The New CEO’s First Job Isn’t to Change the Organization. It’s to Understand It.

New CEOs arrive with a mandate.

Boards have expectations.

Staff have expectations.

Members have expectations.

And the new CEO usually has ideas of their own.

COOs stepping into a new organization face many of the same pressures. There’s tremendous pressure to demonstrate momentum—to make decisions, establish priorities and show that things are changing.

But particularly for executives coming into an association from the industry or profession it serves, I’d argue that the first responsibility isn’t changing things.

It’s learning how the organization actually works.

That doesn’t mean spending months observing from the sidelines. It means being deliberate about learning before deciding.

Michael Watkins makes a similar argument in The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter. One of the central ideas in his work on leadership transitions is that new leaders need to accelerate their learning. They need to understand the organization they have inherited, diagnose the situation they are entering and adapt their approach accordingly.

For association executives, that learning curve can be particularly steep.

Associations are unusual organizations

An executive coming from industry may be accustomed to relatively clear lines of authority.

Associations introduce a different ecosystem.

• The board is the CEO’s boss—but individual directors aren’t.

• Members are customers—but they also elect leaders and may serve as volunteers.

• Committees provide expertise and help advance the mission—but they don’t manage staff.

• Some programs exist primarily for mission. Others generate revenue. Some have to do both.

Then add chapters, foundations, PACs, certification bodies or other affiliated organizations, each potentially with its own governance, finances and relationships.

For a CEO, understanding that ecosystem is essential to leading it.

For a COO, it is equally important. The COO may have significant authority over staff, systems and operations, but those operations exist within a governance and stakeholder environment that can be very different from a traditional corporate structure.

The org chart tells only part of the story.

Learn the informal organization too

Every association has an organization that exists on paper and another that exists through relationships, history and institutional memory.

A new CEO or COO needs to understand both.

• Who has influence?

• Which volunteers are trusted?

• What happened three years ago that everyone still remembers?

• Which programs are considered untouchable?

• Where does staff trust the board?

• Where doesn’t it?

• Which decisions are technically within staff authority but traditionally involve volunteers?

• What promises have members heard before?

• Where have previous attempts at change succeeded—or failed?

That’s information a dashboard won’t provide.

Watkins emphasizes building relationships and understanding the networks necessary to get things done in a new organization. In an association, those networks extend well beyond the staff leadership team.

Ignoring them doesn’t make them less powerful.

Diagnose before you prescribe

Experience is valuable in a leadership transition.

It can also create a blind spot.

Experienced executives recognize patterns. We see something that resembles a problem we’ve encountered before and instinctively begin thinking about the solution.

But similar symptoms can have very different causes.

Membership is declining.

Is it a value proposition problem? A demographic problem? A retention problem? Poor data? Weak engagement? An outdated dues model? Changes in the profession?

Revenue is underperforming.

Is it pricing? Sales? Program relevance? Cost structure? Lack of investment? An unrealistic budget?

Staff turnover is high.

Is it compensation? Culture? Management? Workload? Organizational structure? Lack of clarity about priorities?

What appears to be the problem when you arrive may not actually be the problem you need to solve.

That’s why the first phase of Searchlight Thinking™ is Illuminate.

Widen the field of view.

Listen to different perspectives. Look at the data. Understand the external environment. Examine strategy, governance, structure, people, programs, processes, technology and financial realities.

And importantly, challenge what the organization already “knows.”

The question is: What’s really happening?

Understanding doesn’t mean avoiding action

There’s an important distinction here.

Taking time to understand the organization is not an argument for doing nothing.

Watkins emphasizes the importance of securing early wins during a leadership transition, and I agree. New executives need to establish credibility and demonstrate progress.

But the best early wins aren’t necessarily the biggest changes.

They’re the actions that address something meaningful while reinforcing the direction the organization needs to go.

• Fix a decision-making bottleneck.

• Clarify accountability for an important initiative.

• Resolve an issue that staff has struggled with for months.

• Improve information flowing to the board.

• Remove a process everyone knows isn’t working.

Those actions create momentum while the larger organizational picture is still coming into focus.

The objective isn't change for the sake of demonstrating change.

It's informed action.

Your first 90 days should produce clarity

By the end of a new executive’s first 90 days, I wouldn't measure success by the number of changes announced.

I'd ask different questions.

• Do you understand how the organization creates value?

• Do you understand its economics?

• Do you understand how decisions really get made?

• Do you know where authority is clear and where it isn't?

• Do you understand the relationship between the board and staff?

• Do you know which capabilities the organization has—and which ones it needs?

• Do you know what the organization is doing simply because it has always done it?

• Do you know where the greatest opportunities are?

And, most importantly:

Do you have a clearer understanding of what actually needs to change—and what doesn't?

That is a very different outcome from simply producing a 90-day list of accomplishments.

It also creates a much stronger foundation for what comes next.

Illuminate.

Then Focus on the issues that matter most.

Navigate the choices and tradeoffs.

And Execute against a clear set of priorities.

A new CEO or COO doesn't lose credibility by taking time to understand the organization.

The greater risk is confidently changing something before understanding why it exists.

Michael D. Watkins’ concepts regarding accelerating learning, diagnosing the organizational situation, building relationships and securing early wins are discussed in The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter.

Amy Williams is the founder of Searchlight Executive Advisors, advising association CEOs and boards on strategy, governance, organizational architecture and transformation. Searchlight also provides fractional and interim executive leadership for associations navigating periods of significant change.