“The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies For New Leaders At All Levels” by Michael Watkins is an informative book on the topic of managing transitions. Watkins is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and this book extends the work he did with Dan Ciampa when they wrote “Right From the Start.” The book is a roadmap for creating a 90 day plan when transitioning into a new role.
There is a short introduction explaining why the first 90 days are important which provides a plan for the book, and then there are ten chapters focusing on the roadmap for the first 90 days. To assist you with your own roadmap, each chapter has an acceleration checklist of tasks and steps to help you with your transition.
Chapter One: Promote Yourself. This chapter provides advice on mentally preparing for your new position. You must establish a clear breakpoint and hit the ground running. Know your strengths and weaknesses and relearn how to learn.
Chapter Two: Accelerate Your Learning. You must overcome any learning disabilities and manage learning as an investment process. This chapter will help you define your learning agenda, identify sources of insight, and adopt structured learning methods. You can use this chapter to create a learning plan.
Chapter Three: Match Strategy to Situation. Chapter three helps you diagnose the business situation by understanding history, identify challenges and opportunities, and determine how to focus your energy. This chapter also teaches the STaRS model which are the four broad types of business situations that new leaders contend with: Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment, and Sustaining success.
Chapter Four: Secure Early Wins. Learn about avoiding common traps that happen early on during transitions and how to make good change. Chapter discusses establishing long term goals, and how to secure early wins on priorities.
Chapter Five: Negotiate Success. This chapter has good advice on focusing on fundamentals and how to engage your new boss. Very good information for anyone who has a new boss in whatever capacity.
Chapter Six: Achieve Alignment. Designing organizational architecture is the focus of this section of the text. Good advice on crafting your own strategy and aligning key systems. Good information regarding understanding your group’s culture and how to develop a plan for aligning your organization.
Chapter Seven: Build Your Team. This chapter provides information regarding assessing your people and restructuring teams to maximize their effectiveness under the new leadership you bring to the dynamic.
Chapter Eight: Create Coalitions. Learn to map the influence landscape by identifying key players and drawing an influence map. Learn to sequence interactions to build momentum for your initiatives.
Chapter Nine: Keep Your Balance. Maybe the most important chapter in the book, chapter nine provides guidance on keeping your balance, not just for the organization but for your personal efficacy and ultimately your well-being.
Chapter Ten: Expedite Everyone. This chapter takes things one step further. This chapter discusses how organizations can make it a priority to accelerate the transitions of their managers.
The book then has a short conclusion that sums up the work and encourages the reader to hone skills through the many transitions that will be faced in the future. This book is most useful for those in the corporate setting who are, or will be, transitioning to a new position. It will also be very valuable to entrepreneurs who must make or break their company in a short amount of time. However, many of the recommendations apply to other settings as well. I think this is a very informative book, full of practical suggestions on how you can make the first 90 days of any transition a success.
The First 90 Days - Critical Success Strategies For New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins
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