The First 90 Days

Your goal in every transition is to get as rapidly as possible to the break-even point. This is the point at which you have contributed as much value to your new organization as you have consumed from it. As shown in figure I-1, new leaders are net consumers of value early on; as they learn and begin to take action, they begin to create value. From the break-even point onward, they are (one hopes) net contributors of value to their organizations. (Location 176)

This book provides a blueprint for dramatically condensing the time it takes you to reach the break-even point, regardless of your level in your organization. (Location 189)

As you look at the list, think about your own experience. (Location 198)

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization. (Location 234)

Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them. (Location 242)

More than a decade’s worth of research and practice has shown that you can dramatically accelerate your transition into your new role. Do the right things—the essential transition tasks listed next—and you will rapidly create momentum that will propel you to even greater successes. (Location 247)

Secure early wins. Early wins build your credibility and create momentum. They create virtuous cycles that leverage the energy you put into the organization to create a pervasive sense that good things are happening. In the first few weeks, you need to identify opportunities to build personal credibility. In the first 90 days, you need to identify ways to create value and improve business results that will help you get to the break-even point more rapidly. (Location 258)

You therefore should start right away to identify those whose support is essential for your success, and to figure out how to line them up on your side. (Location 273)

Acceleration Checklist (Location 343)

No matter where you land, the keys to effective delegation remain much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics to monitor their progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through process. (Location 389)

Communicate More Formally The good news about moving up is that you get a broader view of the business and more latitude to shape it. The bad news is that you are farther from the front lines and more likely to receive filtered information. (Location 406)

That’s why it’s important to get an early fix on what “leadership presence” means in your new role: what does a leader look like at your new level in the hierarchy? How does he act? What kind of personal leadership brand do you want to have in the new role? How will you make it your own? These are critical considerations, worth taking the time to explore. (Location 418)

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected. (Location 473)

To overcome these barriers and succeed in joining a new company, you should focus on four pillars of effective onboarding: business orientation, stakeholder connection, alignment of expectations, and cultural adaptation. (Location 481)

Business Orientation Business orientation is the most straightforward part of onboarding. The sooner you understand the business environment in which you’re operating, the sooner you can make productive contributions. Getting oriented to the business means learning about the company as a whole and not only your specific parts of the business. (Location 483)

Stakeholder Connection It’s also essential to develop the right relationship wiring as soon as possible. This means identifying key stakeholders and building productive working relationships. (Location 490)

recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage. (Location 499)

Cultural Adaptation The most daunting challenge for leaders joining new organizations is adapting to unfamiliar cultures. For David, this meant making the transition from an authority-driven, process-focused culture to a consensus-oriented, relational one. To adapt successfully, you need to understand what the culture is overall and how it’s manifested in the organization or unit you’re joining (because different units may have different subcultures). In doing this, it helps to think of yourself as an anthropologist sent to study a newly discovered civilization. (Location 504)

Identifying Cultural Norms (Location 528)

Onboarding checklists (Location 551)

Understand and engage in business planning and performance management. No matter how well you think you understand what you need to do, schedule a conversation with your boss about expectations in your first week. Have explicit conversations about working styles with bosses and direct reports as early as possible. (Location 560)

Who can provide the best return on your learning investment? Identifying promising sources will make your learning both comprehensive and efficient. (Location 827)

Many leaders tend to dive in and start talking to people. You will pick up much soft information in this way, but it is not efficient. (Location 863)

Instead, you should consider using a structured learning process. (Location 866)

When you are diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your direct reports one-on-one. (This is an example of taking a horizontal slice across an organization by interviewing people at the same level in different functions.) Ask them essentially the same five questions: (Location 877)

Once you have distilled these early discussions into a set of observations, questions, and insights, convene your direct reports as a group, feed them back your impressions and questions, and invite discussion. You will learn about both substance and team dynamics and will simultaneously demonstrate how quickly you have begun to identify key issues. (Location 887)

Soon After Entry Review detailed operating plans, performance data, and personnel data. Meet one-on-one with your direct reports and ask them the questions you compiled. You will learn about convergent and divergent views and about your reports as people. (Location 960)

Using the STARS Model STARS is an acronym for five common business situations leaders may find themselves moving into: start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success. The STARS model outlines the characteristics and challenges of, respectively, launching a venture; getting one back on track; dealing with rapid expansion; reenergizing a once-leading business that’s now facing serious problems; and inheriting an organization that is performing well and then taking it to the next level. (Location 1024)

Aim for early wins in areas important to the boss. Whatever your own priorities, figure out what your boss cares about most. (Location 1357)

Planning the Expectations Conversation The point of the expectations conversation is for you and your boss to clarify and align your expectations about the future. You need to agree on short- and medium-term goals and on timing. Critically, you need to agree on how your boss will measure progress. What will constitute success, for your boss and for you? When does your boss expect to see results? How will you measure success? Over what time frame? If you succeed, what is next? If you don’t manage expectations, they will manage you. (Location 1438)

