Michael Watkins
The actions you take during your first few months in a new role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail.
“Success or failure during the first few months is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job.”
If you’re successful in building credibility and securing early wins, the momentum likely will propel you through the rest of your tenure.
The most dangerous transition can be the one you don’t recognize is happening.
Leaders also are impacted by the transitions of many others around them.
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.
The goal is the same: to get there as quickly as possible.
Avoiding Transition Traps
- Sticking with what you know
- Falling prey to the “action imperative”
- Setting unrealistic expectations
- Attempting to do too much
- Coming in with “the” answer
- Engaging in the wrong type of learning
- Neglecting horizontal relationships
Understanding the Fundamental Principles
- Prepare yourself
- Accelerate learning
- Match your strategy to the situation
- Secure early wins
- Negotiate success
- Achieve alignment
- Build your team
- Create coalitions
- Keep your balance
- Accelerate everyone
Mapping Out Your First 90 Days
Your transition begins the moment you learn you are being considered for a new job.
Use the 90-day period as a planning horizon.
Start planning what you hope to accomplish by specific milestones.
Begin by thinking about your first day in the new job. What do you want to do by the end of that day? Then move to the first week. Then focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three-month mark.
Hitting the Ground Running
Every new leader needs to quickly become familiar with the new organization, secure early wins, and build supportive coalitions.
