Dagmara Asbreuk (00:00.078)
Welcome to another episode of Extraordinary Leadership podcast. So today in the studio, I have Navid Nazemian, who is an executive coach specialized in executive transitions that we'll dive into today. And he's awarded as world number one executive coach by CEO today. He's also a book author, mastering executive transitions. And he brings 20 years of experience from a corporate world where he served as a leader.
as an executive in various HR roles in run -amated companies. And I want to welcome you, David, first of all, to this conversation. I know it will be very rich exploring your story and of course, your fantastic support that you do for executive leaders and above all, unpacking what executive transitions actually are. So thank you for coming. Thank you very much, Dagmara, for the warm welcome. And I am very much excited to be part of this podcast of yours. Thank you. Thank you.
Before we dive into the main topic, is executive transitions and why it's so important for leaders, will be awesome to hear your story. actually, curiosity for the listeners is what brought you to this topic after all? Sure. So first off, as you stated in the introduction, I spent 26 years of my life working for some of the world's most admired companies at country, regional and global roles.
And it really was an eye -opening experience for me to learn from the very best. And despite that, you really find out that as soon as you hit the executive floor, certain things just don't work anymore. And onboarding and transition is one of those. So what got me to get excited about this topic and really start to do a little more research about it was the fact that I yet have to see any company
that does this at a world -class level. And so that was kind of the start of my mission, as I say, when I go on big stages and present this topic to large audiences, I say I'm on a mission and my mission is to help as many executive leaders to succeed as I can, because I know that 40 % of them unfortunately don't make it. Which is a pretty large figure.
Dagmara Asbreuk (02:15.182)
So what were the challenges, know, I'm curious to hear and I'm sure listeners as well in those roles that you faced as brought you to this realization that and discover your mission, right? The realization that there is a gap and discover your mission. Sure. So allow me first by saying that I have 156 citations in my book. So the appendix is 22 pages long. So this book is not just written based off my own memory or
my experience of going to these wonderful companies to work for. But it's really a very rich way of coming to the topic. I just want to be very clear about the fact that this is not an autobiography type book or, this is how I think leadership should be done. And now please everyone go and copy it. So this is really a very much widely kind of research topic.
And so coming back to your original question as to what gets in the way, there's an entire chapter dedicated to this topic. In that chapter, I cite the top 10 reasons for executive transition failure. But if I wanted to, you know, shorten that into three groups reasons for executive transition failure, the three reasons are people, culture and politics. So it's very rare that the company hires a CFO and he or she isn't really good with the numbers.
It's almost impossible to hire a chief people officer who doesn't really get the people agenda. So it's not the technical skills that get in the way most often, but it's oftentimes what we in HR call the soft skills. And as we know, they're very, very hard to learn and demonstrate. People, culture and politics. About the politics quite a lot can be told, isn't it? So still before you know, unpacking this topic, going back to you,
What were the challenges that you faced as an existing studio, especially in those three dimensions? Sure. I can cite a concrete example of how I really failed badly in my career. And so this is me working in sales for six years and I had this desire to want to work in the HR function. And at the time in Germany, nobody really was game. And so they all look at my CV and say, sorry, you have applied for the wrong position. We got great openings in sales for you.
Dagmara Asbreuk (04:34.99)
But I had this idea that I wanted to work in HR, coming with a sales background. And so it only took one individual to really trust me to do that. And I'm allowed to mention a name, Daniel Frech is her name. She was the head of HR working for Adidas at the time. And she gave me a chance and she said, look, I'm going to hire you. You're not my typical hire or atypical hire here at Adidas.
But certainly you will be the first assistant HR manager that I'm going to hire. This was the lowest level HR role you could get that has been selling our products previously. So you have the customer and the product experience. And I find that is a unique way into getting you into the company. And so I had three incredible years at Adidas. I was the happiest you can imagine. And I knew that I wanted to get international HR experience under my belt. And at the time in Adidas, the corporate functions,
We're not doing international assignments. So I knew that this is a bit of a dead end road until or unless I wanted to change my ambition to just grow within the country. And so anyway, the first offer that came my way that gave me that international HR experience I took on, and that was with GE. Now, mind you, I lasted eight months at that company. And at the time, GE was the world's most admired company. 350 ,000 people.
Jack Walsh had just stepped down, he was considered to be the most iconic CEO of any company. A lot of S &P 500 companies were targeting the second and third tier GMs and presidents within GE to come and take over the top job in the company. So GE was literally considered the best school for leadership. And yet I failed horrendously at the time. And the reason I failed was that I made one of the top 10 mistakes, which is
I started to copy and paste or replicate what had made me successful until then. So if I think back of Adidas, it was very much a family feel. You know, it was all about the team. It was never about the individual. We did not have an individual multiplier for our bonus schemes at the time. It was all based on the team effort. And so that was really something that I learned very well.
