The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

About the Author

“Michael D. Watkins is a cofounder of Genesis Advisers, a leadership development consultancy that specializes in the design of onboarding and transition acceleration solutions, workshops, and coaching for Fortune 500 companies.”

Sources: “About the Author” section of the book

Our one-sentence summary

To excel in your new role, take advantage of the first 90 days to prepare, learn, adapt, negotiate success, secure early wins, build your team, and create alliances – strategies that will help accelerate success.

Publisher’s Summary

“Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.

In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller, The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions—no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today’s increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs.

By walking you through every aspect of the transition scenario, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides the tools and strategies you need to avoid them. You’ll learn how to secure critical early wins, an important first step in establishing yourself in your new role. Each chapter also includes checklists, practical tools, and self-assessments to help you assimilate key lessons and apply them to your own situation.

Whether you’re starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this book as your trusted guide.”

Source: Book Jacket

Detailed Summary

Introduction: The First 90 Days

• What you do during the first few months in a new role or job significantly impacts your success. Problems usually stem from vicious cycles that leaders develop at this stage. And even when they don’t fail, they survive the transition without discovering their full potential.
• Transitioning means changing roles within the same company (e.g., a promotion) or getting a new job at another organization. But sometimes transitions can be a lot more subtle. For instance, responsibilities can shift without any changes to a title.
• This book guides anyone in a transition process so they accelerate the process of reaching a break-even point – when you contribute to the organization as much value as you consume from it.
• Some transition traps to avoid include:
  • Sticking with what you know and failing to adopt new competencies.
  • Focusing so much on taking action that you fail to learn about your role and company.
  • Setting unrealistic expectations.
  • Trying to do too much.
  • Coming into the job with a made-up mind about the problems and solutions.
  • Focusing too much on learning the technical part of the job and not enough on the cultural environment.
  • Building vertical relationships (boss and subordinates) and neglecting horizontal networking (peers and other stakeholders).
• These traps lead to vicious cycles. The objective of your first 90 days is to create virtuous cycles that create momentum.
• The following ten chapters cover fundamental principles that bolster success in any transition, no matter the specifics of the business or level.
• After a transition, roughly about the three-month mark, people in the organization begin expecting results. That’s why you should focus on creating a 90-day plan.
  • Start your plan thinking about what you hope to achieve on your first day. Then, think about the first week, the first month, the second, and finally, the third month.

Chapter 1: Prepare Yourself

• A common mistake is to think that just because you were successful in your past job, you will continue to be successful in the new one if you keep doing what you were doing. Preparing yourself means letting go of the past and embracing your new role.
• Depending on your transition type, you may face different challenges that will guide how you should prepare yourself.

1. Getting Promoted.
   1. Balance Breadth and Depth. With a promotion, your scope broadens in terms of issues and decisions. To prepare, find a balance between the wider view and paying attention to details that matter.
   2. Rethink What You Delegate. Rethink what needs to be delegated. Build a team of people you trust, set goals and metrics to measure success, and translate those goals into actionable items and responsibilities for your direct reports.
   3. Influence Differently. The higher up the hierarchy, the more decision-making becomes political. It’s about influence. You need to build and sustain alliances.
   4. Communicate More Formally. With a promotion, you might get further from the front-line workers, and the information you receive will be more filtered. To mitigate this risk, stay connected and establish clear communication channels.
   5. Exhibit the Right Presence. With leadership comes more scrutiny. Adjust to your greater visibility.
2. Onboarding into a New Company.
   1. Business Orientation. Focus on learning about the business environment. Learn about the company as a whole and not just about your specific role.
   2. Stakeholder Connection. Build productive working relationships with key stakeholders. Spend as much time on lateral relationship building as you would vertical relationships.
   3. Expectations Alignment. Triple-check expectations. Your understanding of your responsibilities and organizational goals often changes once you start the job and learn more about the company.
   4. Cultural Adaptation. Understand the organization’s culture, focusing on the visible and the hidden, such as assumptions, values, norms, and behavior patterns.

