this is ideally not someone that you have a direct relationship with - not your line manager, not one of your peers - but someone that has a more remote role to play when it comes to your onboarding.

The fifth element is team building. 80% of the work that I do is one-on-one work, and 20% of what I do is leadership team effectiveness journeys. You can do two, three, or four-hour long sessions on getting to know each other better and having some facilitated exercise around that. So it is absolutely impossible to kick start in the virtual world and eventually migrate to the real world when the opportunity presents itself.

Last but not least, the sixth item is hire a transition coach for yourself. Because again, this is crucial support.

It's been proven to reduce the derailment risk by another 50% or more. And as well as making sure that the executive is able to hit the ground running in a time period that is 50%, or more, shorter than what they normally would take in order to do the same without the support.

Utilizing Available Time for Crucial Activities

Lydia: So, you talked about three key stakeholders in the executive onboarding experience. And then there's also the six principles that you just mentioned. Now, what might be an ideal timeframe for an effective onboarding program?

Navid: Yes. I think you may have heard about this fabulous book called ‘The First 90 Days.’

Lydia: Yes

Navid: Just to give you an idea, one of the mysteries that I find with The First 90 Days is, it's sort of suggesting that you should start on day one when you're in a new position, and you will be finished after day 90. I have done this with over 200 senior leaders who are, by now, the executive transition coaching, and none of them will be starting on day one, and be done after day 90.

So, this is why I gave to the world, the so-called ‘Double Diamond Framework of Executive Transitions.’ And the reason I choose that framework and came up with it is that at the C-suite level, I find that those transitions are a 12 to 18-month journey. So, if you think of the seven phases that my framework offers to the executive, only one of the seven phases is the first 90 days. By the way, the first phase in my model is called the ‘Discover Phase.’ This is your minus day 90 to day zero.

So, why should any executive wait until they want to start onboarding themselves effectively, when they can start to do some groundwork ahead of the actual start date?

And oftentimes, there is a notice period that goes in between them resigning from the current role and starting a new role.

There are oftentimes if it's an internal promotion, an announcement that goes out two or three months earlier. So, why would the executive and the coach not utilize the time that's available to them to start doing some of these crucial activities, and I'd have to wait for day one to get started? So, I hope that gives you an idea about why the first 90 days are nowhere near sufficient for the executive leaders onboarding, and taking out the mystery of this topic. Nobody at the C-suite ever on boards in a 90-day time period. It's more like a 12 to 18-month journey.

Lydia: This similar framework applies to transitions that are happening internally from one role to another rather than from one company to the next.

Navid: Absolutely. And the irony is many organizations that are actually supporting their executives with this transition don't support them when they are internally promoted. Now, this again, is a mystery to me because the data suggests that internal promotions are a little less risky than external hires.

There are four studies, and one of them actually looks at the difference between internal promotions and external hires. And unsurprisingly, there is a bit of a difference. But the reality is between 27 and 33% of internal promotions fail at the executive level, right? And externally, it's more like 33 to 43%. That gives us the 40%, kind of on average, right? And so again, why would you risk 27 to 33% of your internal promotes to be failing during the transition, when you can give them the exact same support you're giving to the external hires?

Lydia: And it goes hand in hand with their productivity level and there are metrics to measure both of them, the integration into the company, and also the performance at every stage.

Navid: Yes. So again, unsurprisingly, the time to productivity is what I call ‘The Zero Point.’ If this was a business, at which point is the cost and the investment gone into leaders’ appointment, start to earn a dividend or return? And so, for internal promotions, it's anywhere between three to six months, and for external hires, six to nine months.

This is why I often speak about the six months cut-off mark as an average. And again, hiring an executive transition coach, there are four independent studies that I cite here, has proven to be bringing that time frame down by 50% or more. But as we speak, there are many organizations that don't even know what transition coaching is. When their leaders are appointed to an executive position, they just hope for the best, and this is one of the reasons why we get a 40% dropout rate.

The Advice Trap: Contradictory Advice

Lydia: Now, executive hires have said in a survey that I read, a lack of understanding about norms and practices are some of the primary causes of slow or even failed transition. So how can these things be managed, Navid?

Navid: That goes hand in hand with what I call ‘The Advice Trap.’ This is the executive starting in the new position, whether internally promoted or externally hired, and they start to work their stakeholder landscape and they get to hear well-intended, but contradictory advice. Some of the stakeholders will tell them, “You must challenge your peers and the organization” and others will tell them, “You have to simply follow the playbook.” But somebody may tell them, “You must score points early on, it's all about quick wins that are visible.”

Somebody else may tell them, “If I were you, my advice for you would be to take your time. Make sure you learn to be a fly on the wall and take your time to come up with any recommendations or actions. They may be speaking to some people that suggest to them, you must demonstrate your independence, right? You have to exert your authority.”

My advice to you is to make sure you always ask for help and support. Executives are confronted with all this contradictory advice, and have all these worries in their minds around, “Will I be able to make an impact early on?” “Will I be able to build a great, network and have good relationships with my peers?” So, there are all these things floating, and again, it takes someone qualified, who can sit down with the executive and help them to reflect and unpack all of this.

If there is only one board member that is suggesting them to take their time and that board member happens to be the chairman or chairwoman, you can't just ignore that, right? So you have to work with that advice. The thing is, if the other board members have been telling you something completely different, then there is a job to be done here for the executive to go back and align the chairman with the rest of the board to make sure that he or she is delivering against realistic expectations and not whatever they do, nobody will be happy because they are varied ideas around what success looks like for this particular CEO.

A Success Story of Executive Transitions

Lydia: And you've mentioned also earlier that you've coached about 200 C-suite leaders. So, could you share any success stories that you've seen of successful executive transitions?