Dagmara Asbreuk (06:52.396)
When I went into GE who had come up with the nine box grid and essentially everyone was taking out their elbows and wanting to take into box one, that is when I didn't quite understand and adjust my style of leadership and my understanding of organizations to the new context and organizational culture. And that is probably the number one reason why I had to resign and say goodbye to what could have been a fantastic career with GE.
While you were talking, you know, I had several scenes in my mind coming from my own past life as working in a corporate or sort of leading, as well as leaders that I've met at different levels. So I can see that we can fall very easily to that trap of, you know, knowing because of experience. So we carry a lot of biases and the more senior we become, we believe we know more. And that's where I can see this mistake can creep in.
So I can imagine that that has been a difficult time for you, first of all. How did you go about that? As a leader, you're likely to face more than once a challenge coming your way. what you do is you go back to square one and make a new plan. And that's what I did. again, I decided to leave the organization. It really wasn't right for me. And that being said, I have only good things to say about GE. I just made all the rookie mistakes that you could expect someone to do.
With that in mind, I went back to the drawing board. activated my network. I started looking into the market. Within two months after that, I landed my first international HR assignment. And so that's what I was very much determined to do. And that's what I got to do. You know, my curiosity goes into what is the commitment that you took at the moment where you, you know, you realize, okay, that's the time to leave because it didn't work out. I'm sure there has been a reflection as well, apart from
you know, reaching to the network and landing a new job. And the reason I know it, because I also experienced of course failures at such levels, which made me, you know, not only reflect, but take a different decision and stance next time. Yes. So I guess there is an element of resilience that's been building up in me over the many decades. The first time I had to face the tough reality of life was at the age of 13 when I came to Germany.
Dagmara Asbreuk (09:13.292)
without speaking a word of German and having to establish myself there. so again, it was, you you could say I was thrown into the cold water and it was a very deep one and I wasn't really necessarily the best swimmer. But you know, three years after that, I was the best in my school and I was speaking German fluently. I guess there's something about the aspect of resilience that you start to pick up at various stages throughout your life for whatever reason.
make you the person that you are. And I think that really helped me at the time I needed it. was the time that you came into, you know, thinking about writing a book, thinking about transitioning career and thinking about starting with your mission? Sure. So first off, you mentioned Marshall Goldsmith and I have him in high regards. also part of the coaching community that has been put together. And he very kindly wrote the foreword to my book. So I have the highest respect for Marshall Goldsmith, but I wish that tomorrow that I was that strategically foresighted.
10 years before my departure to say, okay, I'm going to start writing this book on that day, I'm going to launch it. Six months later, I'm going to jump ship from the big corporate ladder and establish myself as a coach. And then a year later, CEO today is going to name me the number one coaching award. I wish I was that strategically foresighted. The reality is I wasn't, it all just happened. And so, you know, one of the little secrets about my book is, was it's
gratifying that everyone sees the success and it's an international bestseller and all that. It was really hard to write the book. I really struggled with writing the book and the little known secret is it took me seven years to write this book from cover to cover. And after about six years, I'd only produced 60 pages or so. And so it really was, I was thinking that I probably don't have enough life left in me to finish this book because you know,
on average is 250 pages or so. if you continue to write about 10 pages a year, can map out how long it's going to take you to finish the book. That was the first part of it and it was really hard. And after about six years, I was actually considering to publish what I had collected, which was essentially the research for the book as a white paper and just be done with it.
Dagmara Asbreuk (11:23.128)
But as I'm sure you will appreciate that the resilience kicks back in and it's like, okay, you seem to have really tried everything and you don't seem to be making quite the progress you want to make. Who could help here? And you could say, there, as a coach who's been supporting many, many executive leaders with their transition challenges, I stumbled upon someone who's a book writing coach. And so his name is Professor Eric Costa.
He teaches at Georgetown University and within six months of working with Eric, not only did I produce a book that became an international bestseller, but I really was able to put it together in a way that I feel deserves my name on the cover of it. And then it was good enough, I guess, for Marshall and other people to say, I'm happy to write the foreword and support your book as well. Amazing. Yeah. So I was wondering...
Was initially the intention to write a book for others or was that for yourself also to reflect on this whole process? So the intent was always for others because again, I knew that, you know, I was nearing the age of 50, I was nearing the quarter of a century of working in organizations. So I always had in the back of my mind, something that will outlast my corporate career and my life cut literally.
And that's one of the few things that people know about writing a book is that, you know, it will be around when you're not around anymore. And that's just in itself a wonderful gift, I think. And so I, you this is why it took so long to research the topic. This is why it was so hard for me to really come to terms with what is the skeleton structure that I want to write in. And this is what Eric helped me the most. mean, he's, you know, he's helped, I think something like 2000 people to publish the book.