• The basic principles for preparing yourself for the new role are:

1. 1. Establish a Clear Breakpoint. Transitions aren’t always clean or smooth. Make it clear in your head. Consciously let go of the old job and embrace the new. Get into a transition-oriented state of mind.
   2. Assess Your Vulnerabilities. Determine your problem preferences (e.g., marketing, finance, operations). Think whether the problems you gravitate to fixing are technical, political, or cultural. Once you know your strengths and your vulnerabilities, you can work on sharpening your weak areas or seeking people who can help.
   3. Watch Out For Your Strengths. What made you successful in the past can become a weakness in a new role (e.g., attention to detail might become micromanaging in a leadership position).
   4. Relearn How to Learn. It can be stressful, but you need to learn and adapt. The next chapter covers strategies on relearning.
   5. Rework Your Network. Proactively restructure your networks so that you continue to receive advice and counsel that fit your needs and help fill in gaps or blind sports.
   6. Watch Out for People Who Might Hold You Back. Your old boss might hold you back if you don’t set clear expectations before starting your new role. Colleagues who become subordinates can also hold you back, especially if others perceive favoritism. Expect early tests of your authority and learn to establish limits.
   7. Get Help. Reach out to your boss and HR and create a 90-day transition plan. Ask them for help in identifying stakeholders and cultural interpreters.

Chapter 2: Accelerate Your Learning

• Figure out what you need to learn and then learn it as soon as possible. In the beginning, it may be difficult to know where to focus. A common mistake is focusing too much on the technical side of the business and not learning about its culture and inner politics.
• Plan to learn by determining, in advance, the main questions to which you need answers. For instance, a baseline question is, “How did the company get to this point?” This question helps you learn about existing processes and structures and why they exist.
• While you might feel pressured to do so, seek a balance between doing and observing and reflecting. Be careful not to come into the job with your mind already set on solving “the” problem.
• An actionable insight is a knowledge that will help you make better decisions sooner. Take time to develop a learning agenda where you identify sources of information. This agenda will mostly contain questions. But then, you can create hypotheses, test them, and learn.
  • Your sources of insight should come from external (e.g., customers, suppliers, distributors, or outside analysts) and internal (frontline R&D and operations, salespeople, staff) parts of the organization. Consider talking to people who have been working at the company for a long time.
• Rather than simply talking to people, structure your learning. For instance, you can start by meeting your direct reports and asking them the same five questions about the organization’s strengths and challenges, and then holding a meeting with everyone to discuss your insights. You can also use a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges) analysis.
• After creating your learning agenda (what you want to learn), create a learning plan (how you will learn). Translate your questions and hypotheses into actions and goals. Start with your agenda before entry and edit and adapt it in the first few weeks. By the end of the first month, you should gather feedback on your preliminary findings.
• When you ask for people’s input, make sure to be clear about what you’re doing and why.

Chapter 3: Match Strategy to Situation

• To succeed in your new job, you first need a clear understanding of what you’re facing. Once you do, focus on the challenges associated with your particular situation. Finally, adjust your leadership style accordingly.
• To assess the organization’s situation and associated implications, Watkins recommends the STARS model – an acronym for the five most common business situations: start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success.
• In these five situations, the ultimate goal is a successful and growing business. However, the way to get there will differ, as different challenges and opportunities are associated with each business situation.
  • In a start-up, your task is getting the business off the ground. The challenge is having to build systems from scratch with limited resources. The opportunity is that people are energized, and there are no preconceptions.
  • In a turnaround, your task is saving a business or initiative. The challenges are reenergizing people and making decisions under pressure. The opportunities are that small successes go a long way, and everyone is accepting of changes.
  • In an accelerated growth situation, you are managing a rapidly expanding business. The challenge is putting structures and systems in place while integrating new employees. The opportunity is that growth potential motivates people.
  • In a realignment, you need to reenergize a successful organization currently facing issues. The challenge is restructuring the organization while convincing employees that change is necessary. The opportunities are that people want to continue to be successful, and the organization is already strong.
  • In a sustaining success situation, you’re preserving the success of an organization while seeking to take it to the next level. The challenges are managing a team that someone else might have created and finding ways to take the organization to the next level. The opportunities are having a hardworking team, and the foundations of success already in place.
• After diagnosing your situation, create a STARS portfolio. Your organization might have products, processes, people, or plants in a mix of STARS situations. Identify which parts of your company fall under each category and adopt a corresponding strategy to lead change.
• The STARS model can also help guide the adjustments you need to make to manage yourself. Based on your assessment, enhance self-awareness, have personal discipline, and build a team.
• Evaluate your skills against the STARS model as well. You need to know whether your strengths and abilities match the situation you will face. If you find you have areas for improvement, build teams and alliances.

