The First 90 Days (5 page)

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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 three months in a new job will largely determine whether you succeed or fail. Transitions are periods of opportunity, a chance to start afresh and to make needed changes in an organization. But they are also periods of acute vulnerability, because you lack established working relationships and a detailed understanding of your new role. If you fail to build momentum during your transition, you will face an uphill battle from that point forward.

The stakes are obviously high. 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. Some leaders do derail (and when they do, their problems can almost always be traced to vicious cycles that developed in the first few months on the job). But 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 in their careers, and they endanger the health of their organizations.

This book is therefore as much about
transition acceleration
as it is about failure prevention. It provides a blueprint for dramatically condensing the time it will take you to get on top of the job, regardless of your level in your organization. If you succeed in this, you will free up time to concentrate on fixing problems and exploiting opportunities in your new organization. After all, your goal should be to arrive as rapidly as possible at the
breakeven point,
where you are a net contributor of value to your new organization (see “
The Breakeven Point
”). Every minute you save by being systematic about accelerating your transition is a minute you gain to build the business.

The Breakeven Point

The
breakeven point
is the point at which new leaders have contributed as much value to their new organizations as they have consumed from it. As shown in
figure I-1
, new leaders are net consumers of value early on; as they learn and begin to take action, they begin to create value. From the breakeven point onward, they are (one hopes) net contributors of value to their organizations. When 210 company CEOs and presidents were asked for their best estimates of the time it takes a typical midlevel manager in their organizations to reach

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the breakeven point, the average of their responses was 6.2 months.

The purpose of transition acceleration,

then, is to help new leaders reach the breakeven point earlier. What would it be worth to an organization if all its leaders in transition could reach the breakeven point one month earlier?

Figure I-1:
The Breakeven Point

Given the stakes, it is surprising how little good guidance is available to new leaders about how to transition more effectively and efficiently into new roles. There are plenty of books and articles on leadership, but few directly address

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transitions at all. Also, excellent resources on managing organizational change exist, but most implicitly assume the change agent is already settled in the organization, with the necessary knowledge and relationships in place to plan, This document was created by an unregistered ChmMagic, please go to http://www.bisenter.com to register it. Thanks

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build support for, and carry out transformation initiatives.

The reality is that the process of leading change often occurs in tandem with a leader’s transition into a new role. This book is therefore intended to fill a gap in the leadership literature. It offers a proven blueprint for addressing the linked challenges of personal transition and organizational transformation that confront leaders in their first few months in a new job.

Fundamental Propositions

From observing new leaders and experimenting with methods of accelerating transitions, I have developed strong beliefs about the challenges of transitions and what it takes to succeed in meeting them. These beliefs, summarized in five propositions, form the foundation of my approach to transition acceleration—and to this book.

The first proposition is that
the root causes of transition failure always lie in a pernicious interaction between the
situation, with its opportunities and pitfalls, and the individual, with his or her strengths and vulnerabilities
. Failure is never just about the flaws of the new leader. Indeed, the failed leaders whom I studied had all achieved significant successes in the past. Nor is it ever just about a no-win situation in which not even a superhuman leader could have carried the day. The business situations facing leaders who derail are no tougher than those in which others succeed brilliantly. Transition failures happen when new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them.

The second proposition is that
there are systematic methods that leaders can employ to both lessen the likelihood of
failure and reach the breakeven point faster
. Early in my efforts to develop a framework for accelerating transitions at all levels, an experienced manager told me, “You can’t do that.” When I asked why, he said, “Because every transition is unique.” This is true, of course. It is also misleading. Sure, every transition is unique if you look at its details. But viewed from a higher vantage point, we can discern types of transitions that share common features, including common traps. Consider, for example, making a transition from functional vice president to general manager. Every leader who makes this leap encounters similar challenges, such as the need to let go of reliance on functional expertise. (The transition from frontline supervisor to manager of managers represents a similar challenge at a lower

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level. ) The specific business situations that confront transitioning leaders also vary. But specific types of transition situations, such as start-ups and turnarounds, share certain features and imperatives. Further, there are fundamental principles—for example, securing early wins—that underpin success in transitions at all levels, whether one is a new supervisor or a new CEO. The key, then, is to
match your strategy to the situation
. This is a core theme to which we will return throughout the book.

The third proposition is that
the overriding goal in a transition is to build momentum by creating virtuous cycles that
build credibility and by avoiding getting caught in vicious cycles that damage credibility
. Leadership is about leverage.

The new leader is, after all, just one person. To be successful, she will have to mobilize the energy of many others in her organization. Her vision, her expertise, her drive can serve as a seed crystal in the new organization, one that will grow exponentially into new and more productive patterns of behavior. Too often, however, the new leader behaves more like a virus: Her early actions alienate potential supporters, undermine her credibility, and stimulate defensive reactions. As a vicious cycle takes hold, the organization’s immune system gets activated and the new leader is attacked by clumps of killer cells, encapsulated, and finally expelled.

The fourth proposition is that
transitions are a crucible for leadership development and should be managed
accordingly
. Precisely because they strengthen diagnostic skills, demand growth and adaptation, and test personal stamina, transitions are an indispensable development experience for every company’s high potential leaders. A survey conducted as part of McKinsey’s “War for Talent” study asked a sample of 200 senior executives to identify

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their five most important developmental experiences. The top overall responses all involved significant transitions into new roles:

New position with large scope

Turning around a business

Starting a new business

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