The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

So how can you ensure that you hit the ground running, as a new leader? Every transition is different, but is there any kind of roadmap or strategy you can follow so you don't fall flat on your face?

Thankfully, "The First 90 Days" gives you all that and more. This practical, hands-on book offers up plenty of strategies and tips you can use to diagnose your situation and develop a customized plan for success in your new role. For instance, think about how hard it is to fully understand your new organization's business situation. How do you know what needs doing first? How do you figure out the challenges and opportunities the organization is facing? And how can you keep from alienating your new boss and colleagues, so they don't work against you during these first critical months?

These questions are asked by many new leaders, and "The First 90 Days" has the answers.

If you're about to go through a transition, or you're considering one, these strategies will help you feel more in control and prepared for what's about to happen.

The book can also be incredibly valuable for those working in HR. The author says that most organizations don't provide coaching or support for transitioning leaders. Using the strategies he lays out in this book, you could help your new leaders start adding value to your organization months earlier than they would otherwise.

The author, Michael Watkins, is an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. He's also the author of the bestselling book, "Your Next Move," and co-author of "Right From the Start."

So, keep listening to find out why you should tackle your most vulnerable areas head-on in your new role; why, as a new leader, your learning skills might need brushing up; and the two things you definitely shouldn't do with your new boss and colleagues.

"The First 90 Days" is divided into ten chapters. Each chapter addresses one key challenge that most new leaders face in a new role or organization. And, the author gives us practical strategies and tips for dealing with that particular challenge. By the time you're done with this book you'll probably feel less uncertain and overwhelmed about making a major role transition. The confidence readers will gain, we feel, is the book's greatest strength.

So what can you expect to learn about?

Well, one challenge is promoting yourself. And this doesn't mean tooting your own horn. This means letting go of your old job and really preparing for your new one. And it confronts the dangerous assumption that what's worked for us in the past will work for us this time too.

Another key challenge is matching strategy to situation. Every transition we go through is going to be different, which is why it's impossible to have a one-size-fits-all approach. But we can diagnose our new situation, whether we're working for a new start up or getting hired to turn around a failing department. Accurately diagnosing the new climate is essential for putting together a great strategy. Other key challenges include accelerating your learning, securing early wins, negotiating success, creating coalitions, and building your team, to name a few.

Let's look closer at promoting yourself. Remember, the author uses the words "promoting yourself" a bit loosely here. Really, this chapter focuses on letting go of your old job, and your old successes. Thinking that what worked for us in the past will work now is a mistake. So, how can we avoid this trap?

The chapter is full of strategies, but our favorite is to assess your vulnerabilities. One way to do this is to pinpoint what the author calls your problem preferences. These are the kinds of problems that you naturally gravitate to.

All of us have things we like to do. In the past, we've probably chosen to work on problems that we're naturally good at solving. But this creates a cycle that causes us to rely on what's worked for us in the past, the author says.

He provides a very useful table that includes 10 problems most of us have faced in the past. Topics include employee morale, equality, product positioning, and service quality. We have to rate our interest in solving common problems in these areas.

The score helps us figure out the topics we gravitate towards. For instance, we might be drawn to solving technical problems, finance problems, or human resource problems.

Once we've identified the problems we're most drawn to, we know where we're most vulnerable – that is, the problem areas we've ignored. The author stresses that in a new role, we need to make sure we're not avoiding those vulnerable areas.

We thought this was a useful point. Every new leader wants to feel confident when they step into a new role. They want to play to their strengths and secure early wins, which is another chapter in this book. But it can be all too easy to avoid areas where we have no strength or interest. If you're about to start a new role then you won't want to miss this handy diagnostic tool. The answers might be enlightening.

Another common challenge for new leaders is information overload. The author says one of the biggest mistakes new leaders make is not to create a plan for their learning. And, he says most us don't learn as well as we could, when we start at a new organization.

For instance, the author says newcomers often don't spend enough time figuring out how the organization got to where it is. Many leaders jump in and start tearing down policies and protocols with no understanding of why they're there in the first place. When we take the time to learn the history of the organization, we can make better decisions. Perhaps the biggest learning problem, the author says, is when new leaders arrive at an organization with the answer. They arrive already knowing how they're going to fix all the organization's problems. As you heard earlier, we can't rely on past successes, or assume that what worked well at one organization will work well again.