But 95 % of those books are in the fiction space. So he's not an expert in leadership. He's not an expert in nonfiction books by any standard. But what this is what a good coach does, which is it helps you to come to terms with the struggle that you're faced with and to figure out a solution that works for you. And so what he really gave me was a high level framework that I could write towards. And that was really what got me kind of going again. That was what
Dagmara Asbreuk (13:41.388)
really made me to not only produce another 180 pages over that six months time period, but within a year after starting to work together, publish a book that became an international bestseller. Absolutely fantastic. It's such a good example, a great example of how our coaches can shift around or transform their views or infuse the achievement of any goal that you aspire. And yes, coaches do also need coaches. That's why we take those decisions for different reasons.
So in your book, you mentioned about this 40%, which is a big percentage, 40 % of executives are failing into first 18 months. Where is this guy coming from? Yeah. So there are five independent studies that all come to the very same conclusion. Some differentiate between internal promotions and external hires. Others don't do that.
But most validated one I would like to cite is from Hydrogen Struggles, which is one of the largest search firms on the planet. And they have placed over 20 ,000 executives over a 10 year time period. And if you were to go back and look at the initial date of appointment and 18 months into that appointment, 40 % were not around anymore. And so that is the most staggering kind of, you know, survey I could find on the 40 % failure rate.
To be perfectly honest, the first time I came across it, I thought this site may have misquoted. You know, it happens all the time. It's 14 and somehow it has to be 40 or it's four and some some somehow it cuts into a mistaken zero. But it actually is 40%. Yeah. So four out of 10 leaders don't make it at the very top of the house when they are going through a major transition. Let's unpack a little bit beneath each of these three kind of pillars. Sure. So one of the main challenges is an executive leader.
is facing with all my mistakes that I know you're referring in your book as well in that box of people. Yes. So first off, allow me by saying that when I was doing the deep research for this book, that was the easiest part of my research. And the easiest part was to find spectacular failures of very prominent CEOs at the very top of some of the world's largest companies. And so again, I'm not claiming to have met these people or to know
Dagmara Asbreuk (15:58.838)
the real reasons for their failure. But I think anyone that is a public, you know, company CEO is really portrayed usually very well in media and outlets. And that's what I have based my research on. So allow me by using an actual example. And I would like to use the example of Dr. Lea Poteka, who again, I have never met in my life. So he was headhunted to come and lead Hewlett -Packard at the time. And Hewlett -Packard, quite frankly, was a champion in its own right.
Hewlett Packard was a champion in the printing business. They had started to foray into the server business. And so they really were, you know, really, really successful at the time. And the board of directors decided that HP needed to start moving into the direction of the Googles, the Apples and kind of more of the digital technology type companies. So they said that, why is there have been very widely successful in the past?
If they were to continue that journey, they are unlikely to continue to be successful. So they brought Leo Apoteka in and the mandate was very clear. We want to move this culture from where it is to where we would like it to be. And so he came in and he went the first couple of months that he spent as a newly appointed external CEO, he went on what is often type calls called a CEO listening tour, which is you travel the world.
You know, HP had, I don't know, over 100 ,000 employees worldwide. So he traveling all these different countries, meeting with employees, having large town hall meetings, meeting key suppliers, key accounts, and so on. And trying to understand HP and making sense of it. But unfortunately, as it so happened, he was very forthright with saying that the culture must be broken and that what has been the prevailing culture is not going to be fit for the future.
Not only that, but he started to rave about his previous company's culture and what a great, amazing culture it was and how much the new, the HP needs to move towards that culture. And that is the very same reason he was actually brought in to help the HP to make that shift. And I think you don't really need to be in a betting office to start betting to see how the employees are starting to turn against that CEO who quite frankly is not.
Dagmara Asbreuk (18:18.988)
listening at all, but he's preaching down to the masses of people that he's meeting, how crappy the culture is that he's finding and how much they need to shift or else, you know, the doom day is going to be around. And so this is the one big mistake that he made along some of the other mistakes. And so that led to his departure within 10 months of being appointed and, you know, his pay package was north of $10 million. But in my book, I write about
ripple effects of these transition failures and if you have a CEO at the group level failing, I make the case that that failure is 30 times the total package of that CEO. And so you can write out in dollar terms what is the damage to the organization because of the morale going down, because of the company being leaderless for a time, because of executive leaders who report to the CEO starting to ignore them.
