Structured onboarding is the key for business leadership.

“Onboarding” is an apt term for the way many companies support new leaders’ transitions, because not much more is involved than bringing the executive safely on deck. After that, he or she is expected to sort things out with little or no guidance.

Many businesses think they are doing a good job of bringing newly hired executives like Jacobsen into the fold when they actually aren’t. Nearly all large companies are competent at the administrative basics of signing leaders up, but that level of onboarding does little to prevent the problems that can arise when these people start working with new colleagues and grappling with unfamiliar cultural norms and expectations. Companies vary widely when it comes to how much effort they put into integration, with major consequences in terms of time to performance, derailment (through termination or resignation), and talent retention.

“Onboarding” involves not much more than bringing the executive safely on deck.

To help companies understand what executives must do to become effective in their new roles and how to help them accomplish that more quickly, we developed an assessment framework. In this model the “what” is a set of core transition tasks for new hires. The “how” is broken down into distinct levels of support that companies can provide. But before we get into those details, let’s take a closer look at where most organizations fall short in their onboarding efforts and the benefits they can gain by changing their practices.

From onboarding to integration

“Onboarding” is an apt term for the way many companies support new leaders’ transitions, because not much more is involved than bringing the executive safely on deck. After that, he or she is expected to know what to do or to sort things out with little or no guidance. For this reason we no longer use the word “onboarding” to describe the work we do with companies seeking to support their new hires; we use “integration” instead.

“Integration” suggests a more aspirational goal—doing what it takes to make the new person a fully functioning member of the team as quickly and smoothly as possible. That’s not common practice, unfortunately, as we saw in Egon Zehnder’s online survey of 588 executives at the VP level and above who had joined new companies in the past few years. The participants represented both publicly traded and privately owned companies across Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia. One-third of them were in the C-suite. Almost 60% reported that it took them six months—and close to 20% said it took more than nine months—to have a full impact in their new roles. Less than a third said they had received any meaningful support during their transitions—a big problem when you consider that more than 80% of this fortunate minority thought such support had made a major difference in their early impact.

Well-integrated executives can build momentum early on rather than struggle up learning curves. Our studies show that the average amount of time to reach full performance (making critical decisions with the right information in hand and having the right people in place to help execute) can be reduced by a third, from six months to four.

A sink-or-swim approach leaves too much to chance. In strategically vital executive roles throughout a company, sluggish transitions are expensive. And financial costs aside, the new executive’s “brand” and followership take a significant hit. (For insights on the challenges of CEO succession in particular, see “After the Handshake,” by Dan Ciampa, HBR, December 2016.)

Most organizations—even those that set the bar pretty low—believe they are integrating executives effectively. When we asked HR leaders at global companies if they had an onboarding system, the answer was inevitably yes. However, when we asked what they did to accelerate the integration of executives into their roles, we found that actual support varied dramatically, from extensive to essentially none. It doesn’t help that the term “onboarding” is not well defined or understood. In many companies it refers mainly to completing the required documents, allocating space and resources, and providing mandatory training, usually in technical areas such as compliance. These things involve little or no time investment from senior management and do nothing to help leaders clear the biggest hurdles they will face in their new roles: cultural and political challenges.

Consider, in contrast, those companies that devote substantial resources to helping new executives become fully integrated. For example, at a major global communications and digital services company that develops general managers through frequent country rotations, all new subsidiary leaders are strongly encouraged to go through a structured integration program. Almost everyone accepts this support, and that’s telling: Leaders feel more comfortable receiving help in an organization that emphasizes learning at all levels. Sometimes the program is preceded by an appraisal of the critical “soft” skills that most executives say are the hardest to master at first. One tool used is a culture questionnaire, which compares work practices in the executive’s previous company (or unit or country) with those in the new setting, flagging potential problems.

Here’s an issue that often emerges: Many of the communications company’s subsidiaries have an entrepreneurial culture, but recruits often come from large, heavily matrixed competitors. What their previous colleagues might have seen as thoughtful consultation with key stakeholders may be perceived in the new setting as slow decision making or a lack of conviction and initiative. Of course, differences in regional culture, too, are significant for executives transferring to other countries. Systematically examining such differences and their possible impact has greatly reduced derailment risks and decreased the amount of time it takes leaders to become effective in their new environments.

Stakeholders are listed and discussed—who should be prioritized for early meetings, how certain individuals should be approached, and so on. Executives are encouraged to prepare an elevator speech before starting in their new roles, summing up why they are joining and what they hope to contribute to the company. New leaders say that this exercise gives them a powerful way to crystallize their key messages, which they can begin sharing the moment they walk through the door; the company has found that this enables them to communicate their intentions more clearly to their teams and peers in their first weeks on the job.

Focused integration efforts in this organization have helped executives avoid common pitfalls and accomplish more early on, and the individual gains have created a significant collective benefit. Having fewer transition failures has increased employees’ confidence in the company’s ability to plan succession moves, making it easier to persuade internal candidates to agree to them. As a result, the ambitious rotational program described above (essential to the company’s growth plans) has been successful—and new leaders have acclimated to their roles much faster.

The communications company has also discovered that its integration work with general management candidates has increased employees’ awareness of transition risks. It’s now doing more to address the needs of new managers below the top two tiers—using less-expensive, more-standardized tools to invest in their development. Integration support is thus becoming part of the company’s culture.