The First 90 Days cover

The First 90 Days

Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

byMichael D. Watkins

★★★
3.95avg rating — 42,386 ratings

Book Edition Details

ISBN:1422191397
Publisher:Harvard Business Review Press
Publication Date:2013
Reading Time:12 minutes
Language:English
ASIN:B00B6U63ZE

Summary

"The First 90 Days (2003, updated 2013) maps out the critical transition period for any business leader taking on a new role, whether starting a new job, being promoted, or embarking on an overseas assignment. It offers comprehensive and practical strategies for conquering challenges, avoiding common pitfalls, and securing early wins to ensure success in the crucial first three months."

Introduction

Picture this: you've just landed that dream promotion or exciting new role. The congratulations are still echoing, but beneath the surface excitement, a familiar anxiety creeps in. You're standing at the threshold of opportunity, yet the statistics are sobering. Nearly 40% of new leaders fail within their first 18 months, not because they lack talent or experience, but because they stumble during those crucial early weeks. The actions you take in your first 90 days don't just determine whether you'll succeed or fail—they set the trajectory for everything that follows. This isn't just about surviving your transition; it's about transforming those vulnerable early moments into a foundation for extraordinary leadership success. The difference between those who thrive and those who merely survive lies not in their credentials, but in their approach to those pivotal first three months.

Learn Fast and Build Early Credibility

The foundation of transition success rests on your ability to accelerate learning while simultaneously establishing your credibility as a leader worth following. Think of this as building two bridges at once: one that connects you to critical knowledge about your new environment, and another that links you to the trust and respect of those around you. Consider Chris Hadley, who joined Phoenix Systems as head of product quality after a successful tenure at a world-class software company. Armed with confidence from his previous achievements, Chris immediately declared Phoenix's processes outdated and brought in consultants who delivered a scathing report. He quickly reorganized teams "the way things were done" at his former company. Within a month, productivity plummeted and morale collapsed. Chris had fallen into the classic trap of coming in with "the answer" rather than taking time to understand the unique context and challenges of his new environment. The wake-up call came when his boss confronted him: "You've alienated just about everyone. How much time did you spend learning about the operation?" This moment of reckoning forced Chris to shift gears completely. He began holding genuine conversations with managers, supervisors, and frontline workers. What he discovered was remarkable—despite limited resources, the team had demonstrated extraordinary creativity and achieved impressive results given their constraints. By calling an all-hands meeting to acknowledge these insights and commit to upgrading resources before making structural changes, Chris began rebuilding both his understanding and his credibility. To master this dual challenge, start by creating a systematic learning agenda that covers technical, cultural, and political dimensions of your new role. Resist the urge to make immediate changes and instead focus on asking penetrating questions: How did we get to this point? What has worked well that we should preserve? Who are the informal influencers whose insights I need to understand? Structure your learning through one-on-one conversations using consistent questions, which allows you to compare perspectives and identify patterns while demonstrating your commitment to understanding before acting. Remember that effective learning builds credibility. When people see you genuinely invested in understanding their world, they become more willing to share critical information and support your eventual initiatives. The goal isn't just to gather data—it's to create a virtuous cycle where learning enhances credibility, which in turn accelerates further learning and builds the foundation for sustainable success.

Align Your Organization for Success

Organizational alignment is the hidden architecture that determines whether your best efforts will soar or struggle. Like a master architect, you must understand how strategy, structure, systems, and skills work together to either support or undermine your mission. When these elements are misaligned, you'll feel like you're pushing a boulder uphill every day, no matter how hard you work. Hannah Jaffey experienced this challenge firsthand when she was hired as corporate vice president of human resources at a company suffering from intense executive conflict. The CEO believed the problem was simply having the wrong people in key positions, but Hannah quickly diagnosed a deeper issue. A recent reorganization had created business units focused on specific product lines, but their customer bases overlapped significantly. The structure and incentive systems actually discouraged cooperation, leading to confused customers, territorial battles, and stalled growth. Despite having talented executives, the organizational design was setting them up to fight each other rather than compete in the marketplace. Hannah knew that addressing personnel issues without fixing the underlying structural problems would be like treating symptoms while ignoring the disease. She persistently built her case with the CEO, conducting in-depth analysis and showing examples of how misaligned incentives were creating unnecessary conflicts. She researched how other companies had successfully navigated similar challenges. Her persistence paid off when the CEO finally agreed to implement a hybrid structure that aligned marketing and sales with customer segments while keeping operations and R&D organized by product lines, supported by shared services. The transformation was remarkable. Within a year, customer satisfaction soared, growth resumed, and it became crystal clear which executives truly needed to be replaced versus those who had simply been trapped in a dysfunctional system. To achieve this level of alignment, begin by diagnosing your current architecture using a systematic approach. Examine how well your strategic direction aligns with your structure, processes, and skill requirements. Look for friction points where good people are producing poor results—these often signal structural misalignments rather than performance issues. Create a clear vision for how these elements should work together, then sequence your changes thoughtfully. Sometimes the strategy needs to change first, sometimes the structure, and sometimes the processes or skills. The key is understanding the interdependencies and making changes in the right order to minimize disruption while maximizing impact.