Chapter 4: Negotiate Success

• Negotiating success is proactively engaging with your new boss so that, together, you can lay the foundations of success. Invest time in building a healthy relationship with your boss, as they will impact your ability to reach the break-even point.
  • What this relationship looks like depends on your situation as per the STARS model and your level in the organization.
  • Even if, in your new role, you will be reporting to the same boss, expectations change. So, your relationship will be different.
• To build a productive relationship with your boss, don’t:
  • Stay away. If your boss doesn’t reach out to you, you will need to reach out to them. Get on their calendar and make them aware of the issues you’re facing.
  • Surprise them with bad news. Inform them as soon as you become aware of a developing problem.
  • Approach them only with problems. Try to have a plan on how to address such a problem.
  • Run down your checklist of the things you’re doing. Have three things to talk about, ideally those that require action.
  • Expect them to change. You’ll be the one needing to adjust.
• Instead, do:
  • Clarify expectations early and often.
  • Take on the responsibility of making the relationship work.
  • Negotiate timelines for diagnoses and action plans.
  • Aim for wins in areas that are important to the boss.
  • Build relationships with those whose opinions matter to your boss.
• Watkins also recommends planning on progressively having five conversations with your boss. The first may start before you accept the position, and the last might happen once you are settled in. However, the five must happen so that you can negotiate success.

1. 1. The Situational Diagnosis Conversation: See if your STARS assessment matches your boss’s perspective.
   2. The Expectations Conversation: Discuss your boss’s priorities short-term and medium-term. Define what success looks like for them.
   3. The Resources Conversation: Negotiate critical resources that will facilitate accomplishing your own and your boss’s goals.
   4. The Style Conversation: Talk about how you and your boss can best interact on an ongoing basis. Define what decisions they want to be consulted on.
   5. The Personal Development Conversation: A few months into your role, discuss your performance and set developmental priorities.

• Keep in mind that while you might need to adapt to a new boss, you will likely be a new boss as well. These conversations are also important to have with the people who will be working for you.

Chapter 5: Secure Early Wins

• Towards the end of the first few months in your new job, you want your boss, peers, and subordinates to feel like something good is happening. Early wins build your credibility and also create momentum. They help add value to the organization, helping you reach the breakeven point sooner.
• To achieve early wins, think of successive waves of change. Start by learning, designing a plan, and finding support. Then you can start implementing changes.
• Your early wins help build momentum in the short term and help lay the foundation for achieving longer-term business goals.
  • As you seek early wins, be careful not to fall for what Watkins describes as low-hanging fruit traps. These traps are actions that appear like wins but that don’t necessarily contribute to longer-term goals.
• Some strategies to help you achieve these early wins include:
  • Focus on the goals and business priorities as agreed with your boss and stakeholders.
  • Identify and create areas for behavioral changes so that your organization helps you achieve such goals.
• Watkins also provides some advice to secure early wins in the correct way:
  • Identify promising opportunities and focus on them, rather than trying to take on too much.
  • Get wins that your boss will appreciate.
  • Avoid looking manipulative and acting in a way that’s inconsistent with the organization’s culture.
  • Rely on your STARS analysis and portfolio.
  • Adjust to the culture (e.g., if the organization values teamwork, early wins could come from leading a group or team in a given effort).
• Whenever you begin taking action, consider your reputation. Find out what people expect from you and decide whether you want to reinforce or change those beliefs.
• Seek to build on your credibility. To do so, you have to balance seemingly opposed attributes. You want to be demanding but capable of being satisfied, accessible but preserving authority, decisive but not judgmental, focused but flexible, active but not overwhelming, and willing to make the tough calls but maintaining kindness.
• To begin launching early wins, identify areas where you want to work on rapid improvement. You can also find an agent who can help you achieve those wins.
• Before taking action, make sure that:
  • Most people in your organization are aware of the need for change.
  • You know what exactly needs to be changed and why.
  • You have a solid strategy.
  • You have the expertise to come up with a detailed plan.
  • You have alliances and support that will help implement your plan.

