The First 90 days

Michael D. Watkins
Some Impressionistic takes from the book
The First 90 Days
( Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders)
by Ramki
ramaddster@gmail.com

About Michael D. Watkins
Michael D. Watkins – A Harvard business school professor
and in this book –first 90 days he presents a road map for
taking charge in a management job. The first days are critical
because small difference in your actions can have a huge
impact on long-term results .
Leaders at all levels are very vulnerable in their first few months in a new job
because they lack in-depth knowledge of the challenges they’ll face and what it
will take to succeed with their new company. Failure to create momentum in
the first 90 days virtually guarantees an uphill battle for the rest of an
executive’s tenure.
The first 90 days will equip you with strategies and tools to get up speed faster
& achieve more sooner. This summary will show you how to diagnose your
situation & understand its challenges & opportunities.
You will also learn how to assess your strengths & weaknesses , how to quickly
establish priorities, and how to manage key relationships that help you to
succeed. Happy reading !!!

 Name + Affiliation
 What brings you here today ?
 What do you do to prepare for a new role ?
Welcome & Introductions

The Challenge for first 90 days
Opportunity
 Clean slate
 Honeymoon Period
 Free License to Question
Risk
 Savior Syndrome
 Having the answers
 Too much/Too Soon

 You have 90 days to prove that you are an asset to the
Organization upon entering a new job or getting promoted
to a higher position within the same Organization.
 With such a short span of time to “ Prove your worth &
value” time becomes a high-priced resource.
 A Leader transition causes the so-called “ ripple effect”
The Big Idea

 Promoting yourself in no way means self-serving, grandstanding
or advertising.
 “ Let it all Sink in”
 Transition of authority also means transition of habits &
responsibilities.
 The ways to promote yourself are
 Establish a clear breakpoint
 Hit the ground running
 Assess your vulnerabilities
 Watch out for strengths
 Relearn how to learn
 Rework your network
 Watch out for people who want to hold you back
First Challenge- Promote Yourself

 Define the role
 Stop & then Start
 Be specific with milestones
 Finding success means
preparing yourself to fail
 It takes a tribe
First Challenge- Promote Yourself

 Douglas Ivester was promoted to CEO at Coca-Cola in 1997 after working
as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at the company. In
1999, after a series of blunders that eroded the confidence of Coke’s Board
of Directors, Ivester resigned.
 To outside observers, Ivester appeared to be the perfect candidate for the
job. An accountant by training, Ivester was unable to make the leap from
COO to CEO because his extraordinary attention to detail, which had been
a virtue in his previous jobs in finance and operations, proved to be a
hindrance in his new position. Ivester could not free himself from day-to-
day operations enough to take on the strategic, visionary roles of an
effective CEO.
 The cause of Ivester’s failure wasn’t what he couldn’t do, but what he
couldn’t let go of. An impressive career came to a deeply disappointing
conclusion because he persisted in focusing on what he felt most
competent doing instead of focusing on what the CEO position required.
A New job requires A new approach

You have been offered your position because the people who
hired you think you have got what it takes to succeed.
But it can be disastrous to rely too much on the skills &
knowledge that made you successful in the past.
Evaluate your problem preferences – the type of problems you
prefer to work on.
Everybody likes doing some thing more than others, but doing
so is like exercising your right arm & ignoring the left arm .
Creating this type of imbalance leaves you vulnerable in
situations that call on you to be “ ambidextrous.”
Develop self-discipline, team building and get advice and
counsel.
Find people in the new organization who are skilful and learn
from them.
Assess your Vulnerabilities

 All Leaders feel the need for an action imperative.
 What do you want and need to know ?
 One of the hardest things you will have to learn
about as a leader is the organizational culture.
 Lack of learning may seem unimportant, but must
be kept to a minimum to form better decisions &
possess better control of the responsibilities
 Change is a cycle. Adapt or alter to cultures you
will discover
Second Challenge -Accelerate Your Learning

Define your learning agenda is the
starting point.
This establishes your learning
priorities & consists of a focussed set
of questions that will guide your
inquiry.
Defining your Learning Agenda
As you learn more , you will make conclusions about what is
going on & why ?
During your transition you will learn from various types of
hard data – Financial, operating reports, strategic & function
plans etc.
Talk to people and spend time with the team
Identify the promising sources will make your learning more
complete & efficient.

