The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded. Michael D. Watkins
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thousand in 2011. For the past ten years, the book has consistently remained among Harvard Business Review Press’s best-sellers. It has also been translated into twenty-seven languages and was the basis for Leadership Transitions, Harvard Business Publishing’s award-winning e-learning tool.3
Enduring success of this kind has qualified The First 90 Days to be labeled a “business classic.” The term “classic” evokes a whiff of mustiness with which I am not entirely comfortable. Nonetheless, I was honored in 2009 to have the book named one of the 100 best business books of all time after an extensive review by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten at 800-CEO-READ. That recognition was a mark not only of the importance and staying power of the ideas, but also of the continuing need for every new generation of leaders to learn to make successful transitions.
The success of The First 90 Days also fueled and was fueled by a rising wave of interest on the part of companies in talent management, onboarding of new hires, and CEO succession. From the outset, Genesis Advisers’ work at J&J focused on both accelerating new hires and speeding up internal promotions; I continue to believe that it is a mistake to focus just on onboarding and not on accelerating all transitions. However, it was interest in onboarding that really propelled the field forward, as the war for talent became ever more fierce, and the high costs of derailment, under-performance, and lack of retention of new hires more evident. So many companies began to adopt First 90 Days ideas to accelerate onboarding of new hires. Beyond the work we have done with our clients at Genesis Advisers, First 90 Days concepts and tools have independently been adapted and implemented by learning and development and human resources professionals in thousands of companies. In 2006 The Economist named The First 90 Days “the onboarding bible.”4 More recently, the increasing maturity of the field has been marked by major conferences devoted to the subject of onboarding and transition acceleration.
My own thinking, of course, has also evolved over the past decade, and this has resulted in numerous improvements in this new edition of the book. I have remained deeply engaged in working with leaders in transition, doing research, and translating my practical experience and findings into better frameworks and tools. Key follow-on publications include:
Shaping the Game, a 2006 Harvard Business Review Press book that looks at how new leaders should apply ideas from the fields of negotiation and influence to make successful transitions.5
The First 90 Days in Government, a version of The First 90 Days adapted to the public sector and coauthored with Peter Daly, a retired senior Treasury Department official, and Cate Reavis.6
“The Pillars of Executive Onboarding,” an October 2008 Talent Management article on the major focal points for onboarding: business orientation, expectations, alignment, cultural adaptation, and political connection.7
Your Next Move, a 2009 Harvard Business Review Press book that highlights the need for leaders in transition to distinguish between the organizational change challenges and the personal adaptive challenges they are confronting. It also takes a deep dive into specific types of transitions such as promotion, leading former peers, onboarding, and international moves.8
“Picking the Right Transition Strategy,” a January 2009 Harvard Business Review article that further develops the STARS framework (start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment and sustaining success) introduced in the first edition of The First 90 Days for matching transition strategy to these various types of business situations.9
“How Managers Become Leaders,” a June 2012 Harvard Business Review article summarizing the research I did on “the seven seismic shifts” that leaders experience as they make the very challenging transition from a senior functional role to running an entire business.10
My thinking has also been powerfully informed by my work during the past eight years in developing successive generations of First 90 Days offerings for our clients at Genesis Advisers. Recently this has included a new generation of Acceleration Coaching process, a web-based workshop that includes virtual breakout groups, and a specialized program to help physicians transition from clinical practices and research institutions into commercial environments.
I also have been gratified that The First 90 Days, and my subsequent work, have spawned so much interest in the study and practical application of transition acceleration ideas. Much excellent original research and writing has been done.11 And, since imitation truly is the sincerest form of flattery, I have been flattered to see many of my concepts, tools, and terms adopted by other practitioners and consultants—for example, the STARS framework, transition traps, the importance of securing early wins,12 the idea of “the fuzzy front-end” (referring to the period between getting a job and formally stepping into the role and developed jointly with Dan Ciampa),13 and the important distinction between the organizational change challenge and the personal adaptive challenge in assessing the transition risk confronting new leaders.14
The past ten years have been a wonderful journey, and I have many people to thank for helping to make it happen. Foremost are the two people who had the biggest impact on the early development of my ideas and their application in the real world: my Right from the Start coauthor Dan Ciampa and my partner Shawna Slack. Then there have been my editors and publishers at Harvard Business Review Press, especially Jeff Kehoe, who has been consistently wonderful in encouraging, directing, and refining my work. I also very much appreciate the support of leaders at key Genesis Advisers client companies who have been willing to take the leap and invest in our work, notably Becky Atkeison and her colleagues at FedEx and Inaki Bastarrika, Ron Bossert, Carolynn Cameron, Michael Ehret, Ted Nguyen, and Doug Soo Hoo at Johnson & Johnson. Finally, my heartfelt gratitude goes to the staff at Genesis Advisers for all their hard work, especially to our COO Jerry Cogliano, who has been instrumental in making the dream of a leadership development company—focused on accelerating everyone—a reality, and to Kerry Brunelle for her support in editing the manuscript.
Introduction: The First 90 Days
The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get 90. The actions you take during your first few months in a new role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail.
Failure in a new assignment can spell the end of a promising career. But making a successful transition is about more than just avoiding failure. When leaders derail, their problems can almost always be traced to vicious cycles that developed in the first few months on the job. And for every leader who fails outright, there are many others who survive but do not realize their full potential. As a result, they lose opportunities to advance their careers and help their organizations thrive.
Why are transitions critical? When I surveyed more than thirteen hundred senior HR leaders, almost 90 percent agreed that “transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders.”1 And nearly three-quarters agreed that “success or failure during the first few months is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job.” So even though a bad transition does not necessarily doom you to failure, it makes success a lot less likely.
The good news on transitions is that they give you a chance to start afresh and make needed changes in an organization. But transitions are also periods of acute vulnerability, because you lack established working relationships and a detailed understanding of your new role. You’re managing under a microscope, subject to a high degree of scrutiny as people around you strive to figure out who you are and what you represent as a leader. Opinions of your effectiveness begin to form surprisingly quickly, and, once formed, they’re very hard to change. If you’re successful in building credibility and securing early wins, the momentum likely will propel you through the rest of your tenure. But if you dig yourself into a hole early on, you will face an uphill battle from that point forward.
Building Your Career Transition Competence
A long career at a single company (or even two or three companies) is increasingly a thing of the past. Leaders experience many transitions, so the ability to transition quickly and effectively into a new role has become a critical skill. In a study of 580 leaders conducted jointly by Genesis Advisers, Harvard Business