Regime change: When a new boss takes over, workers’ survival skills can help them make the cut.

By Harry Wessel
Sentinel Staff Writer

February 2005
Since former Florida congressman Porter Goss took over the CIA in September, as many as 20 high-level officials have resigned, retired or been fired. News reports have described the atmosphere inside the agency with such words as “tumultuous” and “death struggle.”

It’s too early to know whether the shake-up will help or hurt, but there’s no question a major regime change has taken place in the nation’s spy agency. Everyone who works there has been affected.

Regimes change in private workplaces, too. Stay with a company long enough and you’ll go through it. Whether your job survives is another matter.

“Generally, regime change happens because things aren’t going well,” says Ronald Gross, an industrial psychologist who heads Censeo, a Maitland human-resources consulting firm. The quickest way for new leaders to show positive results is to cut costs, Gross says, which usually means cutting jobs.

Regime changes are on the rise in the private sector, Gross adds, thanks to an increasingly competitive global marketplace, with companies forced to be nimble and under “pressure to produce every quarter.”

The pressure starts at the top. The average tenure for a chief executive officer is five to six years, half of what it was in the 1980s, according to the outsourcing and research firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Making it through a regime change is often a matter of luck, Gross says, but he and other workplace experts say employees can increase the odds in their favor. “The most important thing is to be flexible, to be ready to adapt, to not get stuck in the past or the status quo.”

But, Gross warns, “there’s a fine line between going with the flow, getting with the program, and being a yes-man and acquiescing to everything.”

Phases and dazes:

Kathryn Griffiths, a senior vice president with the career-management andcoaching firm Lee Hecht Harrison, says her first rule for employees is not to panic. “Learn as much history as you can about the new boss,” she says, tapping your network inside and outside the company.

While doing your research, don’t lie low, a natural tendency, Griffiths says. Her Lee Hecht Harrison colleague Cynthia Scott, says workers often will hide by burying themselves in work. “It's good to work hard, but not on the wrong things. What you need to do is figure out the new culture, not push more papers.”

Scott, co-author of several workplace books, including Managing Change at Work, says employees facing a regime change typically go through four phases: denial, resistance, exploration and commitment. The faster you get through the first two stages, the better.

“In a regime change, the culture is changing. The values are going to change, what’s emphasized is going to change,” says Scott, a senior vice president in Lee Hecht Harrison’s San Francisco office. In the exploration phase, you’re checking things out, networking like crazy, asking yourself, “What can I do here? What does the new regime value? How can I take what I
know and help the new leadership?”

“Then, in the last phase, you’re committed,” Scott continues. “You’re clear on what’s going on, you’re past the grumpiness, you can add value.” She jokes that once an employee reaches the committed stage, odds are there will be another regime change.

Gross warns against another common tendency, bad-mouthing the previous regime. “The person you’re telling it to – the new CEO or a new person the CEO has brought in – will nod appreciatively, but they will remember you as a person who is not trustworthy.”

Tremors in the force:

On the other hand, is the new regime trustworthy? The best way to tell is to watch how it is communicating. Are different managers giving different information to different employees? Are they leaving you out of the information loop?

Gross says new regimes that fail to make extra efforts to communicate often lose their best workers, because “in the absence of accurate information, people assume the worst.”

Regime changes can go smoothly. Bill Barnes, who retired from Lockheed Martin in 2000 after 38 years with the company, recalls when Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed in 1995.

“There was a little anxiety, but the regime change was transparent,” says Barnes, 62, a former Orange County school board member who now lives in Tavares.

“We had a lot of staff meetings, handouts, briefings, lots of e-mails telling us what was happening. That made the anxiety go away to a great extent.”

A little anxiety is probably a good thing. Even a change that turns out well for the company may not be best for you.

“If the new regime compromises your values and style,” says Griffiths, “you have to decide if you’re better off leaving.”

Harry Wessel can be reached at 407-420-5506 or hwessel@orlandosentinel.com.

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