What will your story be?

What is the story that you want to tell after your first 100 days?

That was the question I asked a first time CEO preparing to start his new role.

He began listing actions he needed to take...

The Board wanted him to get a grip on performance and money. He had to set up some new committees and meetings and ask for some additional reports.

He said that the Board was also worried about morale amongst staff, so he needed to find a way to boost it.

And there was a big inspection due to take place at some point, so he'd need to make sure everyone was prepared.

I asked him again, what is the story you want to tell after your first 100 days?

"Well, that I've taken action against all these priorities" he replied.

And who is going to be interested in hearing that story? The people who need to improve performance? The people who need their morale boosted? I questioned.

"Well, the Board will want to know how I'm going to tackle those priorities, but I'm not sure that everyone else is going to care as much.

"How can I make them interested in it?"

Be honest, what normally would motivate you to make a change? I asked.

The penny dropped. "It would have to make a difference to me in someway. I'd need to feel that the changes were right and would have an impact on the things that matter. And I would want to know how my actions would influence that change, otherwise it would feel like a wasted effort.

"So, if I don't understand what the real issues are in the organisation - in the way that it impacts our staff and customers - then I won't know what really needs to change!"

We talked things through some more. I asked questions to explore how he was going to understand the issues, how he would identify the people he needed to meet, what he would need to be asking along the way, how he would be testing what he learnt, what and how he would be communicating throughout, how he would measure success...

A plan started to emerge and the CEO could see what he REALLY needed to be doing in his first weeks in post. And how he was going to communicate and connect with people in order take them with him.

As we wrapped up, I asked again: so, what is the story you want to tell after your first 100 days?

What do you think he said?