The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels [Hardcover]

Michael Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2003

Fully a quarter of all managers in major corporations enter new leadership roles each year. Whether their assignments involve leading a work group or taking over a company as CEO, they face very similar challenges--and risks--in those critical first months on the job. How new leaders manage their transitions can make all the difference between success and failure.

In this hands-on guide, Michael Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions, offers proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one's career. Concise and practical, The First 90 Days walks managers through every aspect of the transition, from mental preparation to forging the right alliances to securing critical early wins. Through vivid examples of success and failure at all levels, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides tools and strategies for how to avoid them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This earnest guide to career transition periods-when a new job or promotion puts an employee in an unfamiliar role-asserts, reassuringly, that navigating the all-important first 90 days is a "teachable skill." Business professor Watkins, co-author of Right From the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role, lays out a "standard framework" for leadership transitions, based on "five fundamental propositions," "ten key challenges," and a four-fold typology of situations that new managers find themselves in. Fortunately, Watkins balances the theorizing with practical steps managers can take to get on top of things and initiate changes, including elaborate self-assessment checklists, planning exercises and meticulous guidelines on how to have conversations with underlings and bosses. His advice, if not very original, is sound. He warns managers not to assume that their existing skills will suffice for new roles, advises them to pursue small-scale "early wins" to boost credibility, and admonishes workplace Machiavellis to "avoid pressing for closure until you are confident the balance of forces acting on key people is tipping your way." Watkins's penchant for cut-and-dried schematizations sometimes goes overboard, especially in the book's plethora of elementary graphs, tables, diagrams and matrices (novice orators are informed that "classic values invoked to convince others to embrace potentially painful change are summarized in table 8-1," while the oceanic topic of "Intersecting Cultural Dimensions" gets boiled down to a three-ring Venn diagram). But if the content of Watkins's counsel is not always obviously helpful, his systematized approach to thinking will at least help panicky executives keep their wits about them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In these days of the public's microscopic scrutiny of corporate C-level executives, it's a wonder anyone would aspire to the CEO position. Amazingly enough, many eager managers are still climbing--and Harvard Business School professor and author (Right from the Start [1999]) Watkins helps prepare them for career moves, accelerating their transitions. This is, essentially, practical advice about undertaking new opportunities and understanding new vulnerabilities, quickly and without much upheaval. Different steps--sometimes simultaneously, sometimes sequential-- define success in the first three months, from promoting yourself (i.e., taking charge fast) to keeping your balance. Anecdotes enliven the checklists and sample learning plans; in fact, one specific case--Douglas Ivester of Coca-Cola--underscores the absolute necessity to adapt and change rapidly in new positions. Much content is human resources related, based on self-discipline, team building, and the availability of trusted advice and counsel. Would that every newly elected president of the U.S. heeded this practice. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press (September 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591391105
• ISBN-13: 978-1591391104
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (210 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Business & Investing > Organizational Behavior > Organizational Change
  • #24 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Decision-Making & Problem Solving
  • #32 in Books > Business & Investing > Job Hunting & Careers > Guides

More About the Author

Michael D. Watkins is the world's leading expert on accelerating leadership transitions. He is the author of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, which The Economist recognized as "The On-boarding bible."

Michael is a Co-founder of Genesis Advisers, a leadership development consultancy located in Massachusetts. Genesis Advisers (www.genesisadvisers.com) is the leading provider of on-boarding and transition acceleration services. Based on our the First 90 Days® research and our experience with Fortune 100 clients since 1999, our full array of consulting servicies, coaching processes, programs, virtual workshops, and self-guided materials help leaders at at every level of the leadership pipeline take charge more quickly and effectively.

Michael works closely with a gifted team at Genesis to assess client needs, and design and deliver the right transition solutions. He helps Genesis clients implement what we call Enterprise Transition Architectures™ - a common core framework and toolkit for accelerating transitions, cost-effectively delivered through First 90 Days coaching, programs, virtual workshops and self-guided materials to all levels.

In addition to his role at Genesis Advisers Michael gives speeches on leadership, organizational transformation, and transition acceleration to executive audiences, as well as designs and delivers senior executive team meetings, and coaches newly appointed senior executives and their teams during transitions.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#60 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#63 in Books > Business & Investing

#60 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#63 in Books > Business & Investing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

381 of 409 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An antidote to sink or swim December 20, 2004

By Peter Leerskov

Format:Hardcover

This book is not just for managers at the executive level. It's also for you and me. It's for functional managers, project managers, and supervisors. The book targets new leaders at all levels that are making the transition from one rung of the ladder to the next.