And so, you know, in my book, I write about the fact that any new executive that's incoming needs to earn the right to bring about culture change. You can't be coming in a week after your appointment and starting to talk about how crappy the culture in the firm is. Even if objectively that is a good thing to say. The reality is, how about if Leopold Ticker were to be kind of, if this was a Netflix movie, we would just rewind to day one.
and he would still go on to his listening tour and use this more than this. And actually being getting into conversations with the staff and their supplies and key accounts to learn more about what is it that we want to maintain and preserve. And what is one or two things if they had a magic wand that they would like to have changed in the foreseeable future. And on the back end of that three months tour to come back to the masses to say,
These are the amazing things that have made us successful. We would like to preserve and maintain. And these are the one or two things we need to shift because I have heard you say that to me. Now imagine what is the engagement behind that sort of announcement. what is the real effort that people will go and make to go above and beyond the call of duty to move the needle towards what is a desired future state to the current one. And so
Dagmara Asbreuk (20:38.134)
This is just one concrete example that I wanted to share as to how an executive has made all the mistakes. And at the same time, if they were to be supported maybe by an executive transition coach, if the HR person was a little more on the money, how they would have avoided the early big mistakes that they made that ultimately resulted in their failure. you for sharing that example, because so many, so many memories came through where, you know, my mind when you were sharing, it's such an important aspect to listen.
and actually to be inclusive in this whole process of onboarding yourself in the organization to really understand what is going on and how what is there has been constructed because there has been a reason why the company is where the company was, the culture was, right? I think the second which came through my mind when you were sharing is probably lack of appreciation for that which is verbalized because when we are coming as leaders and trying to portray ourselves that we know
You know, we come from a better experience. we know again, quote by quote, a little bit better, right? How to turn this around and what has been established maybe has not been the most fantastic. We still need to inspire the people that created it. We're firing everybody and bringing completely new people. So this is creating the disconnect most likely what in this example has happened, right? So it was not really an inclusive way. And I love, as you mentioned about this.
in terms of communication, how smartly it can be communicated by not only listening, but also replying to the ideas and concerns and worries and needs of the people that are part of the culture. So that's such an important thing of not discrediting what has been done, how we're building on it. think that's what came across to when you shared. And by the way, allow me by saying that the same is also true if the leader were to wait for too long to bring about culture change. it's about
the earning the right. it's about the timing as well and the how. And the timing is crucial because imagine if Leopold Higa was brought in with the big mandate by the board to change the culture around. And we know that a culture change doesn't happen overnight. And at the same time, if you were not to touch anything and run with what the ship is looking like and how it's being geared up for the next two years or so.
Dagmara Asbreuk (22:55.454)
you will have a very hard time to change anything around because people will say, well, you have been part of this establishment for two plus years and you haven't made a single change to what you found. So it can't be that bad after all. So again, it's both the how and the timing. And the other aspect I want to add to what you just said is when you started talking about firing people coming in, there's actually another study I started in my book, which is from Russell Reynolds. And they cite two things. One is
If you look at any major appointment at the top of the house in any company, over 90 % of the cost that is associated with that appointment goes into the recruiting process. So this is the lead to the headhunter, maybe some diagnostic tool, maybe some, you know, the costing of internal stakeholders making time to interview their candidate and so on. And then there is some, you know, invoicing and so on that happens. And less than 10 % of their sum is spent on that same hire once they have been hired into the firm.
to make that hire successful. So in my book, I talk about the imbalance of investment. Many firms seem to be falling into the trap of, you know, just paying a search firm the fee that they can to hire the very best candidate and then let them to sink or swim. So that's the first aspect of what I wanted to share with you. The second aspect I wanted to share is it's also done by Russell Reynolds, interestingly enough. And they say that if you are being appointed into any C -suite role,
After about three or so months into that position, you have what is called an executive hunch. So you have enough data points to know that let's say you have inherited 10 members of your leadership team that are reporting into you now as the group CEO. If you have significant doubts that one or two members of your team have what it would take for you to execute on this strategy, you might move ahead and upgrade and refresh those two roles.
Because if you were not to do that and you were to wait because you're worried that you might come across as the cutthroat type CEO that's just been appointed and is now killing everyone, all you're going to likely collect is additional data points to what you inherently knew was true after about three or four months. And so again, the advice is not to come in and take the gun and start killing people, but the advice here is to really pay close attention. And after about three or four months,
Dagmara Asbreuk (25:20.372)
sit down maybe with your HR personal or your executive transition coach to do an honest assessment of the inherited leadership team and to call out if there is one or two members of the team that you don't believe have what it takes, then you might as well move fast because that is what is going to give you a high level of performance and is going to save the company ultimately money down the line. making sure that you have the right people in the bus. Yeah. And it's...
