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The first 90 days michael watkins torrent

Michael watkins

The first 90 days. Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Michael watkins

The first 90 days

Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Published with permission of the Harvard Business Review Press (USA) and the literary agency Alexander Korzhenevsky

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Danu

grateful for your understanding and friendship

Foreword

Since the leaders appeared, the system of their transition from one position to another has been functioning. The “changing of the guard" and the inherent process of testing are as old as the world. Over the years, they do not become easier if you take into account the increasing complexity of the device of modern companies and the accelerating speed of doing business. Therefore, if in a new position you feel like in a deep forest, you should read this book. In the first 90 days in a new position, she can become your "guide". Why? Because the initial, transitional period is the most critical time when any little thing can have a huge impact on the overall result.

It is in the first months of his new position that the leader lacks a detailed understanding of the tasks that he has to solve, and he does not quite imagine the real price of these decisions. In addition, the leader has not yet “overgrown” with contacts that in the future will help withstand trials. At the same time, if in the first months it is not possible to achieve dynamics in their actions, then, most likely, from then on, like Sisyphus, he will have to constantly “roll a stone uphill”. The trust of the team, the first early victories can serve as a real guarantee of long-term success.

The accelerated adaptation model for a new workplace presented in this book is a continuation of the work that Dan Champ and I began in our joint book. “From the very beginning: mastering a new leadership role” (Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership RoleBoston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999). I was very proud of this book, and I had a desire to continue the work begun. Firstly, I am convinced that managers of all levels without exception will only benefit if they are given a plan for quick adaptation at a new workplace. The book is Right from the Start was addressed mainly to senior executives. And although the main tips contained in it were quite general, it was not entirely clear what was proposed was of greater importance for leaders of all levels, and what was important for top leaders. I wanted to offer a more flexible adaptation model, designed for managers of all levels without exception. In addition, I decided to dwell in more detail on some issues. First of all, on those related to building relationships with the new leadership, developing an organizational strategy and defining competencies.

In addition, I wanted to take a deeper look at the various types of transitions to help new leaders develop strategies appropriate to their situations. There is a big difference in, for example, a new startup leader leading, managing a way out of a crisis, or “inheriting” a highly productive, efficient organization. In addition, a leader who comes to the organization from outside is faced with a test in the face of employees who are moving up the career ladder in the company itself. In other words, the choice of a specific transition strategy always depends on the specific situation.

Finally, I wanted to analyze how important the help in adapting the new leader from the organization itself is. I was amazed at how little companies do to ensure that their fixed assets - leaders - succeed, of course, in the most critical period of their career. Why do companies abandon them? And how much would they benefit from the fact that their new managers would quickly begin to effectively carry out their duties?

Over the course of three years, I investigated these problems, having studied dozens of examples of the transition of managers of all levels to new positions, developed models of accelerating adaptation for leading companies, online support programs aimed at new managers. The culmination of this work became this book. Perhaps you yourself are in the process of moving to another position. Then my work will equip you with the necessary knowledge that will help to “develop speed" and achieve your goals faster. You will learn to evaluate certain situations, arm yourself with an apparatus for analyzing your tasks, and get an idea of \u200b\u200bhow to solve them. Objectively assess your strengths and weaknesses, identify the most vulnerable places. You will learn to quickly understand the essence of the new organization and determine priorities. You will learn how to align the strategy, structure, system and competencies in a new organization. But perhaps the most important thing is that you will receive good advice on how to build a system of relationships: form a team, create coalitions, select consultants and advisers. Use this book as a guide when designing your 90-day tenure plan. If you do this, then “develop speed” yourself and help others do it. Moreover, much higher than it might seem to you at first.

Michael watkins

The first 90 days. Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Michael watkins

The first 90 days

Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Published with permission of the Harvard Business Review Press (USA) and the literary agency Alexander Korzhenevsky

Danu

grateful for your understanding and friendship

Foreword

As practice shows, the most risky period for any manager at a new job is the first three months. Your future success or failure depends on how you show yourself in the first 90 days. Michael Watkins book has been translated into 27 languages, and the number of copies sold in English has exceeded 420 thousand! This is the best and most versatile book on the topic of adaptation in a new position.

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The given introductory fragment of the book The first 90 days. Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels (M.V. Watkins, 2003) provided by our book partner - LitRes company.

