Your Next Move: The Leader's Guide to Navigating Major Career Transitions [Hardcover]

Michael Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2009

“Whether you’re going for that promotion, looking to jump ship, or change careers entirely, Michael Watkins’ Your Next Move is a book you’ll want to read.” So starts the positive review of Your Next Move on the influential 800 CEO Read website. It’s true that all leaders – no matter how seasoned – need guidance through the professional changes that define a career. In fact, transitions into new roles are the crucibles in which leaders get their toughest tests, and they're the defining factor in professional careers today. Yet far too often, leaders fail to transition effectively into new roles. The resulting costs are high, for individual careers and for organizations.

In Your Next Move, leadership-transition guru Watkins shows how you can survive and thrive in all the major transitions you will face during your career—including promotions, leading former peers, on-boarding into a new organization, making an international move, or turning around or realigning an organization. With real-life examples and case studies, Watkins illustrates the defining hurdles associated with each type of transition. He then provides the insights, strategies, and tools you'll need to accelerate through these crucial turning points and continue moving up in your career.

The necessary complement to the author's bestselling guide The First 90 Days, which has been translated in more than 20 languages worldwide, Your Next Move offers the keen observations, tried-and-true management wisdom, and practical good sense Watkins is renowned for. It's a vital resource for any manager or executive seeking to maintain career momentum.

To quote the reviewer from above: “It’s not just about ‘moving’ but about what happens when those actions are taken. Success or failure are the two options, and which option you emerge with will determine what happens going forward. Watkins’ book definitely has the research and insight to equip you for the better of the two paths.”

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael D. Watkins is the cofounder of Genesis Advisers, a Newton, Massachusetts-based leadership development firm specializing in transition acceleration programs and coaching. He is the author of The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels (Harvard Business Press, 2003).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; First Edition edition (September 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422147630
• ISBN-13: 978-1422147634
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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 

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#62 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#64 in Books > Business & Investing

#62 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#64 in Books > Business & Investing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Move On To Better Books November 8, 2009

By J. Jenkins

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Watkins previous book was extremely insightful and helpful--THE FIRST 90 DAYS. It offered clear cut advice to new managers.

This book is an attempt for experienced leaders to weather through sweeping transitions using his own model: STARS. Start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success.

Great idea but the delivery is a bit flat. He's speaking to a very SMALL audience of people who probably would not seek out books like this to guide them. And some of the advice is just not practical or useful. Because the book focuses on some highly situational circumstances, the tome lacks depth and any sense of realism. Watkins obviously drew from years of experience here, but it seems as if he has a truly small niche of leadership that he deals with. Plus, Watkins barely addresses the sheer humanity we find in great leadership. This text is just far too pragmatic and limiting in its approach. A good mentor for leaders takes on the whole person, Watkins fails to do that in this book.

This will be one of those books that helps Watkins' career as he will no doubt use it with his clients. However, for a majority of coaches and leaders out there, this is a book I would never offer up to help someone navigate through transition.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Increasingly important especially with this recession April 22, 2010

By mahlers2nd TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

When I first started my career (back in the big-hair 80s), you had ample time to get up to speed and prove yourself. The reasoning is that there was naturally a learning curve and you had to be given time to learn the career and the position you were starting out.

Fast forward to 2008. Two of us were hired within 2 weeks of each other for a major health insurance company. We both worked together to get up to speed. I thought we were both making comparable progress. But low and behold, very suddenly less than 3 months after we were hired, he was very suddenly let go. The statement I heard from my manager was "it was clear he didn't wasn't going to be successful in this organization so it was best for us to not waste his time and ours by keeping him on any longer". That was it -- less than 90 days and he was gone.

With more than 10 percent of the workforce unemployed, employers expect new employees to hit the ground running. If they don't, they aren't going to waste time on "slow bloomers" and they'll lose no time replacing you with someone who does have the skills.