It can be a pretty courageous act for some leaders, isn't it? Yes, yes. As you mentioned, fear of rejection, fear of making the wrong choices because you just maybe three months there. So one thing is, of course, how you feel, what's intuition telling you. Another is, of course, you're new in a company still, right? To some extent, because those decisions, don't want to, as you mentioned, wait for two years or something down the line. So yeah, there's a lot of psychology behind or a lot of fears as well as So I can imagine that, of course, a lot of leaders as
working with many of the leaders. know those fears are real, having been in various roles as well. Then I know that basically so many fears and so many mental games we are playing on a daily basis. So, what shocked me, think, when I'm listening to you is how poorly executives are supported in it. Because, you know, when it goes about spending into support of leadership in organizations, usually the first budget is more welcome to be spent on higher senior roles, right? Senior and executive roles.
Hearing from your statistics and experiences that it is such a low number, that's really astonishing, to be very honest. Because the higher you go in your organization, the more you actually need that support. Yes, yes. So I raise my hand and say guilty as charged, Your Honor, because I have been part of those HR teams that have signed off gigantic budgets for executive leadership development. And all it had was...
to send them to IMD, INSEAD or some other reputable organization. I'm not saying that's a wrong choice, by the way, but to get some degree or certificate only to be head -hunted by the next firm and move on. And so what is the real value of those? And so again, the global figure is 116 billion that is spent on development globally. Now, what I'm suggesting is that instead of sending executive leaders all the time,
Dagmara Asbreuk (27:40.202)
to degree type courses and certificates and what have you, to also consider how you can support your incoming executives that need a transition support. And this is all I'm asking for. So again, the idea is not to stop spending money on learning and development, but really to be more mindful in supporting arguably what is the most crucial hire for your organization, which is the C -suite. And so that is what I am.
advocating for and that is what some of the best companies on the planet do. I I've had the fortune and pleasure of working with 30 plus companies by now as an executive transition coach. And so I know that they are keen to invest. That's a 90 -10 % kind of balance to get the balance right. Because arguably, no executive could go through the same onboarding program as a call center agent, as being hired into the same firm. And so you need to have something that is a lot more tailored.
and a lot more measured towards what the executive needs rather than having a compliance, a generic onboarding training for the masses in the same organization. absolutely. I'm on board with you because actually any of these onboardings and support when you think about the broader scale in our organization, it's just tailored to what's the role and what's the expectation of that individual. So there's different expectations to a CEO and of course different loads of risks and responsibilities and costs.
associated with that for the whole company, not only in value or money, but also in reputational costs, And damages and trust, which are then of course, translated as too many, but also equally to every other layer. I think what I would like companies to move into is to really focus on equipping, you know, and supporting with equal measures, all of these different leadership layers, because equally that's what firms the culture, that's what starts to form the culture. And
Obviously the leadership team is if there is dysfunction, if there's a unity that is cascaded in the whole organization. So that's really the first lens to look whenever there's any dysfunction in organization, we need to start there and help different people in different levels as well. We talked about a couple of mistakes and I'm sure there are much more in the books and I'm curious to hear about other mistakes actually. So maybe before we go to some...
Dagmara Asbreuk (29:59.596)
to your model because I know you developed a double diamond model so I'll be curious about that as well for listeners. Maybe there's a place for one more mistake that you could bring here from either this politics or culture or people that we mentioned those three areas that are worth to mention today with listeners. Sure. And I guess I would point out the politics one because it's a very, very much common one that I have faced.
And by the way, Michael Watkins, my fellow author of The First 90 Days, refers to this as the corporate diplomacy challenge, which I think is a very nice word to describe what I call in my book, politics. And so it's the same thing. And funnily enough, when I have conversations with chief evil officers, oftentimes what I hear is like, we don't have politics in our company, thankfully, because it's our competitors problem. And this is where...
I'm very curious to see if that's actually true. And I yet have to find a single company that doesn't have politics at play. And so the example I want to use is my own example of having worked in country type roles as an HR leader in regional roles, but also at the global headquarters roles. So I have worked at the global headquarters for companies such as Adidas, Roche, the pharmaceutical company.
BAT, British American Tobacco, and Vodafone most recently. And so I know, for instance, in Vodafone I also worked in Germany. And so I know the major difference between working in a country role versus a global head office role. And I think it's fair to say that with the little sample of data that I have is that there are heightened levels of politics to be expected the closer you move to the center of gravity in any organization.
And so, you know, arguably I didn't do that with GE because I think I would be just sucked into the black hole of what is called politics. But it was already enough for me to work in a country operation in that organization. And so what I would say is things that I learned the hard way. And this is why I say that, you know, if anyone is looking to work with a coach, you know, one of the top 10 criteria to make sure that the coach is right for them is to look for someone who's coming with scar wounds.
