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The First 90 Days

Critical Success Strategies For New Leaders At All Levels
by Michael Watkins

Whether challenged with taking on a startup, turning a business

around, or inheriting a high-performing unit, a new leader's success
or failure is determined within the first 90 days on the job. New
leaders are expected to hit the ground running. Unfortunately many
of them are left to sink or swim in this critical period.

With his bestselling book, The First 90 Days, author Michael Watkins offers
proven strategies for moving successfully into a new role at any point in one's
career. Watkins provides a framework to help leaders diagnose their situation,
craft winning transition strategies, and take charge quickly.

By defining five main focus points and providing step by step action plans to
jumpstart their success, Watkins helps new leaders build a personal transition
blueprint to build early victories and achieve long-term success — no matter what
type of leadership position they pursue.

Focus point one, Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses, teaches leaders
how to match their strengths to their new position and shows them how to create
a learning plan to become more knowledgeable about their company and position.
With focus point two, Diagnosing Your Situation, leaders learn how to accurately
identify the challenges associated with their new position and how to match their
learning plan to those challenges. Focus point three, Securing Early Wins, centers
around building creditability and identifying ways to improve business results. With
focus point four, Negotiating With Your Boss, leaders learn how to develop a
productive working relationship with their new boss and gain crucial support within
the first three months. Finally, with focus point five, Building Your Team, leaders
are given the tools to evaluate their current team and create a new team that can
help them accomplish their goals.

So now let's learn Watkins' strategies for avoiding the most common pitfalls new
leaders encounter and how they can prepare themselves for this intense and
vulnerable period.

Focus Point 1: Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Before you can find success in your new position you must first examine your
strengths and determine how they can support you in your new role. However,
you will also need to pinpoint your weaknesses, especially those that pertain
specifically to your new responsibilities, so that you can devise a learning strategy
that will help you transition quickly and efficiently.

To begin determining your strengths you need to take a look at the successes you
enjoyed in your previous position that helped you win your new position. What

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talents brought you the most success? For example, was it your knack for product
placement, your ability to increase employee morale, or your wizardry with
budgeting that was the key selling point for promotion to your new position?

Once you have determined your key strengths you need to determine how those
abilities will help in your new position and also how they could be a problem for
you in the future. For example, if one of your key strengths is your unwavering
attention to detail you may need to work on pulling back a little, especially if your
new position calls for a more hands-off approach to management. This "strength"
could be interpreted as micro-managing your team members and result in stifling
their contributions.

Second, you need to identify any weaknesses you may have in relation to your
new position. For example, if your previous position required that you excel in
employee relations but never called for expertise in facilitating organizational
operations between departments, you may need to acquire these skills.

Once you have determined your main strengths and weaknesses and pinpointed
the areas that you need to improve on, it is time to develop a learning strategy.
Start by reading available material about the company's people, performance,
strategy, and structure. Next speak to your new boss about the history, culture,
and politics of the organization. Finally, review the operating plans, performance
data, and personnel data that relates to your position.

Once your research is done, compile a list of items that you need to explore
further in order to be better prepared to tackle your new position. For example, as
the new head of HR you may learn that the company has a fairly successful
reward and incentives plan in place for employees, but that in recent years
popular opinion of this program has plummeted. If employee incentives are not
your strength you will need to add this area to your learning strategy. Read books
on HR responsibilities, research incentive programs established by other
successful businesses, and talk to key employees to get their input concerning an
incentive program overhaul.

In order to devise the most successful learning strategy, ask yourself the following
questions.

1. What critical skills do you need to develop first to make the biggest
contribution to your new position? Example answers include: becoming
more cost-conscious, increasing understanding of the management of
financial risk, and learning more about cross-functional cooperation.

2. Who can you seek advice and insight from to better develop your learning
strategy? For example, can your new boss guide you in determining the
areas that need the most focus in your first ninety days? Can you meet
with the former holder of this position and inquire about areas of
suggested focus? Is there a colleague who may hold insight on your new
responsibilities?

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3. Where can you devote the most learning time in order to make the biggest
impact? Managers of business units may want to conduct plant tours or
process analysis in order to assess technical capabilities, the efficiency of
current process, and the overall climate of the business. HR leaders may
want to organize focus groups and discuss employee morale,
interdepartmental cooperation factors, and leadership concerns in order to
better prepare new strategies for the first ninety days.