Introduction

First 90 days

The president of the United States has a hundred days to prove himself in business. You have ninety days. The actions you take in the first three months of your new position will determine to a large extent whether you will succeed or lose in the future. Joining a new position is a chance to start from the beginning and introduce the necessary changes in the organization. But at the same time, this is the period when you are most vulnerable, you have not yet developed a working relationship with the team, there is no detailed understanding of your new role. If you fail to “gain speed”, then in the future, while you are in your new position, it will be difficult to “go uphill”. The stakes are too high: if you do not cope with the new task, this may be the end of a promising career. But success in a new position is much more than just avoiding failure. Some leaders are defeated (and the reasons for this can almost always be found in their actions in the first months of a new position). But at the same time, for each of those who fail, there are many others who, although retained in their posts, realize their potential far from fully. As a result, they lose the possibility of further career growth. Moreover, they endanger the well-being of their organizations. This book is not only about how to avoid failure, but also about how speed up the process of adaptation in a new position. It will help you dramatically reduce the time it takes to succeed, regardless of what position you occupy in your organization. If you manage to achieve this, you will have more time to concentrate on solving pressing problems, to use more opportunities that a new appointment opens up. As a result, your goal is to get closer to breakeven point and begin to benefit the organization (see “Self-sufficiency point”).

Breakeven point

The breakeven point is the moment when the benefits brought by the new leader become commensurate with the benefits that he receives from the organization itself. As shown in fig. 1, at an early stage of their activities, managers act as consumers of value. As they learn, they are more and more effective and they themselves begin to benefit. When leaders pass the breakeven point, they (hopefully) begin to generate value. When the CEOs and presidents of 210 companies were asked how long their mid-level managers needed to reach the breakeven point, they named an average of 6.2 months. The goal of accelerating adaptation in a new position is to help executives quickly reach a breakeven point. Imagine how much a company would win if all its managers reached the breakeven point at least a month earlier?

Fig. 1. Breakeven point

Given how high the stakes are, it is simply surprising that there are very few good benefits that would help managers speed up and improve the process of moving to new posts. A lot of books have been published, a lot of articles on leadership have been published, but only a small part of them touch upon the problem of adaptation. Excellent manuals on managing organizational changes have been published, but most of them imply that the initiator of the changes has long been working in the organization, has the necessary knowledge and connections to plan and implement his initiatives.

The reality is that the process of organizational change goes hand in hand with the inauguration of a new leader. My book should fill an existing gap in the literature on leadership. It offers proven practice methods for solving both personal and organizational problems that leaders face in the first months of their new position.

Key Points

Watching the actions of new leaders, experimenting with methods to accelerate their adaptation, I began to clearly understand the problems that they have to face, and how to successfully resist them. My findings are combined into five main points and are the basis of my approach to accelerating the process of adaptation of leaders (and, in fact, the basis of this book).

The first thesis: the main reason for failure in a new position is always a dangerous relationship between a specific situation (with its capabilities and traps) and the strengths and weaknesses of the leader’s personality. Failure is never the result of only mistakes made by the new leader. In the course of my research, I studied many examples of the failures that new leaders faced, although all of them have achieved significant success in the past. The failure cannot be explained only by the current situation (when even a superman could not cope with the task!). Although the circumstances in which the losers turned out to be were no more complicated than those with which others coped well. Failures when entering a new position occurred when the leaders either did not fully understand the basic requirements of a particular situation, or they lacked the skills and flexibility to adapt to it.

The second thesis is that there are systemic methods that leaders can use to reduce the likelihood of failure and reach the breakeven point faster.. At the very beginning of my attempts to create a diagram of the accelerated process of adaptation when moving to a new position of managers of all levels, one experienced top manager remarked: “You won’t succeed.” And when I asked why, he said: "Because every takeover is unique." This is true, but if you look at this process from a “bird's eye view”, you can see several common features, as well as common traps. Imagine, for example, the transition of a functional vice president to the position of CEO. Everyone who encounters this is forced to solve the same problem: he will have to abandon the habit of relying on his professional competence in everything (the transition from the position of linear manager to the position of chief manager is characterized by the same thing, only at a lower level). The specifics of the specific working situations that managers have to face in a new place may be different. But the types of situations, whether starting a new project or overcoming a crisis, have common features and have similar requirements. In addition, there are basic principles, such as achieving results in the early stages, providing future success to a manager of any level, whether he is a new administrator or a new CEO. Thus, the main task is to choose a strategy that matches the specific situation. In the future, we will return to this topic more than once.

The third point is that in the process of entering a new position the main goals of the leader in the adaptation period are the creation of favorable cycles that contribute to the establishment of trusting relationships, and the elimination of adverse cycles that can undermine his authority. The essence of leadership is in the ability to use the necessary leverage. In the end, the new leader is an ordinary person. And in order to succeed, he will need to mobilize the energy of all employees. His ideas, competence, determination are like the seed from which a new productive style of behavior of the whole organization grows. However, very often a new leader behaves like a virus: his actions at the initial stage cause hostility among potential supporters, undermine authority and stimulate “defensive reactions” in the organization. As soon as an infection of hostility engulfs it, the "immune system" is activated, the "virus" is attacked and eventually expelled.