Dagmara Asbreuk (32:16.534)
And by that I mean someone who's been there and done that. Now I know this is highly contested even by fellow coaches who say a coach does not need to know anything about the customer's universe because they have all the frameworks and they can help them anyway. Yes and if you are a chief sales officer who's struggling with a particular topic in your current position I would highly recommend to work with someone who is an established coach
who may have a deep pocket of expertise in the sales function and who may have struggled a few times along the way. Because again, they will be able to understand you at a different level of maturity than a coach does who's just finished their degree and never worked in an organization and has been coaching for 20 plus years successfully. this is what I learned. And a few things I want to mention without mentioning the name of the company are things like I remember having an Irish boss
and it was three months into our working together and I had a hard time to understand what he actually wants me to do. Right? And so there is something about that, you know, working environment that made it very hard for me to really understand what he actually wants me to do. So I had to read between the lines all the time. Another example I want to share is when I worked for another organization at the global head office.
And I had technically on paper, there was a delegation of authority table or major initiatives or, you know, it was like tied to budgets and impact and so on. had done everything by the book to be able to launch this fantastic program to develop HR leaders in a matrix type of organization setting. And on the day I presented that to the HR leadership team, it was rejected. Only I, on the back end of that meeting, I understood what had happened, which was
I had failed to get the buy -in of someone very influential on the HLT who technically had nothing to do with this initiative, wasn't even impacted by it. But because she was such an influential figure and I was so, know, rookie in my approach not to ask for her gracious approval of the same, that this was rejected at my presentation. And so these are just some examples to mention that although you go buy the book and do everything right,
Dagmara Asbreuk (34:37.514)
you may still struggle badly. And this is something that an executive transition coach can help you unpack and work through as well. absolutely. And it's definitely worth to have someone that can introduce you to all those informal power plays in every organization, isn't it? Because they're never written. So Navit, you have developed a framework of Double Diamond and you are using that to walk through your clients, guide your clients. So tell me more about that. Yes, sure.
So it took me roughly a year just to come up with this wonderful framework. And this is regarding two things coming together. The first thing is I just couldn't find a suitable framework for executive transitions myself. And as I said, I have 156 citations. I think I've done enough research on that topic. The second reason I wanted to have a framework is because I wasn't just interested in the theoretical underpinning of why so many leaders fail. I wanted to be
giving out a framework that actually helps them to avoid the biggest mistakes and have a much faster acceleration into the transition. And so that's why I had to use my own framework in my coaching practice and I had to come up with something that actually works. So that's the first thing I want to say. The second thing I want to point out about the Double Diamond Framework of Transitions is there's this other very famous book out there which is called The First 90 Days, a book that I have the highest respect for.
that sold over a million copies by now. It's 20 years old by now and it's very dated as well. But the first 90 days is only one of the seven phases that I describe in my double diamond framework of executive transitions. And so that should give you an idea that first 90 day or first 100 day or first 120 day, which are all copycats of the same idea, are nowhere near sufficient for anyone at the executive level to transition successfully into the role.
So my philosophy and what I am suggesting to executive leaders is that a transition at that level is typically a 12 to 18 month journey. The first 90 days is only a tiny fraction of what they have to get right. Yeah, I could completely see it. And you know, I was wondering, that only valid for executive leaders? I think it's valid for every senior leader as well. The classical 90 days, which is by the way a good book for some reflective questions and guiding you in the first processes.
Dagmara Asbreuk (37:00.63)
But definitely your success in execution is actually just starting after the three first months, isn't it? Three first months gives you a assessment, as you refer to the first example today in a podcast, to understand what is really going on, to understand the politics, to understand really what people want, where are the gaps and all of that, and to bring your awareness, your expertise into that and start, of course, transitioning or painting the picture and painting the vision of where we want to go collectively, right?
So it's totally on point to say that definitely the three months is just, you know, licking the surface of any leader coming to an organization to lead a major change because that's what every leader does, right? To lead some form of change and elevating the organizational team to the next level. And you make a very important point here, Dagmara, which is the first 90 days was written for anyone and everyone. And for that reason, it can't be fit on the top of the house. That's the first thing I want to say. Second thing I want to say is
What is unique about the Double Diamond framework is that I'm speaking about phases and not levels or steps. And so again, you know, if I'm a first time manager, I loved reading the first 90 days when I was a first time manager, because it gave me some ideas and I was new in the role as to how to go about that. But at the top of the house, I'm unlikely to be a first time manager. I'm unlikely to be the first time appointed into a position.
So quite frankly, I need something that is a lot more sophisticated than that. And the reason I went for the seven phases and not the seven steps is that I didn't want to be too prescriptive about transitions because again, by now I have worked with 250 executive leaders to support their executive transition. I yet have to find two that are exactly the same. And so the seven phases are always overlapping. Some of the leaders that are coming to do the work with me,
have already skipped the first of the seven phases, is called the discover phase. This is your minus 90 to day zero phase, which again, it never occurred to me as a good idea to start until you start in the role to start to onboard yourself successfully. How about if you have already been announced and you've already signed your contract and you are announced to be the incoming, whatever, chief people officer, why do you have to wait until they want to start to onboard yourself successfully into your role?
