Our story

The challenge of how to help people succeed in new roles was in our minds as far back as the 1990s. Then, as now, those who were least experienced and needed help the most, didn’t get it.

Our mission is to help all managers succeed
in the first 100 days in a new role

The situation has always been that the only people who receive support in new roles are near the top of the organisation. They are the most exposed, and whose success could mean most for the organisation, but also the ones that have most experience in changing roles. And they too are also mostly left to sink or swim.
We want to help all managers succeed!

The background

ELLA was conceived as a vehicle for delivering best practice to all managers transitioning into a new role, when they need it. Each user is encouraged to follow the same 5 steps, but to apply their own content. The input is delivered precisely when needed, at a strikingly low cost, thanks to ELLA being digital.

Our understanding of the need for ELLA was increased dramatically when we discovered that the research says that up to 40% of managers moving into a new role underperform. We still struggle with that statistic. But when we thought about it, we saw that doing new things with new people doesn’t work perfectly every time. So maybe 40% isn’t too far off. And it certainly gives us the motivation to help the thousands of managers changing roles all the time.

Effective learning
We also see that managers in new roles are out to prove themselves. They have to show that the trust shown in them is not misplaced.

This makes them open to help and new input. They are in learning overdrive. It’s a golden opportunity for the organisation to provide input at a point when it’s guaranteed to be taken gratefully on board.

This contrasts painfully to normal leadership development where organisations spend a lot of time and money on pushing content and development. The well-intentioned input doesn’t always hit the target and organisations really struggle to demonstrate the effect of leadership development programmes.

Our understanding of the need for ELLA was increased dramatically when we discovered that the research says that up to 40% of managers moving into a new role underperform.

From the founders of 100 Days Global

Principles

We have developed ELLA based on some simple principles:

Empowerment & confidentiality:

A leader makes their own way in the world, contributing to their employer’s success by using their skills and energy as intelligently as they can. ELLA supports that effort. We ask customer organisations to make using ELLA obligatory, but do not presume to dictate which tools a leader should employ, or the order in which they should be used.

We discourage control. The customer organisation should not monitor user behaviour in any detail. The customer organisation needs to know if ELLA is being used and if it works but should otherwise leave the leader to get on with it.

ELLA does not help the leader’s boss directly. The leader is prompted to keep the boss in the loop, build a positive relationship and organise regular milestone meetings, but no information is provided by ELLA to the leader’s boss.

All information is 100% confidential to the leader. We can use it in an anonymised format for research, but no-one in the leader’s organisation has access to any of the reflections or inner thoughts the leader might write about in ELLA.

Nudging & reflection:

ELLA is not instructional. Her approach is to encourage the leader to reflect. The questions are designed to provoke an ‘Oh! I hadn’t thought of that’ reaction. This new insight should be followed by a ‘Hhhm, maybe I should….’ thought as the leader jots down an action on their ToDo list.

The objective is to make the leader think, to widen their scope and deepen their understanding of how to succeed in their new role.

Ultimately, ELLA tries to nudge the leader into following the five 100-day steps. There are no instructions, incentives or punishments, just encouragement to follow best practice. It’s not so important which tools a leader uses, or whether they are diligent or disciplined in using ELLA. It is important that they take their first 100-day period very seriously, break it down into weeks, view it as a project, and listen to ELLA’s advice on how to succeed.

The founders


We are three very experienced leaders / recruiters / organisational developers based in Oslo, Norway. We have combined our competence and experience with the research and management books in the field to create ELLA.

founders-100-days
Richard Taylor
Co-Founder

Organisational psychologist with an MBA. Broad top management experience spanning many industries, functions and countries, including 10 years with corporate responsibility for HR.
Extensive experience as consultant in private, public and voluntary sectors. A number of board positions in the education and culture sectors. Started career as counsellor for drug and alcohol abusers.

Svein Hennum
Co-Founder

Educated by the Royal Norwegian Navy, and as an IT-engineer by Kongsberg Engineering Polytechnic.
10 years experience in sales and sales management in Norwegian and global companies. Founder and managing partner of successful headhunting and recruiting firm for 27 years.

Per-Harald Finneng
Co-Founder

Education from Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy, and in organisational psychology from University of California, Santa Barbara.
An entrepreneur with 25 years experience as consultant, and leader of consulting companies. 8 years experience in roles as responsible for organisational development in both public and private sectors.

Changing roles is risky!


Take a look at a video about the risks managers face when they change roles or you can take the test that shows what risks you face when changing roles in a real or fictional example.

Watch Video Test your risk