 Once you have an idea of what you need to learn and where to
seek it, the next step is to understand the best way to learn.
 When diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your
direct reports one-on-one and ask them these five questions:
 What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or
will face) in the near future?
 Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these
challenges?
 What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for
growth?
 What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the
potential of these opportunities?
 If you were me, what would you focus on?
Adopting Structured Learning Methods

 Learn with a purpose
 Analyse your early
wins/losses
 Schedule your learning
 Become the teacher
 Be the student
 Know your learning style
Second Challenge- Accelerate your learning

Diagnosing the Business Situation
 There are four major situations for any organization
 Start-up – Require to build and enforce systems from scratch.
You have got to assemble the capabilities –people, funding ,
technology needed to get a new business, product or project off
the ground .
 Turn-around
 Situations that require a quick mind and fast action. You take a
unit or a group that is in trouble & work to get it back on track.
 Realignments
 Call for critical thinking and convincing people that something
will go wrong. Challenge is to revitalize a unit, product, process
or project that is drifting into trouble. Reinvent the business.
Third Challenge -Match Strategy to Situation

 Sustaining success
 Call for the ability to fix small problems before
they morph into big ones. Responsible for
preserving the vitality of a successful organization
& taking it to the next level. Keep motivating the
people by inventing new challenges.
 The approach or strategy you will employ to succeed
differs from situation to situation.
 Different situations have different problems &
opportunities
 Let the situation be your guide

Understanding the History
 How much emphasis will you place on learning as opposed to doing ?
 How much emphasis will you place on offense as opposed to defence ?
 What should you do to get some early wins ?

Typical Challenges
 Behaviours no longer contribute to high performance
 Change is not seen as necessary
 Commitment to the new reality
Typical opportunities
 Areas of strength
 The positive side of the change

 Securing an early win is similar to the action
imperative with the exception that the action follows
in the wake of an educated thought when securing
early win.
 Early wins are processes or systems you can change
rapidly & improve outright
 What must you prioritize when deciding what to
change early into your transition ?
 Carefully analyse your organization’s situation
 Get your people to bring about the changes
Fourth Challenge-Secure Early Wins

 Focus
 With everything you want to accomplish, it’s easy to fall into the trap of
creating endless “to do” lists. The problem with this is that the longer the list,
the more paralyzing it becomes.
 Secondly, with a long list, it is too easy to just pick the easy wins and allow the
resulting adrenaline rush of checking things off fool you into believing you are
making progress.
 Instead, focus on no more than the 3 or 4 most critical wins to be secured. As
you secure these early wins, move on to the next most critical.
 Clarity
 An essential part of focus, ensure that you are properly identifying what
constitutes a critical win.
When evaluating the areas on which to focus, ask yourself:
 Does this build momentum?
 Is it meaningful to other team members?
 Is it important to leadership?
 Is this something on which I can build future wins?

Behaviours –
 If a win requires you to behave in a way that will be seen negatively, it isn’t really a
win.
 In fact, your early win may be something as “simple” as changing behaviours. It is
a given that your ability to achieve the longer term goals are dependent on making
behavioural changes today.
 Successfully adapting a new behaviour will definitely build confidence and create
momentum.
 Behaviours become habits and habits drive results.
Accountability –
 Don’t be secretive about your long-term goals or your short-term focus.
 Be very public about what you are going to do and why you are doing it.
 Give permission (and set the expectation) for those around you to check in on
your progress.
 Of course, if you are truly committed, you won’t make them ask, you will self-
report.
 I would challenge you to be just as public about your progress and setbacks as
you were about your original commitment
.