Dagmara Asbreuk (39:23.82)
So there are concrete things you can do ahead of your actual start date to make sure that you set the ground and hit the ground running on day one. And the other thing I want to say about the framework is that anyone who buys my book as a paperback or hardcover can also request to get their hand on what I call the workbook. The workbook is a 31 page actionable guide to put into practice the Double Diamond Framework. So whether you're an executive leader,
who doesn't want to work with a coach and are competent enough to apply the framework to their own transition and benefit from it. Whether you're an HR leader who want to support your incoming exec with a more structured, more mindful transition support, or whether you're a coach who's working occasionally or all the time to support senior leaders with their onboarding and transition, all these three groups would benefit from applying the actual framework. And this is why, you know, I speak about, you
putting into practice or putting your money where your mouth is to come up with something that is actionable and implementable in the real life of executive leaders. Yeah, absolutely. So what are those six other elements in Avid? Just as listeners, from the top. Yes. So because I can never quite remember more than three things at any point in time, I don't know about you, but this is just how my brain works. If you were to take the first letter of each of the seven phases,
you get to the word diamond. This is my way to remember those seven So the first discovery I think you The first phase is discover, which is the minus 90 to day zero. The second phase is immerse. This is your typical first 90 or so days. The third phase is adapt. This is your month four in a row. You know, there's this famous saying that every president or every leader in a company gets a 90 day grace period. And after that, there is an expectation that some things will start to move.
So this is your adapt phase. The next phase is the one that starts with the right? This is the phase where you need to, this is your month four to month six. This is the phase where you need to start to build some coalitions. This is the phase where you need to not only establish your own trust and credibility in the organization, but this is the phase where you need to start to get some people to believe in what you have to offer to them. This is the first.
Dagmara Asbreuk (41:51.092)
let's say town hall people that have seen you in your listening tour that now start to believe in what you have to say. And this is why, why it's such a crucial phase. The next one is the operate phase. This is the phase number five, and this is your six months to nine months kind of in. This is where I cite the example of Dr. Hannes Amesreiter, who was the CEO of Vodafone Germany, Vodafone Deutschland. And he was appointed at a time where Vodafone was nose diving in market share, in revenue and profitability.
And of course he had been in role for something like six months and he was a telco expert. And that being said, many other experts had been tried and tested before when they couldn't just turn the ship around. And this was the first time that he was very successful with a major launch of a new product. But not only that, Vodafone Germany started to improve and gain some early market share and improve in its profitability as well. And so this is why it's important that after about six to nine months,
you start to generate some results that people then start to believe in what you have to. a trust, right? Relability trust. The sixth phase is called nourish. And I had to use the dictionary to find a work that starts with an N at the beginning. Yeah, can you imagine? From the diamond? The nourish phase is what I just described, which is you start to earn the early, you know, low -hanging foods, start to materialize, so the market share goes up, your profitability goes up.
whatever the major account you wanted to land has been landed. And so people really start to believe even those that are sitting on the detractor kind of side of the scale that no, this guy or this woman is really legit and has really a few ideas up their sleeve that seem to be working well. And the seven phase, so the first phase and the seven phase are the ones that are skipped most often is called develop. And this is the phase that is easily skipped by the executive leader because quite frankly, they have transitioned successfully.
And they're on to the next thing. And this is the phase that the executive benefits most from with an executive coach because they sit down and they have done this many times. We call it the post -mortem. We sit down and reflect back together on what's happened during the last quarter, 18 months. What were some of the major successes that the executive leader came across? What were some of the biggest failures and things that turned out differently than they expected?
Dagmara Asbreuk (44:15.34)
And what are some of those learnings? And with all of that in mind, this reflection exercise, we then look out into the future and say, what are one or two things they might want to do differently going through another transition in the future? And that's the first and the seventh phase are ones that are rarely written about. But those are the two phases that really have the biggest impact on the executive transition.
which is another reason why the first 90 day approaches are nowhere near sufficient for an executive leader. Yeah, absolutely. I can see that. And, you know, I'm always thinking, okay, from the framework of external leadership, there are a lot of connecting points and the reflection part and creating space for that reflection is so important habit for every external leader, I call it, to lead at executive level or lower levels in the organization.
Because this is where we actually can notice and we consider ourselves like where I was asking you, right? How was, what were you doing after maybe a success or maybe actually a failure, right? Both of them we want to reflect on because we want to see what helped us actually to get to our success as well as we want to see the patterns that we want to break through so that we don't repeat them and we are more successful in another leadership role that we are aspiring for. And I can see how, how they see it very well. Plus of course, Double Diamond is nicely accompanying the curve of change and a whole
leading change in the organization, which is, which is of course pinned into that. me personally, I can see, of course, a lot of value why having, you know, a partner, sparing partner, someone who has of course been also in this roles and someone who has experienced failures and successes, and of course had a really, and a practical experience in being in a corporate world. That's a different story than someone that had not done it to help executives into guiding them in this process.