Fourth point: entering a new position is the most important stage in the formation of a leader, and this process must be managed. The transition period requires from him the skills of diagnosis, the ability to self-development, adaptation, checks the leader for endurance and endurance.

McKinsey’s War for Talent study conducted a survey of 200 senior executives who were asked to indicate the five critical phases of their development as leaders. The overwhelming majority in the first place they put the entry into a new position:

1. A new position that opens up great opportunities.

2. The conclusion of the organization from the crisis.

3. Launching a new project.

4. A large promising project.

5. Work abroad.

This does not mean (as often happens in many companies) that you need to throw your best people into the pool and see if they can swim out of it. Joining a new position, like swimming, requires training. Leaders need to be trained to accelerate adaptation in a new position. Then talented people will not sink without any benefit.

The fifth and final thesis: applying a standard scheme to speed up the adaptation process in a new position can be of great benefit to the organization.

In Fortune 500 companies alone, more than half a million executives move to new positions each year. If we take into account the effect that the change of managers has on employees, it would be very useful if everyone — superiors, colleagues, and subordinates — spoke the same “language of transition.” Why not everyone who works with the new leadership to take advantage of generally accessible recommendations (in particular, presented in chapter 5) in order to properly build such important relationships? This applies to approaches to studying a new organization, achieving results in the initial stages, and creating intra-company coalitions. This significantly reduces the period of adaptation, eliminates the problems associated with a change in the situation in the organization. In general, the application of a rational scheme for accelerating the adaptation of leaders has a real practical result.

Giving Organization Acceleration

The last thesis deserves closer attention and additional explanations. Imagine that all of the following applies not only to you personally, but also to your organization. About a quarter of Fortune 500 CEOs change jobs every year. That is, on average, they spend four years in their posts. High-potential mid-level managers are delayed for a shorter period of time. Their “eras” last, on average, two and a half to three years, and careers are built from a series of these “eras”, interspersed with periods of entry into new positions, when actions in the first few months set the tone for their new organizations.

Companies need to “grow” the best employees, transferring them to more responsible positions. Otherwise, they will simply go to competitors. But the cost of such movements is chronic instability. Each new leader needs time to reach the breakeven point. And the speed of modern business is such that it gives too little time for acclimatization and leaves no room for error.

Each individual leader who assumes a new position is surrounded by many others: these are immediate subordinates, bosses and colleagues. And the change of leadership is affecting everyone negatively. All who are in the “group of influence” of the new leader themselves are in the process of adaptation. Conducting a survey among the presidents and CEOs of companies, I asked to name the number of people whose work environment has changed significantly in connection with the arrival of a new leader. The average number of such was 12.4 people.

Even greater challenges are faced by leaders who come to the company or organization from the outside. Even prosperous organizations have to invite such people to breathe new ideas into the business, to preserve its viability. And the percentage of defeats among the new “alien” leaders is very high. The study showed that from 40 to 50% of the leaders who come to the organization from the outside cannot achieve the desired results. Direct and indirect costs of companies associated with the unsuccessful choice of a new leader, reach $ 2.7 million.

HR specialists believe that the problems faced by leaders “from the outside” are much more serious than those that arise from leaders who have advanced from the bowels of the company. They explain this with several reasons, the most important of which are the following:

The leaders who come to the organization from the outside are not familiar with its organizational structure, the informal information and communication networks existing in it.

Outsiders are not familiar with corporate culture; it is more difficult for them to assimilate.

They don’t know new people in the organization, and, accordingly, they have less authority in comparison with those who advance from within the company.

The accepted tradition of “growing one’s own leaders” makes it difficult for an organization to adapt to a “stranger” leader.

When a new leader is defeated, it becomes a strong blow for him, which may well put an end to his career. But each failure of a leader, whether it is a complete failure or just improper fulfillment of his duties, is expensive for the organization itself. Therefore, accelerating the process of adaptation in a new position of managers of all levels invited from outside or put forward from within the company can bring tangible benefits to it. But it is amazing how little attention is paid to this point by companies. During my trainings, I ask participants to write how many times they have moved to new posts and how many transitions they still plan to implement before they retire. Usually in a group of thirty people the total amount of transitions is 150!