 It is impossible to succeed at everything you set out to do &
accomplish all your goals within a 90- day period.
 Negotiating success is all about communicating with your
boss in a way that sets your guidelines & allows you
flexibility for reaching your goals.
 Communicating effectively with your boss to negotiate
success will often take the form of 5 dialogues-
 The situation conversation,
 The expectations conversation,
 The style conversation,
 The resources conversations, and
 Personal development conversation.
Fifth Challenge- Negotiate Success

 The Situation Conversation
 Aims to reach a unanimous agreement about the organization’s
situation & where it should go,
 The Expectations Conversation
 Include sharing both you and your boss’s expectations about the
job on hand.
 The Style Conversation
 Different leaders have different ways of achieving success so
find out what your boss’s style is & try to align yourself with it .
 The Resources Conversation
 The resources you will need & ask for must be in tune with the
Organization's situation
 The Personal Development Conversation
 Ask you boss for feedback on issues you feel will affect your
personal development

Some things you DO want to do:
Do take 100% responsibility –
 Assume it will always be up to you to communicate to your boss, to request
time on her calendar, to request the support you need.
 If you have a boss who meets you halfway, then consider it a bonus.
Do clarify completely and often –
 Check in regularly to make sure both sides understand if circumstances have
changed expectations (e.g., the definition of success).
 At any point in time, both sides should have the same definition, although it
may very well be different than the original definition.
Do please the boss –
 Be sure you know what are the highest priorities for the boss and aim for
early and tangible results in those areas.
 Identify three things that are critical to the boss and be sure to give an update
on them every time you interact.

Some things you DON’T want to do:
Don’t blame others –
 Be sure to negotiate success based on those things within your control.
 Blaming those who came before or even those who are still there is
wasted time.
 That isn’t to say that poor performance should be tolerated, but leave that
to other conversations.
 When discussing your own success/failure, you have to own it.
Don’t not communicate –
 A little bit of freedom is liberating, but too much can be devastating.
 Just because whomever you are accountable to isn’t pushing for regular
communication, that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely necessary.
 You are responsible for your success and you need to be the one
pushing conversations to ensure everyone is still on the same page
about expectations and progress.

Some things you DON’T want to do:
Don’t surprise –
 Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news, but bad news delivered too
late is even worse.
 As I heard one leader say recently, “You can tell me the good news
whenever you get the chance; you have to make time to tell me the bad
news right away.”
Don’t show up with only a problem –
 Your boss is there to help solve problems, but “help” is the operative
word.
 Spend some time thinking about possible solutions to take along with
your problem.
 The eventual conversation will be much more effective as a result.

 The higher up the Corporate ladder you are, the bigger
your responsibility is to improve the organization’s over-
all structure.
 To achieve goals, all the systems & units in the
organization must be working together in a concerned
effort.
 Five elements must be in sync for an organization to
work
 Strategy,
 Structure,
 Systems,
 Skills & Culture
 All elements must undergo change, all at the same time
Sixth Challenge- Achieve Alignment

Some key misalignments to watch for:
Skills and strategy misalignment – Let’s assume you have set a strategy of
becoming more profitable by only working on larger accounts. However, if you
don’t educate yourself and the rest of the team on the issues important to those
larger accounts, your skills will never develop to the point of supporting the
strategy.
Systems and strategy misalignment – Imagine your strategy is to be more
accountable to your clients by more proactively reporting on the results you have
delivered. If you don’t establish an effective way to compile and report the
information for those customers, your systems will fail to support your strategy.
There are countless other examples, but hopefully you can see why the
alignment is so critical. If you are regularly frustrated in your efforts to get
yourself and those around you to adopt more productive behaviours, step back
and ask whether organizational misalignments might be creating the problem.
Sixth Challenge- Achieve Alignment

 When you assume a position of
leadership a team is already in
place for you to direct.
 To begin assessing your team,
create a list of criteria you will
want to consider when you
evaluate your direct reports.
 Come up with a plan to
restructure your team.
 Review how you want your team
to work.
 Establish a way to measure &
reward both individual & group
performance.
Seventh Challenge- Build Your Team

 Your success depends on the support of people outside your direct line of
command (and it almost always does), it is critical for you to create coalitions
in order to get the necessary things done.
 Building your influence among your colleagues is important to get backing for
new ideas and goals.
 While it is natural to focus on those individuals in your silo (above and below
you in the reporting chain), remember that your silo is a part of a larger
organization and building those horizontal connections is important.
 This is ignored in our industry, which is ripe with silos. There are silos
separating P&C from benefits, silos separating one production team from
another, and silos separating sales from service.
 If you are going to be a change agent within your agency, it is critical to force
yourself out of your natural silo and work to build support and conversations
around new ideas and initiatives throughout the whole agency.
 Your co-workers will always appreciate having the opportunity to be a part of a
new solution. Not provided that opportunity, don't be surprised when they fight
against a new directive for which they had no input, even if they will directly
benefit. Besides, good ideas become great ideas when enhanced with the
benefit of multiple perspectives.
Eighth Challenge- Create Coalitions