Chapter 6: Achieve Alignment

• As you climb higher in an organization, you are more likely to become an organizational architect. Part of your responsibilities requires aligning four core components in any organizational system: strategy, structure, core processes, and people skills.
• During your first 90 days in your new job, seek potential misalignments. These usually occur between strategy and skill, strategy and core processes, structure and processes, and structure and skills. Consider, too, the external and internal aspects of the business.
  • External: customers, distributors, competitors, investors, the media, etc.
  • Internal: climate, morale and culture.
• Some traps to avoid include:
  • Making changes just for the sake of it, which is often a response to [self-imposed] pressure.
  • Forgetting your STARS analysis and portfolio.
  • Trying to restructure when a problem runs deeper.
  • Creating structures that are too complex.
  • Overestimating your organization’s capacity and willingness to change.
• To begin, look at the positioning of your specific unit among the larger organization. Evaluate it in terms of goals and priorities. Then, look at the supporting structure, processes, and skills. Understand the relationship among these elements.
  • Once you find a misalignment, decide how and when to introduce the strategic direction change. Think through the correct sequencing of events so that the approach to alignment matches your STARS analysis.
• Strategy refers to the mission (what will be achieved), vision (why people should be motivated), and strategic direction the organization employs (how resources should be allocated and decisions made). Alignment should include what the organization will (and will not) do in terms of its customers, capital, capabilities, and commitments.
  • When evaluating strategy, assess coherence among products, customers, technologies, resources, etc.
  • Think about adequacy as well. Is the strategic direction empowering your unit so that it can succeed?
  • Assess implementation. Are people aligned with the organization’s vision, mission, and strategy? If not, why not?
• Structure defines authority, so be careful not to make changes here unless necessary. Ultimately, the structure should support the strategic direction. Assess organizational structure within units and among reporting relationships, as well as decision rights and rules.
• Core processesenable you and your team to add value to the organization. They should support the mission, vision, and strategy as well. They should also align with the structure of the organization.
  • To evaluate the core processes, examine productivity for each one (how long it takes to transform knowledge or materials into value), timeliness, reliability (vs. how often the process breaks), and quality (as in meeting standards).
• Skills refers to your team’s knowledge. To assess this component, assess individual expertise, relational knowledge, embedded knowledge (technologies on which your performance relies), and metaknowledge (awareness of where to find information).

Chapter 7: Build Your Team

• To achieve results, it’s essential to build up your team.
• As you start thinking about making changes in your team, avoid the following traps:
  • Criticizing previous leadership. Concentrate on assessing current behaviors and results, and on making the necessary adjustments.
  • Keeping the existing team for too long (whether because you feel like you can make them perform well or because you’re uncomfortable letting people go). Instead, establish deadlines for reaching conclusions and taking action.
  • Not balancing stability and change. Focus on high-priority personnel changes.
  • Not working on organizational alignment and team development in parallel.
  • Causing so much uncertainty that good people start moving elsewhere. Find ways to signal reassurance to your top performers.
  • Undertaking team-building activities before the core team is established.
  • Making implementation-dependent decisions without core members in place.
  • Trying to do it all yourself.
• To build your team,

1. 1. Assess. Start by defining who are your outstanding, average, and low performers.

• • Before you start assessing, develop measurement criteria. Then evaluate each report’s technical competence, judgment, the energy they bring to the job, and whether they set and stick to their priorities, get along with others, and are trustworthy.
  • Factor in other elements such as the extent of teamwork your reports are demonstrating.
  • Remember that your criteria will vary depending on your STARS model and portfolio. You may have inherited a mix of situations from the STARS options.
  • Test people’s judgment as well. Are they capable of making sound decisions? Can they develop good strategies for avoiding problems?
  • Finally, assess the team as whole, using similar criteria to what you developed for your individual assessment.