Navid: Yes. This particular case is the one that I cited in my book. The company employs more than 200,000 people, and this person was appointed to head up a function at the most senior level. So, they became a number one, CXO.

What this individual had to go through first was, they were having a big promotion challenge, because they had never worked at that level in that firm before. They were, a successful leader, and then they were appointed to global C- suites.

The second challenge was the individual had to go through the corporate Diplomacy Challenge, or in simple words, politics. Because whether we like it or not, politics play a role at the center of every organization, particularly if it's such a large and complex one.

The third challenge the individual had to go through is the so-called ‘International Move Challenge.’ They have always worked in one country and one continent, then suddenly they're moving to a new country that happens to be on a different continent. The individual had also to work with the so-called ‘Turn Around Challenge.’ So this is something that, you know, the individual was brought in, So that's one of those phase transitions.

The individual also had to work with a realignment challenge and deal with a business portfolio challenge. Last but not least, the individual also had to face a cross-functional challenge because they were initially working in a general management function and then were brought in to work in one of the corporate functions. So you can see how seven unique challenges were coming the way of the individual, and this is what I call the champion of transitions. I mean, you can’t have anything that is more complex and more tricky in nature. So, we did quite a few things at the outset.

First off, we contracted ahead of the actual start date, and that really gave the individual a head start around some of the things I mentioned earlier. We sat down and identified and interviewed key stakeholders before the formal start date. The individual met virtually with the new leadership team and the inherited functional leadership team members because the announcement had gone out, and it was official and public. We then sat down and reflected jointly on the context: what’s different about working at that level at the global level versus working successfully at the country level? What is the identified timeframe? What would be ideal coaching outcomes? How would the individual want to form and establish relationships with the line manager and the team because these are two of the most critical stakeholders?

We then sat down and discussed a process of assessing the newly inherited leadership team. There were two individuals that were not happy about this appointment; one of them was actively campaigning against the incoming C-suite leader because apparently, everybody knew that the incumbent did not have any particular experience in this particular function. But this is the politics that I talked about.

We then did a leader assimilation process. This is a particular process where the individual sits down with the inherited leadership team members and talks openly about the questions they have on their mind. It’s a trust-building exercise and also helps to establish what I call performance standards: what are my expectations of you as my leadership team?

We then made sure that we committed sufficient time to key stakeholders and prepared the individual for crucial conversations. The individual had four upcoming meetings with the chairman of the firm, so we really went all-in to make sure that they were prepped for every one of these conversations to come.

We applied tools such as the executive elevator speech toolkit where the individual was able to hone their messaging: what would be an ideal outcome from a conversation with the chairman three months down the line? At times, I would pretend to be the chairman and ask her to talk to me in that way. We would record the session, watch it together, and give feedback as to what went well and what could be improved.

So, it’s many different things we did, but all I can say is that that individual received an outstanding performance rating in their first year of being appointed and also got an early contract renewal. So, it’s a super quick way of talking about something that obviously took 12 months in reality, but this is just one of the case studies that I cite in my book.

Balancing Investment in New Hires

Lydia: Navid, you’ve given a unique perspective into talent management; the support for the new talent coming in to take on a big role. And what is so critical about executive transitions is that it's an ongoing process that would take longer than you would expect. And one that needs to produce results alongside that kind of onboarding. So, this also applies to our audience who's listening in.

So, what advice would you give talent leaders, especially in the executive hiring space, who are probably looking into how do I onboard this new executive hire effectively? And how do I get them to perform and really shine in their roles?

Navid: In my book, I talk about the imbalance of investment. One good piece of advice I can give to any talent leader or talent acquisition leader is to make sure that the investment is balanced. It’s always good to take money into your hands and make sure that you hire the right person for the role, but it would be much more potent if that same hire you just hired gets support once they are in the organization and ideally before they start in a new position.

The second piece of advice is what I already mentioned: make sure that whether it’s the talent acquisition function, the talent management function, or the L&D function, it really doesn’t matter who looks after this. It ideally needs an owner. Make sure that you don’t stop at the basic onboarding level because, as we know now, it’s not sufficient for the executive level. Think about the higher-value activities I mentioned earlier in the core.

The last piece of advice is that this is not rocket science. In my book, I talk about 12 proven interventions that help with this process. Anyone can get a copy of my book, and if they go for the paperback or hardcover, they will also get the actual workbook. The workbook helps, for instance, the talent leader to work with the executive on the Double Diamond framework. As an executive or HR person supporting them, you get to work through the framework to help them with this exercise.

So, these are just three ideas to share with you and the audience on how they could support an executive in transition in a very practical and pragmatic way.

Lydia: Thank you very much, Navid. This has been excellent, especially given the intimate view we’ve just seen into the actual experience of someone getting into a new role. The challenges faced and how a timely and structured process around transitions can really help bring out the results that a company is looking for in an executive hire. I’m sure the audience listening in would want to find out a little bit more about you and your book. So, where can the audience connect with you?

Navid: Sure, LinkedIn is my main platform and people can see me write regularly. I am also very friendly with regard to connection invites and conversations on LinkedIn, so that’s probably the best place to find me. If people want to get their hands on a copy of my book, they can buy it literally anywhere they can get it online as well as offline: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple Books. If people have a preference for the audio version of my book, I think it will be launching either in August or September, so they need to wait a little longer. So, those are just some places to connect and continue the conversation.

Lydia: We have been in conversation with Navid Nazemian, founder and CEO of Navid Nazemian Executive Coaching. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to our channels to stay tuned for more weekly episodes of All In Recruitment.