 Influence provides a nest-egg opportunity
 Forming new relationships is important to strengthen the
system support
 Learn what leverage may be used for convincing power &
what competing forces may have to offer.
 Hone you ability to influence others & re-shape your team’s
perceptions of choice.
Eighth Challenge- Create Coalitions

 Keep a balance between personal &
professional life is an essential part of
becoming a successful Leaders
 Three Pillars to form a solid foundation for
balance
 Adopting Success Strategies –
Seeing each strategy yield positive
results, you will feel more energy &
confidence to take on more tasks
 Enforcing Personal Disciplines –
Keeping within strict boundaries of
discipline helps one stay focussed &
alert
 Building your support systems- Seek
a good mix of people who can give
you unbiased counsel both inside &
outside your organization
Ninth Challenge- Keep Your Balance

To help stay focused on the proper areas and to keep a healthy
perspective, it is critical to recognize and avoid the following traps.
 Riding off in all directions – You can't hope to focus others if you fail
to focus yourself. There are an infinite number of things you could do,
but only a few that are critical. Focus on the critical.
 Undefended boundaries – If you don't establish appropriate
boundaries of what you are willing and not willing to do, those around
you – bosses, peers, direct reports – won't know what is appropriate or
inappropriate to bring to you.
 Brittleness – The uncertainty of transition can cause you to over
commit to a failing course of action. Know when to cut your losses.
 Isolation – As you work through your transition, it is easier than ever to
allow yourself to be isolated from the people you most need to help
make your transition successful.

 Work avoidance – With a transition, some decisions
take on a new level of importance. Because of our
transition, we may have incomplete information.
Consciously or unconsciously, this may lead you to
avoid making the decision. Instead, take the bull by
the horns and tackle the task at hand.
 Going over the top – While a little stress is good for
us, too much is, well, too much. Know your breaking
point and be sure to stay on the healthy side of it.

 Organizations tend to border on dysfunction in the way they approach new roles
for their people. The reality in most organizations is that people are thrown in to
the "deep end" of new roles and responsibilities. Not only do most organizations
not create a plan to help ensure success, in many instances survival seems to be
a test in and of itself. The best companies are those who foster a healthy
competition to reach the top, but who provide a level playing field complete with
rules, regulations, and support. The key is to institutionalize the transition process,
not just preventing those in new roles from failing, but for the organization to also
find massive gains by moving everyone along the learning curve faster.
Create a Common Language
 A common language makes everything make more sense. The needs for a
common language are many, but the following areas of common language are
required at a minimum:
Type of transition
 Have ways of identifying and communicating the unique circumstances of the
transition under way. (e.g., Is this a turnaround, realignment, start up, or is the
goal to sustain a current success?)
Tenth Challenge -Expedite Everyone

 Agenda for the types of learning required
 What are the technical, cultural, and political learning
goals that are required?
 Progress
 Specifically with the new boss in the five areas of
situation, expectations, style, resources, and personal
development.
 Priorities and goals for behaviour change
 Priorities for strengthening their advice-and-counsel
network

 “Survival of the Fittest”
 Help your direct people & team with their own transitions.
 Create a 90- day transition program to reach break-even
points faster.
 Create a common language
 Working with a team
 Bringing in people from outside
 Developing high potential leaders
 Strengthening succession planning
 Accelerating post-merger integration

Recap
Interested &
Not
interesting
Questions &
Not answers
Expectations
& Not
promises

 Gain trust via Listening
 Gain respect via Values
 Gain buy-in via incorporating
Reflections
Be Interested and Not Interesting
Team will be examining you through the lens of,
“How will this person affect me “?

Thanks
Your comments to ramaddster@gmail.com

The First 90 days

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The First 90 days