Focus Point 2: Diagnosing Your Situation

Once you have researched the critical areas in your new position and determined
the most successful learning strategy to address them, you need to diagnose the
situation and explore ways that you can initiate the right types of change without
making enemies. One common failure factor shared by new leaders is the
tendency to rush to change once an idea seems solid before determining how the
change will affect the company culture. Making changes without an understanding
of the organization's politics can lead to loss of support and eventual failure.

In order to complete a thorough and accurate diagnosis you need to answer a few
questions.

1. What type of business situation are you entering into? The four main
situations include start-up, turnaround, realignment, and sustaining. With a
start-up situation your main focus will be the building of a product or
company. In a turnaround situation your focus will be on taking what is bad
or failing about the organization and appropriating changes that will lead to
success. For a realignment situation you will focus on revising an area that
is headed for trouble and leading it in the right direction. Finally, with a
sustaining situation your focus will be on nurturing the factors that have led
to company-wide prosperity and adding your own strengths to further that
success and take the business to the next level. Identifying new market
areas or initiating an employee benefit program would be good focus
points at a start-up. However, identifying small changes in processes like
product delivery that can quickly show financial improvements is a better
focus point area in turnaround situations.

2. What challenges exist because of your particular business situation? If you

have taken over as a manager in a start-up situation you may be faced
with developing the processes of an entire team and setting them on the
path to growth. On the other hand, if you are a new manager in a
turnaround situation your biggest challenge may be increasing employee
morale while making tough decisions regarding personnel cuts.

3. What is the climate in your new business situation? Before you can point
out areas of improvement and initiate change you will need to gauge the
psychological frame of mind of the organization. Is the company ready for
change? How do they view your position? Test the waters with a focus
group or by interviewing key employees and then tailor your strategy to
include their opinions and feelings.

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Focus Point 3: Securing Early Wins

Once you have a strategy for successful leadership in mind you need to
determine ways that you can implement that strategy to gain early wins. By
creating solid, tangible improvements in your first ninety days on the job you can
win support and begin to develop a solid reputation.

The best way to do this is to determine your long-term goals and work backwards
until you discover steps you can take during your transition period that will build
creditability while preserving and laying the groundwork for your future vision. For
example, as an HR leader you may want to research incentive programs and
eliminate a benefit that doesn't work while adding in a small benefit that will
eventually fit inside your improved, future package. Or, as a financial leader you
may want to make a small change to a packaging process that helps streamline
the process and also fits into your future cost-reduction plans.

The following questions will help you determine where you can have the greatest
impact early on and help set the course for securing early wins.

1. Using the information you gleaned during the diagnosis of your situation,
what are the three main priorities that you need to address? What can you
do now that will lead to early success and still fit in with these future goals?
For example, if a long-term priority in your new position is to increase
customer satisfaction by 20% in six months, an early win strategy could be
to offer an added incentive for customer service representatives who
complete each call with a positive solution.

2. Decide on one change that your employees and superiors will see as
positive and determine if the psychological atmosphere is right for that
change. For example, a marketing leader may realize that product
development needs a boost in budget. Before allocating extra funds get
feedback on your idea from other departments heads. If the increase in
budget is met with universal approval, then laying the groundwork for
increased sales with boosted funding would be seen as an early win
company wide.

3. Which of your top three priorities would lend itself well to a pilot project?
Developing and launching a positive project in order to jumpstart change
can set the tone for your future leadership. Define the project, explain its
winning properties and choose a motivated, highly-talent team to make it a
reality. This pilot project can help others see your vision more clearly,
motivate them for change, and boost your support.

Focus Point 4: Negotiating With Your Boss

In order to establish a productive working relationship with your new manager

there are five main issues that you need to address. By addressing these areas
you can gauge your manager's feelings on the challenges ahead and use that
information to devise a successful working relationship strategy. These issues

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include how your boss sees the current business situation, what his true
expectations of you are, what his management style is like, what types of
resources he will grant you to get the job done, and where he believes you need
to develop personally to really get the job done.

Although you could just schedule a meeting and try to get to the heart of the
matter by asking each of these questions directly, you are more likely to get the
answers you need by taking a more indirect approach.

Start by designing some comprehensive questions that can be asked causally

during regular meetings that address each issue. For example, you can gauge
your manager's business situation opinion by asking what he feels was a turning
point for the company. His answer will let you know how he envisions the
company's current health. Or, to determine expectations, you can explain your
new pilot project strategy and ask for feedback. If he states that area A is more
important, then you will know that is where he would rather see initial results.

In order to get a feel for your manager's management style you can mention that
you will be emailing him your thoughts on the latest project. If he counters that
with a request for face-to-face updates he may lean towards a more hands-on
approach and hope for the same style from you.