Then I ask which of them, before taking up a new position, has been trained or specially trained in their organization. The usual answer: there was no such preparation. Everyone learned from their own experience. Firstly, it is very difficult. And secondly, the experience gained with difficulty, if it is not shared with others, is a great loss for an organization or company. A real storehouse of knowledge is very rarely transformed into a form of corporate training. People are forced to develop their own unique approaches to the development of new positions that will (or will not) serve them as they advance. Meanwhile, a generally accessible scheme for accelerating the process of leaders' adaptation should be part of the company's fixed capital, it reduces the costs arising from the failures of the new leadership, and a common approach to managing the process of leadership change helps to identify and retain the best personnel. No trainer is able to determine which of the children who still cannot swim will become a champion in the future. But they can be trained to stay on the water, prepared, and then the results themselves will say everything for themselves. Speeding up the adaptation process is a skill that can be developed. Some of the leaders succeed only because they were lucky enough to meet a good coach or to be in a situation where they were able to show their strengths. And at the same time, the absence of such conditions should not cause the defeat of other potential promising leaders. If you want leaders to occupy positions that objectively correspond to their abilities, then during the transition period everyone should have equal opportunities.

New Leader Success Strategies

Why are there so few good recommendations to speed up the process of adaptation in a new position? Part of the answer may be that there are many different types of transition and there are no single general rules for all. Take a look at the following pairs of “transitional” situations and try to imagine how much the components of success and tasks will differ from each other:

Promotion to a higher position in marketing and moving from marketing to the position of general manager of a division.

Appointment to a new position in your organization and transfer to another company.

Transfer from a professional position to a line manager position and transfer from a line manager position to a professional position.

Acceptance of the leadership of a company in a crisis situation, and a company that is seen as successful.

What is the point here? The challenges facing new leaders vary depending on the situation. Much depends on whether you are making a big career leap in the management hierarchy of your organization or come from outside, whether you have official authority, or take leadership over a successful organization or one that is in a crisis situation. Your strategy should correspond to certain, very specific circumstances.

And practical advice will vary depending on the situation, level of authority, experience in this particular organization and the state of its business. The main goal of this book is to provide the new leader with recommendations on how to assess a specific situation, to develop his own plan to accelerate adaptation in a new position.

To understand the full benefits of a systematic approach to speeding up the process of adaptation, imagine what difficulties a new leader faces when trying to analyze the state of business in a new organization. How does he evaluate his tasks and opportunities? How does he reach agreement with his new boss, subordinates on the matter of actions to be taken? Without a conceptual framework that would allow him to assess the situation and plan his own actions, it will be very difficult to do all this. And it is easy to encounter misunderstanding from the boss, subordinates. Even if the new leader finally succeeds in reaching an understanding, he will spend a lot of time and effort on this, may miss important nuances or fail to notice how he will be in the “minefield”.

Now imagine that the new leader was preliminarily trained at the initial stage to determine what awaits him in his new position, depending on whether he has a startup, way out of the crisis, reorganization or stable development. What is changing?

The tool, dubbed STаRS (an abbreviation for the words Start-up [start-up company], Turnaround [recovery from crisis], Realignment [reorganization], Sustaining success [maintenance of success]), will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3. He helps the new leader quickly diagnose the organization, develop an effective plan of action, achieve mutual understanding with key figures of the company, including the new boss, and subordinates. Whether he takes on the leadership of an entire organization or manages a short-term project, a new leader can use this tool to speed up the process of his adaptation. In different types of transitional situations, you can find similar problems and ways to solve them, determine what to do and what is absolutely impossible. The main thing is to conduct a thorough diagnosis, and then apply some of the general principles to your specific situation.

Book outline

1. Personal promotion. This does not mean that you have to do self-promotion. You must mentally “tear yourself away” from your previous work, set yourself up to fulfill new duties. Perhaps the biggest misconception will be the belief that what you have so far succeeded in your career will continue to bring you success. The danger of being defeated is quite real only because you persistently cling to your previous knowledge and skills.

2. Speeding up learning. You need to get to know your new organization as soon as possible: understand its markets, products, technologies, systems, structures, corporate culture and politics. The process of getting to know the new organization can be compared to trying to get drunk from a fire hydrant, so you need to adhere to a certain system and focus only on what is important to learn and do it most effectively.

3. Choosing a strategy appropriate to a specific situation. There are no universal ways to succeed in a new position. You need to analyze a specific business situation and decide on your upcoming tasks and real opportunities. For example, the launch of a new product, process, enterprise, the beginning of a completely new business poses for the newcomers as a whole similar tasks. And they are very different from the tasks faced by those who have to take the product, process or plant out of the crisis.