Create Powerful Alliances and Momentum

Success in leadership is rarely a solo performance—it's an ensemble effort that requires building supportive alliances with people over whom you have no direct authority. Your ability to influence across organizational boundaries and create coalitions often determines whether your best initiatives will gain traction or quietly die on the vine. Alexia Belenko learned this lesson when she was promoted from country manager to regional vice president of marketing for EMEA at MedDev, a global medical devices company. Drawing on her thorough analysis, she developed what she believed was a compelling business case for rebalancing centralized versus localized marketing decisions. Her proposal offered genuine benefits to both corporate headquarters and regional operations through a carefully crafted package of trades. However, when she presented to stakeholder groups, she encountered unexpected resistance. Corporate marketing executives pushed for more centralization, while regional managers closed ranks against any limits to their autonomy. One respected manager warned that they'd been promised flexibility before, only to see it evaporate. Alexia's mistake was assuming that the strength of her logical argument would carry the day. She had focused on creating the perfect solution while neglecting to build the political support necessary for implementation. Rather than identifying key influencers and crafting targeted influence strategies, she had treated stakeholder buy-in as an afterthought to be addressed through presentations to large groups. What Alexia needed was a sophisticated understanding of the influence landscape. This meant mapping who really influenced whom on the issues that mattered, identifying potential supporters and opponents, and understanding the motivations and constraints acting on pivotal players. She should have recognized that successful change required building winning coalitions on both sides of the Atlantic, not convincing every single stakeholder. To build effective alliances, start by clearly defining what you need from others and identifying whose support is essential for your key initiatives. Map the informal influence networks by observing who defers to whom on critical issues and who serves as a trusted advisor to key decision makers. Analyze the motivations driving pivotal players—are they focused on recognition, control, relationships, or growth? Understanding these drivers allows you to craft compelling value propositions that align your agenda with their interests. Sequence your influence efforts strategically, starting with natural supporters who can become advocates, then moving to persuadable parties, and finally addressing opposition with a combination of education, negotiation, and sometimes containment strategies.

Accelerate Everyone Around You

The ultimate measure of transition mastery isn't just your individual success—it's your ability to accelerate the transitions of everyone around you, creating a multiplier effect that transforms organizational capability. When you help others navigate their transitions more effectively, you create a culture of mutual support and shared success that benefits everyone. The ripple effects of transition acceleration extend far beyond individual performance. Consider that in a typical Fortune 500 company, about 25% of managers change roles each year, and each transition impacts roughly a dozen other people. This creates a massive web of interconnected transitions where success or failure cascades throughout the organization. Companies that master transition acceleration gain a significant competitive advantage—they adapt faster to change, implement strategies more effectively, and create more resilient leadership pipelines. The most forward-thinking organizations are beginning to treat transition acceleration as a critical business process, similar to how they approach quality management or customer service. They're developing systematic approaches that include common frameworks, just-in-time support systems, and integrated coaching programs. These companies recognize that the soft side of organizational change—helping people successfully navigate new roles and relationships—is actually the hard side that determines whether strategic initiatives succeed or fail. Organizations excel at transition acceleration when they adopt several key principles. First, they identify their most critical transitions and focus resources where they'll have the greatest impact. Second, they create common language and frameworks that allow bosses, peers, and direct reports to have more effective conversations about transition challenges. Third, they provide support just-in-time rather than front-loading everything at the beginning when new leaders are overwhelmed. Fourth, they customize support based on the types of transitions people are experiencing—onboarding requires different support than promotion or lateral moves. To accelerate everyone around you, start by applying the golden rule of transitions: transition others as you would wish to be transitioned yourself. Use the same frameworks and tools that are helping you succeed to support your direct reports, peers, and even your boss in their transition challenges. Create regular check-ins focused on transition progress rather than just business results. Share lessons learned from your own experience and create safe spaces for others to discuss their transition struggles. By becoming a transition acceleration champion in your organization, you not only multiply your own impact but also contribute to building a more adaptive and successful organization overall.

Summary

Your transition journey represents more than just changing roles—it's an opportunity to fundamentally transform how you show up as a leader and the impact you create in the world. The principles and strategies outlined here aren't just about surviving those crucial first 90 days; they're about building the foundation for sustained leadership excellence throughout your career. As the research clearly demonstrates, success in transitions isn't about being perfect or having all the answers from day one. It's about being systematic, thoughtful, and persistent in your approach to learning, building relationships, and creating value. Remember this fundamental truth: "Your overriding goal in getting up to speed and taking charge is to generate momentum by creating virtuous cycles, and to avoid getting caught in vicious cycles that damage your credibility." Every small choice you make during your transition either propels you toward success or pulls you toward struggle. The power to shape that trajectory lies entirely in your hands. Start today by choosing one specific action from this framework—whether it's scheduling a crucial conversation with your boss, mapping the stakeholders you need to influence, or simply blocking time for structured reflection. Your future success is built one intentional choice at a time, beginning with the very next decision you make.

Book Cover
The First 90 Days

By Michael D. Watkins

0:00/0:00