This book provides insight into what type of clues employers are looking for to see if you will "make it" and be successful in the organization. It provides concrete suggestions about how to prove that you are learning what you need to know and if you are not learning -- how to acquire that knowledge quickly and under the radar so that it does not appear that you are "floundering" and raise red flags withing management.

This book is a must have for individuals starting their careers as well as employees with a lot of experience. Just because you were successful in one organization is no guarantee that you will be successful in others and this book helps you identify an action plan to increase your chances of getting up to speed quickly so that you won't suffer the same fate as my co-worker.

Good luck!

[NCJVR]

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful and Informative March 4, 2010

By Drea Knufken

Format:Hardcover

Do you ever dream of landing a promotion? Who doesn't? You could finally nab that corner office with a view. Your colleagues would start looking up to you as an adept leader (theoretically). Your newfound ability to buy a beach house wouldn't hurt, either.

The reality is different. Promotions, no matter how fantastic they sound, can pose a serious challenge. Just ask leadership transition expert Michael D. Watkins. This former Harvard Business School professor, who now chairs Genesis Advisers, previously wrote the renowned transition guide "The First 90 Days." In his newest book, he chronicles the obstacles that fresh-off-the-promotion leaders face.

"Your Next Move: The Leader's Guide to Successfully Navigating Major Career Transitions" explores how to effectively navigate eight common types of promotions. The types of promotions in the book cover common challenges that leaders face, from leading former peers to politicking correctly in your new position.

Each chapter in this guide is dedicated to one kind of promotion. Starting with a case study of a person facing the situation in question, you learn what risks come with the promotion, why they happen, and how to navigate your new role successfully. Watkins uses academic research, diagrams, and bullet lists to help you understand his points. You'll also learn how your company can help you with your transition in each chapter.

Content

The first chapter describes leadership challenges you might face after being promoted to a new position within your company. In the next chapter, you learn how to effectively navigate the challenges associated with leading former peers, such as asserting authority and changing your relationships.

After that, Watkins moves on the challenges that higher-level leaders face. The "corporate diplomacy challenge" tells authoritative, results-oriented managers how to successfully politick, influence, and build alliances. The "onboarding challenge" shows you how to ease into a new organization without being alienated by the existing culture.

Next comes a relatively condensed chapter on moving to a new location (this is such an involved topic that it really deserves a book of its own). After that, you learn how to navigate the turnaround of a troubled organization, and realign a complacent organization in order to prevent crises.

Your Next Move concludes with a chapter on handling a mixed scenario, or "business portfolio challenge." Here, you figure out where to focus when different parts of your company are at different states of the STARS (start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, sustaining success) continuum.

Comments

Your Next Move prepares you well for any number of promotions. Watkins admits in the first chapter that the book doesn't cover every single transition challenge. But "if you can deal with these eight tough transitions, you can deal with just about anything," he writes. What he does cover, he covers thoroughly, so you're exposed to elements that could appear in a multitude of challenges.

As with any preparatory guide, it is best read with a level head. If you read it in advance of a promotion, as part of your general business education, you'll learn what to expect. When you are promoted, some of the scenarios Watkins describes won't come as a surprise. Instead of firefighting, you'll have an idea of what questions to ask. I think this is the best way to read the book. I'm not sure how helpful it would be if you're already in the midst of a stressful promotion-the book doesn't address survival in depth.

The book assumes basic business knowledge; expect "businessy" language. Personally, the only jargon I found overwhelming was the author's frequent mention of STARS. I thought that despite some technical and academic language, the book flows well.

Watkins' intimate knowledge of transitions makes the book a valuable read. There's no question that Watkins really knows what he's talking about. You don't risk getting uneducated advice in Your Next Move. Watkins integrates a lot of his own rigorous research, but puts it into language most business-minded people can understand.

Overall, I recommend it. It is valuable for anyone with a general business interest, not only those who anticipate an imminent promotion. Read it before you even expect to get promoted, so that you learn how to start off on the right foot.

(Review by Drea Knufken)