Business Leadership Career Development

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter (Summary)

by Michael D. Watkins

Congratulations on the new job. Now, forget everything that got you here. The skills and strategies that made you a star performer in your last role are the very ones most likely to sabotage you in your new one. This is the 'promotion paradox' that derails countless careers, as new leaders try to apply an old playbook to a completely new game, often with disastrous results.

Your First Job Is to Learn, Not Do

New leaders often feel immense pressure to take immediate action to prove their worth. Watkins argues this is a fatal error. Your primary goal should be to become an expert on the new organization, systematically learning about its people, politics, processes, and problems.

Instead of immediately launching a splashy project to reorganize a team, a successful leader spends their first month conducting a structured 'learning tour.' They hold dedicated interviews with their new boss, direct reports, peers, and key customers, asking specific questions to map out the business's history, challenges, and unspoken rules before making any significant moves.

Diagnose Your Situation Before You Act

Not all transitions are the same. Your strategy must match the specific business situation, which Watkins categorizes using the STARS model: Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment, or Sustaining success. Applying the wrong strategy is a recipe for failure.

A leader entering a 'Turnaround' situation needs to make rapid, decisive changes to stop a crisis. In contrast, a leader taking over a 'Sustaining Success' division must be more subtle, focusing on preserving what works while finding incremental improvements. A turnaround leader acting with subtlety would fail, just as a sustaining leader making drastic changes would destroy a high-performing team.

Momentum Is Everything; Secure Early Wins

Early successes are crucial for building credibility and creating a virtuous cycle of support. These wins shouldn't be monumental overhauls but should be visible, meaningful to key stakeholders, and achievable within the 90-day window.

A new IT director, instead of trying to immediately overhaul the company's entire legacy software system, focuses on fixing the notoriously slow and frustrating employee expense reporting tool. This small, quick win solves a major daily frustration for the entire company, earning the director trust and political capital for the bigger, harder projects to come.

Proactively Manage Your New Boss

Don't wait for your boss to manage you. It is your responsibility to build the relationship, align on expectations, clarify priorities, and secure the resources you need. This requires a series of deliberate, structured conversations.

Watkins recommends holding five key conversations, including a '90-day plan' meeting. After 30 days of learning, the new leader presents a formal document to their boss outlining their diagnosis of the situation, key priorities, and a proposed plan of action. This transforms the relationship from reactive to a proactive partnership and ensures there are no surprises down the line.

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