There's a lot of really practical information in this chapter. We learn how to identify the best sources of insight in our new organization, how to learn about the new culture, and how to create a learning plan. There are also several tables and questionnaires here that really help structure the learning and make it less overwhelming. We thought these were valuable additions that anyone going through this major change would appreciate.

Probably one of the most nerve-wracking aspects to taking a new leadership position is working with a new set of colleagues, and a new boss. Especially when you enter a new organization, it's tempting for the existing team to see you as an outsider and stonewall your ideas and initiatives. This can easily lead to failure within the first few months.

The strategies the author gives us in chapter six, on negotiating success, can help leaders feel less stressed about the new team they'll be working with. Here, you'll learn how to communicate with your new colleagues and boss, even if they're drastically different from you.

The author says too many leaders reactively take their new situation as a given. What you need to do is shape the game, negotiating with your new boss to agree on realistic expectations and get the resources you need for success.

But this can be easier said than done. Fortunately, the book offers some really helpful tips for starting out on the right foot with your new team. And the actions you don't take are just as important as the ones you do.

For instance, new leaders should avoid trashing the past. Criticizing past moves means criticizing the people who made them. At least, that's how they'll take it. Do this and you'll be alienated before you know it. Instead, spend time learning and understanding the past history of the organization, but don't judge.

It's also important not to run through a checklist every time you meet with your new boss. New leaders are tempted to give their boss detailed updates on what they're doing, to prove they're getting things done. But your boss doesn't need a minute-by-minute account of your day. She knows you're working, so save your discussions for problems you need her help with, and for early wins you accomplish.

This chapter offers up plenty more dos and don'ts for working with your new boss. You'll also learn why you need to plan out the first five conversations with your boss. These conversations will address everything from your business situation to your personal development. And you get specific strategies you can use for each of these conversations.

Although working with a new boss is nerve-wracking enough, building a new team can come in a close second. If you make a misstep here, you could be derailed the entire time you're at the organization.

Many new leaders fall into common traps when it comes to building a winning team. One of these traps is that they keep the existing team too long. Often, leaders will think the team didn't perform because they didn't have a great leader, such as themselves, to head the project. So, they keep these lackluster team members on board. Other times, they simply don't want to make tough personnel calls early on.

The author says a good rule of thumb is to decide who will stay and who will go by the end of your first 90 days. But this can lead right into another dangerous trap. When you start reorganizing your team, your top performers can get scared they're going to be let go. You can easily lose your best talent if you don't let them know that you recognize their efforts, and you want them on board in the future. A little reassurance can go a long way towards making sure your best people stick around.

It's easy for new leaders to only focus on the people above them, like their boss, and below them, like their team. But the author says new leaders should not forget that they need to establish good relationships with those who are horizontal to them in the hierarchy.

Why is this so important?

Well, these are the people who can give you the inside information about the organization. They can be your biggest supporters, or your worst enemies. Starting out on the right foot with them is vital to any new leader's success.

You can start by identifying the ten key players, on the same level as you in your new group. If you've established a good rapport with your boss, you can ask her to help you connect with these colleagues.

You can tell a lot about your peers by looking at group dynamics. Start with meetings. Watch carefully to see who everyone goes to for advice, and who defers to whom.

Another tip is find out who has access to the information everyone needs. This can be a source of power, and this person is probably someone you'll want to align yourself with early on.

In this chapter we also learn how to identify potential supporters and opponents, how to influence your colleagues, and how to set up action-forcing events to get people moving. So, what's our last word on "The First 90 Days"? Well, it's a practical book anyone making a career transition can learn from. The tips and strategies are easy to understand, and they'll definitely give you more confidence about your new role.

That said, many of the tips in here are not new, and certainly none of them are groundbreaking. But the author has blended them in with some more creative strategies for successfully navigating your first 90 days.

Our biggest complaint about the book is the tone. It's dry, and reads like a textbook. Many readers might find it a struggle to get through, simply because it lacks the fast pace and friendly personality of many other business books.

It also seems most relevant for senior management. So if you've just been hired for your first management position and you're a bit lower down the ladder, some of the strategies in this book might not apply to your situation.

But, there's still much to be learned here. And, as you heard earlier, these strategies are especially useful if you work in HR and want to implement a transition training program in your organization.

So, is this book worth your time? We think so. Yes it's dry, and no, it's not groundbreaking. But the information is solid, and the strategies laid out in the book are clear and easy to follow.

"The First 90 Days," by Michael Watkins, is published by Harvard Business School Press.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon. Thanks for listening.