book review - the first 90 days by michael d watson

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The First 90 Days– Book Reviewby Michael D. Watson

You are about to learn:•How To Avoid The Most Common Pitfalls New Leaders Encounter •Why You Need The Right Alliances To Secure Critical Early Wins•Simple Steps New Leaders Must Do To Manage Their Transitions

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The First 90 Days – Book Reviewby Michael D. Watson

Hey friend, Kendall E. Matthews here for Read Everything. I created Read Everything – Book Reviews for Busy People because I wanted to share great concepts and ideas with my partners, associates, and employees.

I don’t expect them read over 80 books per year or get up at 4:30 a.m., but I do expect them to be the best AND to continue learning.

All credit is being given to the author(s). The majority of content, when quoted, comes right from the book.

Moving Forward,

@KendallMatthews

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Find more great reviews at KendallMatthews.com

“The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get 90. The actions you take during your first few months in a new role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail.”


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“Each year about a quarter of the managers in a typical Fortune 500 company changes jobs. And each leader transition materially impacts the performance of roughly a dozen other people— bosses, peers, direct reports, and other stakeholders.”


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“Your goal in every transition is to get as rapidly as possible to the break-even point. This is the point at which you have contributed as much value to your new organization as you have consumed from it.”


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Avoid These Transition Traps:• Sticking with what you know• Falling prey to the “action imperative”• Setting unrealistic expectations


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Avoid These Transition Traps:• Attempting to do too much• Coming in with “the” answer• Engaging in the wrong type of learning


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“Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person.

To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization.”


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How To Create Momentum

• Prepare yourself• Accelerate your learning• Match your strategy to the

situation


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How To Create Momentum• Secure early wins• Negotiate success• Achieve alignment


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How To Create Momentum

• Build your team• Create coalitions• Keep your balance• Accelerate everyone


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“In the first few weeks, you need to identify opportunities to build personal credibility.


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In the first 90 days, you need to identify ways to create value and improve business results that will help you get to the break-even point more rapidly.”


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“It’s a mistake to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so.”


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“To overcome barriers and succeed in joining a new company, you should focus on FOUR pillars of effective onboarding:


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1. Business orientation2. Stakeholder connection3. Alignment of expectations4. Cultural adaptation.”


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“Getting oriented to the business means learning about the company as a whole and not only your specific parts of the business.”


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“The most daunting challenge for leaders joining new organizations is adapting to unfamiliar cultures.


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What is culture? It’s a set of consistent patterns people follow for communicating, thinking, and acting, all grounded in their shared assumptions and values.”


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Hints For Succeeding• Watch out for your strengths• Relearn how to learn• Rework your network


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Hints For Succeeding• Watch out for people who want

to hold you back• Get some help


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Watch out for your strengths. “Your weaknesses can make you

vulnerable, but so can your strengths.”


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“Remember: simply displaying a genuine desire to learn and understand translates into increased credibility and influence.”


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“Effective learning calls for figuring out what you need to learn so that you can focus your efforts.


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Devote some time to defining your learning agenda as early as possible, and return to it periodically to refine and supplement it.”


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“Your learning agenda defines what you want to learn. Your learning plan defines how you will go about learning it.


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It translates learning goals into specific sets of actions— identifying promising sources of insight and using systematic methods— that accelerate your learning.”


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Your learning plan is a critical part of your overall 90-day plan. In fact, as you will discover later…


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…learning should be a primary focus of your plan for your first 30 days on the job (unless, of course, there is a disaster in progress).”


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“The primary responsibility for accelerating your learning rests on YOU.”


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Use the “STARS” model

STARS is an acronym for five common business situations leaders may find themselves moving into: Start-up, Turnaround, Accelerated growth, Realignment, and Sustaining success.


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The STARS model outlines the characteristics and challenges of, respectively, launching a venture; getting one back on track; dealing with rapid expansion;


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Re-energizing a once-leading business that’s now facing serious problems; and inheriting an organization that is performing well and then taking it to the next level.


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In all five of the STARS situations, the eventual GOAL is the same: a successful and growing business.”


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“The STARS state of your [business] also has implications for the adjustments you’ll need to make to manage yourself.


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This is particularly true when it comes to determining leadership styles and figuring out whether you are reflexively a ‘hero’ or a ‘steward’.”


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In your first few weeks in your new job, you cannot hope to have a measurable impact on performance, but you can score small victories and signal that things are changing.


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Think of this as an effort to secure early, early wins by building your personal credibility.


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Your credibility, or lack of it, will depend on how people would answer the following questions about you:


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1.) Do you have the insight and steadiness to make tough decisions?


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2.) Do you have values that they relate to, admire, and want to emulate?


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3.) Do you have the right kind of energy?


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4.) Do you demand high levels of performance from yourself and others?


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In general, though, new leaders are perceived as more credible when they display these characteristics:


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Demanding but able to be satisfied


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Accessible but not too familiar


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Decisive but judicious


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Focused but flexible


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Active without causing commotion


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Willing to make tough calls but humane


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The incentive equation


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Total reward = nonmonetary reward + monetary reward

Monetary reward = fixed compensation + performance-

based compensation


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Performance-based compensation = individual performance-based

compensation +

group performance-based compensation


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The relative sizes of non-monetary and monetary rewards depend on:

(1) the availability of nonmonetary rewards such as advancement and recognition and(2) their perceived importance to the people involved.