1. 2. Evolve. By the end of your first month in your new role, you should be able to assign your reports and team members to one of the six main decision categories: 1) keep in place, 2) keep and develop their skills, 3) move to another position, 4) replace (low priority), 5) replace (high priority), and 6) observe for a while.

• • Before letting an employee go, know that you have some alternatives. Sometimes, replacing a worker takes too much time and resources. Other times, it’s not easy or even possible. If that’s the case, consider shifting the person’s role, moving the person out of the way by shrinking responsibilities (and sending a message), or moving the person to someplace else in the organization.

1. 3. Align. To achieve your goals and secure early wins, define how each team member will support you by assigning responsibilities. Watkins argues there are two types of tools to employ: push tools (goals, measurement systems, incentives) and pull tools (a compelling vision, inspiration, etc.).

• • Define goals and performance metrics to encourage accountability. Avoid being too ambiguous when defining objectives. Align your incentives with your goals and decide whether these are individually or team-based. Articulate your vision often, reinforce it, and establish communication channels to share it often.

1. 4. Lead. Establish a process to define how to work with your team.

• • A team dysfunction in many organizations is who participates in core team meetings. Depending on your STARS model analysis and the organization, you might need to reduce the meeting’s size or broaden participation.
  • Define your decision-making process. Watkins recommends two main approaches: consult-and-decide and building consensus. The first refers to when a leader solicits input from direct reports but reserves the right to make the final decision. The latter is when the leader tries to reach as much of a consensus as possible with the whole team to make a decision.
  • Specific circumstances will dictate whether you use one approach or the other. E.g., if the decision requires the support of those whose performance you can’t observe or control, a consensus is better. If your team is inexperienced, a consult-and-decide approach would be best.

Chapter 8: Create Alliances

• To succeed, you need support from people outside of your team. In your first 90 days, invest energy in building networks and alliances aligned with your early win objectives.
• After getting clear about what your goals are, figure out whose support is key. Then, develop a plan that factors in not just of the influencers but also of potential blockers. Knowing who might be in the opposition can help you neutralize them beforehand.
• Create a map of influence networks, pointing to who influences whom on issues that concern you. These networks often function in parallel to the formal structure of the organization. They become apparent over time, but you can accelerate the process by intentionally looking for signs of alliances. You can also ask your boss to connect you with stakeholders.
• Creating a map can help you identify supporters, opponents, and persuadable people.
  • To identify supporters, look for people who share your vision for the future, have worked for change before, or are new members of the company who have not acculturated yet.
  • Whenever you meet resistance, seek to understand the reasons for opposing your initiative. These individuals might disagree with your assessment, but they might also be comfortable with the status quo and don’t want to change it, fear looking incompetent, feel like their core values or their power are threatened, or worry that your agenda might impact their allies.
    • When you meet resistance, don’t immediately assume they’re adversaries. Probe and find the root cause for their opposition. Knowing their reasons can help you adjust your plans.
  • Persuadable people are those who might be indifferent, undecided, or uncommitted. To influence them, figure out why.
• Once you define who is essential for your success, create a table to describe what you need them to do and by when.
• To sway people and have influence, consider the following strategies:
  • Consultation is active listening. Ask questions, encourage people to share their concerns and share with them what you understood. Active listening is a powerful persuasive tool.
  • Framing means crafting your persuasive messages according to what the person you’re meeting needs. Adjust tone and motivation as per the person with whom you’re dealing. Think of Aristotle’s rhetorical categories:
    • Logos – make logical arguments using data, facts, and reasoned rationale.
    • Ethos – focus on the principles and values to be upheld.
    • Pathos – make emotional connections and share meaning.
  • Choice-shaping is influencing people’s perceptions about their alternatives.
  • Social influence refers to the impact of others’ opinions and rules.
  • Incrementalism is the idea that people can move more easily in the desired direction if they go through a step-by-step process rather than making a big leap.
  • Sequencing is being strategic about the order in which you influence people so that you are able to build momentum.
  • Action-forcing events are those that force people to stop avoiding commitments.