But what would you say for listeners that maybe have not had to get, you know, decided to take the first step to a leader in listening to these shows or maybe leaders in HR listening to this show? What would you say to them is why would they benefit from having the hiring a transition coach like yourself? I know we covered quite a lot of points today, but just, know,
Dagmara Asbreuk (46:26.828)
What is this white? I think we'll tell today what's the message. Yes, again, in my book, and this is actually one of the slides I use when I present this topic, I call it the business case for executive transitions. And I encourage people to take out their smartphone or take a photo from that because that one slide includes 15 different studies that suggest why this is a worthwhile investment. And so just to give some ideas away, the first one is
There are four independent studies that are cited in which they suggest that if an executive leader were to work with an executive transition coach, they reduce the risk of derailment by 50 % or more. So if you are looking at the 40 % transition failure rate, you are likely to reduce it to 20 % or lower than that just by appointing someone who is skilled and knowledgeable in this area. The second, and this is the most underestimated one, is that
you know, even if you're internally promoted into the top job, it takes you anywhere between three to six months to start to give back to the organization. the initial investment that has gone into you, you start to break even the productivity levels is how I describe it in my book. And you're able to reduce that by 50 % or more if you work with an executive transition coach. So
Let's say if you would take an internal hire to six months to come to terms with a new role and start giving back value to the organization, what would it be worth to the organization if they were able to do it in three months or lower than that? And so these are just some concrete benefits on the commercial side of why this is such a worthwhile investment, but there plenty more actually, side 12 good reasons why any organization should be looking to intervene.
to support the executive leaders and coaching is just one of the 12 that they can do. I can see your sales background. And Virgin is fantastic. To my defense, what I can say is when I was writing this wonderful book, I was a busy HR exec and had no plans to jump ship from the corporate. So I really made the case as an HR practitioner, not necessarily as a coach who is looking to grow their business. But it's important to notice points and of course,
Dagmara Asbreuk (48:42.464)
Well, numbers also are important because that's where you use an investment or people invest look and they're right. So absolutely. And then there are the other factors that obviously are important, which I think is interesting to read to book, right? So that's where you're pointing out our listeners to go to very nice to develop a workbook that basically people can reflect on this or look into where to focus on in all of this different stages. And as you also mentioned, even if there are stages and defined times,
within this 18 months, I think you mentioned that before that some people will go through them differently. And obviously the starting point will be different because their maturity as a leader will be different, right? Their mindset, their awareness, their consciousness will be different. So that will definitely influence how they go through these phases. And I believe also the speed and maybe how they go in, maybe they are faster in some of the phases and take longer time. this is also not
an expectation to any of the listener here that that's by the Bible. That's exactly how it needs to happen or what needs to happen because there will be some deviations depending on where they are. And of course, where the organization is. So I think we could carry on this conversation because it's really very interesting and I'm always amazed at how many statistics you bring to the table now. I really respect a lot of that. So kudos for that. And I want to ask for the final message from First of all, for yourself to the listeners and of course, how they can connect with you.
So my final message is don't take my word for it. Take it from some of the world's most respected leaders who have read my book and said very good things about it. And I think this is really, it's one thing if you fall in love with what you do and I consider my book to be my second child. But the reality is that it's up to other people to make their own judgment. I'm incredibly grateful for it.
The likes of David Ulrich and Marshall Goldsmith and Hannah Sammits Reiter, many, many more leaders who have said that this is the compendium book on the topic and there's no other book written on the topic that has really given these insights. Where to find me? I think LinkedIn is the place to be. I have a large following on LinkedIn. I have a NoVA or an OPA managing my LinkedIn account on my behalf. So I am the person that's behind the LinkedIn page. I post at least once a week.
Dagmara Asbreuk (51:04.844)
something related to thought leadership. I love to give value to my followers. You will never see an infomercial from me on LinkedIn. It's always a genuine desire to want to break down complex topics and to make them practical and implementable. And that's what I sign up for. And that's why a lot of organizations are seeking to do the work with me and people like myself. Congratulations.
sure that those companies that are listening or leaders that listening here will definitely be interested into looking in your book and in your profile. And maybe downloading also the workbook too. That's what I would do if I was now in a C role and not having a partner yet to work with me to make the checkpoints, right? Am I doing or am not doing? And thank you very much for sharing all the topics that you're passionate about.
and kudos to all the great work that you do and awards that you are collecting along the way. And I'm looking forward to meeting you in another conversation. And thank you very much for your time today. Thank you, Dr. Mahra. I very much enjoyed our conversation.
Dagmara Asbreuk (52:14.252)
you