If you have just been promoted to a new leadership position (or expect to be soon), then this book is for you.

The book outlines ten strategies that will shorten the time it takes you to reach what Watkins calls the breakeven point: the point at which your organization needs you as much as you need the job. Here they are ... the ten strategies:

1. PROMOTE YOURSELF. Make a mental break from your old job. Prepare to take charge in the new one. Don't assume that what has made you successful so far will continue to do so. The dangers of sticking with what you know, working hard at doing it, and failing miserably are very real.

2. ACCELERATE YOUR LEARNING. Climb the learning curve as fast as you can in your new organization. Understand markets, products, technologies, systems, and structures, as well as its culture and politics. It feels like drinking from a fire hose. So you have to be systematic and focused about deciding what you need to learn.

3. MATCH STRATEGY TO SITUATION. There are no universal rules for success in transitions. You need to diagnose the business situation accurately and clarify its challenges and opportunities. The author identifies four very different situations: launching a start-up, leading a turnaround, devising a realignment, and sustaining a high-performing unit. You need to know what your unique situation looks like before you develop your action plan.

4. SECURE EARLY WINS. Early victories build your credibility and create momentum. They create virtuous cycles that leverage organizational energy. 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.

5. NEGOTIATE SUCCESS. You need to figure out how to build a productive working relationship with your new boss and manage his or her expectations. No other relationship is more important. This means having a series of critical talks about the situation, expectations, style, resources, and your personal development. Crucially, it means developing and gaining consensus on your 90-day plan.

6. ACHIEVE ALIGNMENT. The higher you rise in an organization, the more you have to play the role of organizational architect. This means figuring out whether the organization's strategy is sound, bringing its structure into alignment with its strategy, and developing the systems and skills bases necessary to realize strategic intent.

7. BUILD YOUR TEAM. If you are inheriting a team, you will need to evaluate its members. Perhaps you need to restructure it to better meet demands of the situation. Your willingness to make tough early personnel calls and your capacity to select the right people for the right positions are among the most important drivers of success during your transition.

8. CREATE COALITIONS. Your success will depend on your ability to influence people outside your direct line of control. Supportive alliances, both internal and external, will be necessary to achieve your goals.

9. KEEP YOUR BALANCE. The risks of losing perspective, getting isolated, and making bad calls are ever present during transitions. The right advice-and-counsel network is an indispensable resource

10. EXPEDITE EVERYONE. Finally, you need to help everyone else - direct reports, bosses, and peers - accelerate their own transitions. The quicker you can get your new direct reports up to speed, the more you will help your own performance.

This book is not only relevant on the individual level. This transition process for new managers happens so often that it should be handled with more professionalism by (big) organizations. Whereas we as managers try to work actively with introduction programmes and training for new employees, then many managers must face their transition challenge alone. It shouldn't be like that. The "sink or swim" approach should be doomed.

Peter Leerskov,
M.Sc. in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

134 of 144 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars First 90 Days came up short... December 31, 2005

By D. Kanigan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought "The First 90 days" by Michael Watkins and Neff/Citrin's book titled "You're in Charge - Now What." I found Neff's book to be a stronger and more practical guide. Both offered excellent guidance however Neff & Citrin produced a more interesting and readable (less text-book like) book with real life examples and a road map. Word of warning in that both books are written for senior business management and less applicable for lower levels of management or line positions.

147 of 160 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Slightly second to Neff & Citrin, worth reading both April 9, 2005

By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a fine book with a lot of substance, and I place it slightly second to Thomas Neff and James Citrin's "You're in Charge--NOW WHAT?."

From my point of view as the reader, Neff & Citrin actually catalyzed me and inspired me into preparing a 100 day plan broken into 10 ten-day blocks, while Watkins is more of a manual with lots of useful checklists and suggested questions and so on, but between the two, Neff & Citrin actually drove me to the needed outcome: my own 100 day plan.

Both are good. If you buy only one, buy Neff & Citrin, but I do recommend that you buy both, read Neff & Citrin first, and then cherry pick from Watkins--the cost of these books is trivial in comparison to the return on investment.