Chapter 9: Manage Yourself

• Transition times are usually stressful due to ambiguity and uncertainty. Especially if you have a family, managing yourself is essential to making the transition go more smoothly.
• Transitions often expose weaknesses. Some of those include:
  • Difficulty defining boundaries.
  • Overcommitment to failing courses of action due to exacerbated rigidity and defensiveness.
  • Isolation.
  • Avoiding facing tough problems.
• To avoid facing problems like these or having issues in your personal life, engage in self-management by establishing three main pillars:

1. 1. Adopt the 90-day strategies that have been covered up to this point to smooth the transition into a new role.
   2. Develop personal disciplines or regular routines you must enforce. These include.
      • Dedicating time daily and weekly to planning and evaluating,
      • Focusing on the important and medium or long-term goals (instead of letting yourself get caught on the transactions of every day),
      • Deferring commitment (it’s easier to say no and then yes than vice versa)
      • Taking a step back and clearing your mind when emotions escalate.
      • Checking in with yourself
      • Recognizing when it’s time to quit an endeavor or rest.
   3. Build a support system, in the organization and in your personal life. Stabilize your home. Remember that your family is transitioning with you, and they too need a support system, especially if you’ve moved. When it comes to family,
      • Do a support system inventory and find replacements quickly (from doctors to babysitters).
      • Help your spouse find a job.
      • Time the move carefully, especially if you have children.
      • Preserve the familiar and reestablish routines as quickly as possible.
      • Invest in familiarizing yourself and your loved ones with the new culture.
      • Tap into your company’s relocation services, if available, to help find a new home and move your belongings. Such help makes a difference and reduces stress.

Chapter 10: Accelerate Everyone

• Transitions impact not only the leader but also the organization as a whole. Many resources can go to waste if a leader does not adapt and succeed in their new role. That’s why Watkins argues that an acceleration system could benefit the overall enterprise, especially in terms of risk management.
• Companies can benefit from managing leadership-transition acceleration systems. By putting the correct systems, tools, and frameworks into effect, organizations can accelerate everyone. There are ten design principles to consider:

1. 1. Identify the critical transition. A company should start by understanding how many transitions are happening at a given time to focus on accelerating the most important ones. The organization should know how many of these transitions are onboarding, moves between units, promotions, and lateral moves.
   2. Identify set-up-to-fail dynamics. Organizations often make systematic mistakes when placing leaders in new roles. E.g., expectations are not clear, leaders are selected without considering STARS situations, leaders are pushed to make a big change, and leaders aren’t provided with support.
   3. Diagnose existing transition support. Identifying existing systems can help identify the areas where support is still missing.
   4. Adopt a common core model. The foundation of the acceleration system should provide the company with a set framework, language, and toolkit to which everyone can refer when planning and to make transitions go more smoothly.
   5. Deliver support in time. In the beginning, support should focus on accelerating learning. That includes technical as well as cultural and political aspects of an organization. As the leader grows, support should shift to helping to define strategies, lay the basis for success, and secure early wins.
   6. Use structured processes. Leaders in transition are often too busy to dedicate time to learning and planning. With a structured process, the leader doesn’t have to set the pace. Through events, coaches, or meetings that take place at critical stages, the leader can ensure time to adapt and learn.
   7. Match support to the transition type. If there is a promotion, the support should focus on helping the leader let go of their previous role, understand what success looks like at their new level, and similar factors. If there is an onboarding, resources should be available to help the person understand the culture, identify and connect with stakeholders, etc.
   8. Match transition support to level. It might not make economic sense to provide coaching, for instance, to lower-level leaders. The company needs to identify the best model to provide support. Maybe a virtual workshop would work in this case.
   9. Clarify roles and align incentives. Beyond a coach or HR, others, such as the boss, could help get the new leader up to speed. Anyone involved should align with what the incentives look like.
   10. Integrate with other talent management systems. Acceleration systems should be linked with recruitment and leadership development systems. When interviewing and hiring new leaders, for instance, organizations should look at a person’s capabilities (as you would an athlete) and their experience in situations as per the STARS model. They should consider the culture they’re coming from as well.