The resources and personal development conversations can usually be handled

with the same strategy. Start by devising a plan that shows what you can do to
reap results with your current budget or skills and then devise a scenario that
shows the increases or improvements that can be reached with increased
resources or by taking a course on personal development. For example, you
could complete a plan that showcases the returns that can be expected with the
current budget and then showcase the increased returns that could be achieved
with a 10% increase in resources.

Devise a strategy for learning more about your boss and the expectations he
holds for you by answering the following questions.

1. What have you done in the past to effectively build a relationship with a
supervisor or employee and how can that technique be used in this new
situation? For example, if you previously met with problems that needed to
be brought to your supervisor's attention by tempering the news with
suggested positive action plans and the system worked, try using that
approach in your new role.

2. Take a look at the information you learned about your new company in
focus point two. Keeping in mind the current business situation you are
facing, what key area do you believe is the most important to your
manager? How can you use this area to devise style, resource, and
expectation questions for your boss? For example, if boosting employee
morale is integral to your initial success, ask questions like "I feel that
meeting with a focus group of employees to better determine overall job
satisfaction levels is important before making any benefit changes, do you

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have any suggestions?"

3. How can you use your ninety-day plan to open conversations with your
boss? Why not summarize the goals you hope to reach or make a
checklist of your most important milestones and share the list with your
manager. This may help to unearth his style and expectations, and give
you very valuable insights.

Focus Point 5: Building Your Team

Securing early success and laying the groundwork for future victory cannot be
attained without the help of a motivated, talented team. However, the team you
have inherited may not be ideal. How you manage your team, how you change
your team's players, and your expectations of the team will do a lot to make or
break your future success.

When devising a winning strategy that will help you build the most successful
team, you will need to concentrate on three main areas. First, you need to
develop an accurate and fair way to assess the performance of your current team
members. If the team is unaware of the tools used for assessment, or if the tools
are too broad or constrictive, you can hurt employee morale or improperly
measure a person's performance.

Second, you need to decide how you will make personnel changes. How you let
someone go or promote someone on the team will set the stage for what you
value and how you are perceived. As a manger you will want your employees to
see you as strong and focused but not as unapproachable or quick to judge.
Devise a plan that will allow you to remove certain players from the team while
allowing them to keep their dignity and create a plan that will allow for promotion
without hard feelings from other team members.

Third, you need to devise a team operating plan that clearly states your
expectations and defines the roles of your team members so that the team moves
forward as a whole towards your future vision. Things to cover in the plan include
decision-making processes, restructuring processes, and incentive processes.

Use the following action steps to build your team for success and growth.

1. Develop a performance review plan that focuses on your key objectives

and expectations. Share the plan with your team and set a timeframe that
allows everyone a chance to acclimate to the requirements. For example,
state that you intend to increase customer satisfaction by 20% within the
next six months. Next, spell out how your team members can achieve this
increase and score well on performance reviews by setting tangible team
goals. One aspect can be the requirement that at least seven out of every
ten customer service calls ends with a positive result or action. Then, give
your team at least three months to achieve this requirement. As incentive
to buy-in to the new requirements you can offer performance bonuses to
ensure team members quickly comply.

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2. Before letting a team member go, examine the circumstances and make
sure that the problem is with the employee and not the tools he has been
given to do his job. If you still need to remove the employee, attempt to
laterally "promote" him or match him to a more suitable position in the
company. For example, if an employee fails to meet your customer service
expectations maybe a position behind the scenes is more befitting.

3. Develop an operational blueprint for the team. The decision-making

process needs to detail your expectations clearly. Do you want members
to consult with you before they move forward? Do they consult first with
other key personnel? Or, do they measure team consensus and move
quickly? The restructuring processes needs to be clear and needs to
outline exactly what each person's role is to be on the team. Their old
responsibilities may not be in alignment with the new vision so it is your job
to draw the lines clearly. Incentive processes need to include a reward
system that compensates employees for exceptional work, and a focus
process that allows members to understand their role and how it affects
others and the vision as a whole.

Conclusion

Adopting and implementing a successful strategy during your first ninety days as
a new leader is a challenging undertaking. However, by applying the proven focus
points from The First 90 Days you will not feel as though you have been left to
sink or swim.

By focusing your time on accelerated learning, in-depth strategy design,

establishing creditability, and building a supportive, goal-oriented team you can
make sure that at the end of your ninety days you are really making a difference in
your new position so that your new organization needs you, as much as you need
them.

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