New beginnings

Stuart Lancaster, the new interim England rugby coach, has stepped into the breach created by Martin Johnson’s post-World Cup resignation.  He faces a dilemma that many bosses face when entering into a new leadership role, how to find the balance between experience and new ideas / capabilities, between proven performers and youthful enthusiasm and vigour.  When you step into a new company or role, you can see much that is wrong with it (and it is easy to talk this up), however jettison too much of the old guard and you destroy the backbone of the organisation.

He is faced with creating a new culture and setting out his vision of how he wants England to perform and behave.  To clarify his selection criteria.  It is never so easy to send a clear message as when you are new in the job.  People are looking to see what you stand for and will interpret your actions, even if you don’t spell out your thinking, so beware leaving it others to say what you are thinking!

There is no single right answer but it is important to be clear about what you are trying to do and what your criteria are.  People will always debate the How, but hopefully you can rally support around What you are trying to accomplish.  So in Stuart’s case, his job is to show he is building a squad capable of challenging for and hopefully winning the next World Cup, who the right players are is anyone’s (and everyone’s!) guess…

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”   St Francis Of Assisi

“What the caterpillar calls the end the rest of the world calls a butterfly.”   Lao Tzu quotes

Tags: Challenge, Change

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 10:55 and is filed under Business Change, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.