4. First victories. First victories increase your authority, give an impulse to further advancement, create a general feeling that everything is going well. Already in the first few weeks you need to identify opportunities to increase your own authority. And in 90 days you should understand what organizations can be most useful for. It is necessary to improve business performance, rather reach a breakeven point.

5. Discussion of success. It is important to establish effective working relations with management as soon as possible, to justify his expectations. This means that it is necessary to carefully plan the most important negotiations on the situation in the company, its prospects, resources, as well as your personal career. More specifically, you should develop your 90-day plan and get it approved by management.

6. Optimization. The higher you go up the hierarchical ladder in an organization, the more often you have to act as a kind of “architect”. You need to find out whether the strategy of your unit is justified, optimize its structure in accordance with the general strategy of the company, develop appropriate systems and competencies, aiming them at solving strategic problems.

7. Team building. If a team is inherited from the previous leader, you need to evaluate it and, possibly, make changes to it in accordance with the requirements of the situation. At this point, your ability to choose employees that meet specific tasks is one of the decisive factors for success in a new position. In the process of creating a team, you need to think both systemically and strategically.

8. Building coalitions. Success will depend on your ability to influence people who are not directly subordinate to you. To achieve these goals, alliances of internal and external supporters are needed. You should immediately decide whose support is necessary for success, and understand how to attract these people to your side.

9. Maintaining balance. The process of entering a new position is accompanied by personal and professional stress. You will have to work on yourself to stay balanced and able to make the right decisions. During this period, there is always a risk of being biased, withdrawing into oneself, and starting to make ill-conceived decisions. You cannot do without good advisers and consultants.

10. Assistance to each employee. Finally, you must help everyone in your organization — subordinates, colleagues, management — when, when moving them to new posts, the question of speeding up the adaptation process comes up. The sooner your subordinates become comfortable with the new role, the better the results of your own activities will be. In addition, the organization, which has a systematic approach to the process of transition to new positions, has a huge internal potential for self-development.

If you successfully cope with these major challenges, you will be successful in your new position. Failure to overcome at least one of them can significantly damage your career.

This book is for executives at all levels, from administrators to CEOs. The basic principles of accelerating adaptation in a new position are common to all. Only the significance of each of the ten key tasks varies. For top-level leaders, optimizing the organization structure, creating a team and coalitions are priority tasks. For middle-level leaders, establishing relationships with the new leadership and creating a network of consultants and advisers is a priority. Each new leader needs to get to know the organization as soon as possible, achieve victories at an early stage and create coalitions of supporters. That is why the book contains recommendations on how to act in a particular situation. As you read, you should pay attention to how specific these or those specific moments are characteristic of your situation and how best to use our recommendations in practice.

Michael watkins

The first 90 days. Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Michael watkins

The first 90 days

Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

Published with permission of the Harvard Business Review Press (USA) and the literary agency Alexander Korzhenevsky

Danu

grateful for your understanding and friendship

Foreword

Michael watkins

Boston

Introduction

First 90 days

What is this book about

We are sure that it is not peculiar to our readers to rest on their laurels. Are you ready to grow and strive for new ...

Read completely

What is this book about
You got a promotion. Things are collected, the keys to the new office are in your pocket. You are assuming a new position and are full of ideas. But besides the plans in your head there are many serious concerns.
How not to disappoint management? How to get around politics? How to achieve the tasks in a short time? Especially when you consider that you have only 90 days for everything-about-everything ...
Michael Watkins believes that the main thing in this situation is the ability to soberly assess the requirements of a new working situation and not to panic. You need to draw up a detailed plan for the next 90 days and carefully follow it. Moreover, this plan is universal for managers at any level.

What is this book about
This is a handbook for anyone who wants to advance only up the career ladder.

Why we decided to publish this book
This is simply the best book on adaptation in a new place.
We are sure that it is not peculiar to our readers to rest on their laurels. Are you ready to grow and strive for new heights? Do you want to learn how to do it right?

Book chip
The First 90 Days is a collection of universal career tips. They will be useful to both CEOs and middle managers.

From the author
If you read this, you may be in the process of moving to another position. This book will equip you with the necessary knowledge that will help you develop speed faster and achieve more sooner. You will learn how to diagnose the situation and will be able to get a clear idea of \u200b\u200bthe upcoming tasks and opportunities. You will evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and determine what you are most vulnerable to. You will learn how to quickly understand the essence of a new organization and set priorities. You will learn how to identify and align the strategy, structure, system and competencies in your new organization. But perhaps, most importantly, you will get good advice on how to take the right place in the new system of relationships - form your team, create coalitions, find consultants and advisers.
Use this book as a guide to creating your 90-day plan. If you do this, you will develop speed yourself and help others do it much sooner than you thought possible.
3rd edition

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