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Checklist To Build Your Team


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1.) What are your criteria for assessing the performance of members of your team? How are relative weightings affected by functions, the extent of required teamwork, the STARS portfolio, and the criticality of the positions?


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2.) How will you go about assessing your team?


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3.) What personnel changes do you need to make? Which changes are urgent, and which can wait? How will you create backups and options?


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4.) How will you make high-priority changes? What can you do to preserve the dignity of the people affected? What help will you need with the team in the restructuring process, and where are you going to find it?


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5.) How will you align the team? What mix of push (goals, incentives) and pull (shared vision) will you use?


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6.) How do you want your new team to operate? What roles do you want people to play? Do you need to shrink the core team or expand it? How do you plan to manage decision making?


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Checklist To Create Alliances


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1.) What are the critical alliances you need to build— both within your organization and externally— to advance your agenda?


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2.) What agendas are other key players pursuing? Where might they align with yours, and where might they come into conflict?


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3.) Are there opportunities to build long-term, broad-based alliances with others? Where might you be able to leverage shorter-term agreements to pursue specific objectives?


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4.) How does influence work in the organization? Who defers to whom on key issues of concern?


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5.) Who is likely to support your agenda? Who is likely to oppose you? Who is persuadable?


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6.) What are the motivations of pivotal people, the situational pressures acting on them, and their perceptions of their choices?


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7.) What are the elements of an effective influence strategy? How should you frame your arguments? Might influence tools such as incrementalism, sequencing, and action-forcing events help?


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The 3 PILLARS of Self-management

Pillar 1: Adopt 90-Day strategiesPillar 2: Develop personal disciplinesPillar 3: Build your support systems


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Core Challenge Assessment


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1.) Prepare yourself: Are you adopting the right mind-set for your new job and letting go of the past?


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2.) Accelerate your learning: Are you figuring out what you need to learn, whom to learn it from, and how to speed up the learning process?


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3.) Match your strategy to the situation: Are you diagnosing the type of transition you face and the implications for what to do and what not to do?


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4.) Negotiate success: Are you building your relationship with your new boss, managing expectations, and marshaling the resources you need?


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5.) Secure early wins: Are you focusing on the vital priorities that will advance your long-term goals and build your short-term momentum?


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6.) Achieve alignment: Are you identifying and fixing frustrating misalignments of strategy, structure, systems, and skills?


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7.) Build your team: Are you assessing, restructuring, and aligning your team to leverage what you’re trying to accomplish?


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8.) Create alliances: Are you building a base of internal and external support for your initiatives so that you’re not pushing rocks uphill?

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“Plan to Plan: Do you devote time daily and weekly to a plan-work-evaluate cycle?

If not, or if you do so irregularly, you need to be more disciplined about planning.

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At the end of each day, spend ten minutes evaluating how well you met your goals and then planning for the next day.

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Do the same thing at the end of each week: get into the habit of doing this. Even if you fall behind, you will be more in control.

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“Focus on the important: Do you devote time each day to the most important work that needs to be done? It’s easy for the urgent to crowd out the important.

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You get caught up in the flow of transactions— phone calls, meetings, email— and never find time to focus on the medium term, let alone the long term.

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If you’re having trouble getting the real work done, discipline yourself to set aside a particular time each day…

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…even as little as half an hour, when you will close the door, turn off your phone, ignore e-mail, and focus, focus, focus.”

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“Go to the Balcony: Do you find yourself getting too caught up in emotional escalation in difficult situations?

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If you do, discipline yourself to stand back, take stock from fifty thousand feet, and then make productive interventions.

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Leading authorities in the fields of leadership and negotiation have long praised the value of ‘going to the balcony’ in this way.

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It can be tough to do this, especially when the stakes are high and you’re emotionally involved.

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But with discipline and practice, it is a skill that can be cultivated.

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Check in with yourself: Are you as aware as you need to be of your reactions to events during your transition?

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If not, discipline yourself to engage in structured reflection about your situation.

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For some new leaders, structured self-assessment means jotting down a few thoughts, impressions, and questions at the end of each day.

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For others, it means setting aside time each week to assess how things are going.

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Find an approach that suits your style, and discipline yourself to use it regularly. Work to translate the resulting insights into action.

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Checklist To Manage Yourself

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1.) What are your greatest vulnerabilities in your new role? How do you plan to compensate for them?

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2.) What personal disciplines do you most need to develop or enhance? How will you do that? What will success look like?

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3.) What can you do to gain more control over your local environment?

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4.) What can you do to ease your family’s transition? What support relationships will you have to build? Which are your highest priorities?

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5.) What are your priorities for strengthening your advice-and-counsel network? To what extent do you need to focus on your internal network? Your external network?

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In which domain do you most need additional support— technical, cultural, political, or personal?

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“You will have to fight to manage yourself every single day. Ultimately, your success or failure will flow from all the small choices you make along the way.

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These choices can create momentum— for the organization and for you— or they can result in vicious cycles that undermine your effectiveness.

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Your day-to-day actions during your transition establish the pattern for all that follows, not only for the organization but also for your personal efficacy and ultimately your well-being.”

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book review - the first 90 days by michael d watson

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