Underpromise and Overdeliver Whether you and your boss agree on expectations, try to bias yourself somewhat toward underpromising achievements and overdelivering results. This strategy contributes to building credibility. (Location 1464)

The first step is to decide what resources—tangible and intangible—you must have to succeed. Identify the resources already available to you, such as experienced people or new products ready to be launched. Then identify the resources you will need help in obtaining. Ask yourself, “What exactly do I need from my boss?” The sooner you can articulate the resources you need, the sooner you can broach these requests. It’s best to put as much as possible on the table as early as possible. Try using the menu approach: lay out the costs and benefits of different levels of resource commitment. “If you want my sales to grow seven percent next year, I need investment of X dollars. If you want ten percent growth, I will need Y dollars.” (Location 1487)

Diagnose Your Boss’s Style The first step is to diagnose your new boss’s working style and figure out how it jibes with your own. (Location 1516)

How does your boss like to communicate? How often? What kinds of decisions does he want to be involved in, and when can you make calls on your own? Does your boss arrive at the office early and work late? Does he expect others to do the same? (Location 1519)

Planning the Personal Development Conversation Finally, when your relationship with your boss has matured a bit (roughly the 90-day mark is a good rule of thumb), begin to discuss how you’re doing. This need not be a formal performance review, but it does need to be an open discussion of how things are going. (Location 1556)

Putting It All Together: Negotiating Your 90-Day Plan (Location 1587)

Your 90-day plan should be written, even if it consists only of bullet points. It should specify priorities and goals as well as milestones. Critically, you should share it with your boss and seek buy-in for it. It should serve as a “contract” between the two of you about how you’re going to spend your time, spelling out both what you will do and what you will not do. To begin to sketch out your plan, divide the 90 days into three blocks of 30 days. (Location 1590)

You should typically devote the first block of 30 days to learning and building personal credibility. (Location 1594)

Your key outputs at the end of the first 30 days will be a diagnosis of the situation, an identification of key priorities, and a plan for how you will spend the next 30 days. This plan should address where and how you will begin to seek some early wins. (Location 1597)

At the 60-day mark, your review meeting should focus on assessing your progress toward the goals of your plan for the previous 30 days. You should also discuss what you plan to achieve in the next 30 days (Location 1601)

Planning the Five Conversations with Your Team (Location 1605)

Introduce the framework to them right away, and schedule a first conversation with each of them to talk about the situation and about your expectations. (Location 1611)

List your team members in the first column. Then assess where you stand in having the five conversations with each one. Circle the ones that are your priorities. (Location 1624)

Plan Your Waves In planning for your transition (and beyond), focus on making successive waves of change. Each wave should consist of distinct phases: learning, designing the changes, building support, implementing the changes, and observing results. (Location 1699)

The goal of the first wave of change is to secure early wins. The new leader tailors early initiatives to build personal credibility, establish key relationships, and identify and harvest low-hanging fruit—the highest-potential opportunities for short-term improvements in organizational performance. Done well, this strategy helps the new leader build momentum and deepen his own learning. The second wave of change typically addresses more fundamental issues of strategy, structure, systems, and skills to reshape the organization; (Location 1704)

But be careful not to fall into the low-hanging fruit trap. This trap catches leaders when they expend most of their energy seeking early wins that don’t contribute to achieving their longer-term business objectives. (Location 1711)

Focus on Business Priorities The goals you have agreed to with your boss and other key stakeholders are the destination you’re striving to reach in measurable business objectives. Examples are double-digit annual profit growth; (Location 1719)

You should think about what you need to do in two phases: building personal credibility in roughly the first 30 days, and deciding which projects you will launch to achieve early performance improvements beyond that. (Location 1773)

Early wins evaluation tool This tool helps you assess the potential of candidate focal points for getting early wins. Complete one for each candidate focal point, carefully answering the evaluation questions. Then total the scores for the evaluation question, and use the result as a rough indicator of the potential. (Location 1860)

Start by rigorously assessing the people you inherited, and then plan to evolve the team into what you need it to be. (Location 2407)

The starting point is to be conscious of the criteria you will explicitly or implicitly use to evaluate people who report to you. Consider these six criteria: (Location 2416)

Assess Your People (Location 2482)

Meet one-on-one with each member of your new team as soon as possible. Depending on your style, these early meetings might take the form of informal discussions, formal reviews, or a combination, but your own preparation and focus should be standardized: (Location 2486)

Using push and pull tools to motivate people (Location 2580)

Define Goals and Performance Metrics On the push side, establishing—and sticking to—clear and explicit performance metrics is the best way to encourage accountability. Select performance measures that will let you know as clearly as possible whether a team member has achieved her goals. (Location 2581)

Yerkes-Dodson human performance curve (Location 3162)

Assessment of core challenges (Location 3179)