The First 90 Days - Amazon Web Services

1 Published by Soundview Executive Book Summaries, Box 1053, Concordville, Pennsylvania 19331 USA 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is Success Strategies for New LeadersAt All LevelsTHE FIRST90 DAYSTHE SUMMARY IN BRIEFIn The First 90 days ,Harvard Business School professor MichaelWatkins presents a road map for taking charge in your First 90 days in amanagement job. The First days in a new position are critical because smalldifferences in your actions can have a huge impact on long-term at all levels are very vulnerable in their First few months in anew job because they lack in-depth knowledge of the challenges they ll faceand what it will take to succeed with their new company.

2 Failure to createmomentum in the First 90 days virtually guarantees an uphill battle for therest of an executive s First 90 Dayswill equip you with strategies and tools to get up tospeed faster and achieve more sooner. This summary will show you how todiagnose your situation and understand its challenges and ll also learn how to assess your own strengths and weaknesses, how toquickly establish priorities, and how to manage key relationships that willhelp you Knowledge for the Busy Executive 26, No. 4 (2 parts) Part 2, April 2004 Order # 26-10 CONTENTSP romote YourselfPages 2, 3A New Job RequiresA New ApproachPage 2 Accelerate Your LearningPage 3 Match Strategy to SituationPages 3, 4 Secure Early WinsPages 4, 5 Negotiate SuccessPages 5, 6 Achieve AlignmentPages 6, 7 Build Your TeamPages 7, 8 Create CoalitionsPage 8 Test Their JudgmentPage 8By Michael WatkinsFILE: SUCCESS/CAREERTECHNIQUES What You ll Learn In This Summary How to promote executives put the past behindthem and get a running start by learning all they can about their new job.

3 How to learn your new role leader must customize his or herapproach by quickly learning about the organization s culture and politics. How to choose the right the best strategy for yourcompany requires carefully diagnosing the business situation. Only afteryou ve analyzed the situation can you choose the right strategic plan that willget results. How to make good things happen right want your boss,peers and subordinates to feel that something new and good is wins excite and energize people and build your credibility. How to build a winning a great team, you ll face severedifficulties because no leader can achieve ambitious goals on his or her Yourself Promoting yourself doesn t mean self-servingbehavior, grandstanding or hiring a PR firm to tell theworld about you.

4 It means mentally preparing yourselfto move into your new role by putting the past behindyou and getting a running start by working hard to learnall you can about your new position. This takes a lot of effort, but it s essential that you doit. Many promising managers get promoted but don t doenough to change their perspective and successfullypromote themselves. A similar mistake is to believe that you ll succeed inyour new job by doing the same things you did in yourprevious job, only at a higher level of authority. Theyput me in this new job because of my skills and accom-plishments, the reasoning goes, so that must be whatthey expect me to do here.

5 Doing what you know andavoiding what you don t know can seem to work, butthere s a chance you ll keep on believing this until thewalls come crashing down around a Clear BreakpointThe move from one position to another usually hap-pens so quickly it s all a blur. A worker rarely getsmuch notice before being thrust into a new job. Thelucky new leader sometimes gets a couple of weeks tomake the change, but more often the move happens inonly a few you might not get a smooth transition fromone set of job responsibilities to another, it s essential todiscipline yourself to make a smooth transition mental-ly.

6 Pick a specific time, maybe a weekend, and use it topicture yourself being promoted. Consciously createmental images of letting go of the old job and embrac-ing the new one. Think hard about the differencesbetween the two positions and how you ll have to thinkand act differently in the new job. Take time to celebratethe move, even informally with family and base with your advisers to ask for some quickadvice. The bottom line:Do whatever it takes to get intoa transition state of the Ground RunningYour transition begins the moment you learn you rebeing considered for a new position, and it ends about90 days after you begin the job.

7 At the 90-day mark, keypeople in the organization your bosses, peers anddirect reports expect you to be making an First 90 DAYSby Michael Watkins THECOMPLETESUMMARYFor Additional Information on the author, go to: by Soundview Executive Book Summaries(ISSN 0747-2196), Box 1053, Concordville, PA 19331 USA, a division of Concentrated Knowledge Corporation. Published monthly. Subscriptions: $195 per year in ,Canada & Mexico, and $275 to all other countries. Periodicals postage paid at Concordville, PA and additional :Send address changes to Soundview, Box 1053, Concordville, PA 19331.

8 Copyright 2004 bySoundview Executive Book ailable formats:Summaries are available in print, audio and electronic formats. To subscribe, call us at1-800-521-1227 (1-610-558-9495 outside & Canada), or order on the Internet at discounts and Corporate Site Licenses are also Book Summaries KEVINGAULT Senior Contributing EditorDEBRAA. DEPRINZIO Art and DesignCHRISLAUER Managing EditorCHRISTOPHERG. MURRAY Editor in ChiefGEORGEY. CLEMENT PublisherSoundview Executive Book Summaries 2 The author:Michael Watkins is an associate professorof business administration at Harvard Business is the author of Breakthrough Business Negotiation: AToolbox for Managers,the coauthor of Right From theStart: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role,and theauthor of Leadership Copyright 2003 by Michael by permission of the publisher, HarvardBusiness School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, MA02163.

9 253 pages. $ ISBN Copyright 2004 by Soundview ExecutiveBook Summaries. , 800-521-1227,610-558-9495.(continued on page 3)A New Job RequiresA New ApproachDouglas Ivester was promoted to CEO at Coca-Cola in 1997 after working as Chief Financial Officerand Chief Operating Officer at the company. In 1999,after a series of blunders that eroded the confidenceof Coke s Board of Directors, Ivester resigned. To outside observers, Ivester appeared to be theperfect candidate for the job. An accountant by train-ing, Ivester was unable to make the leap from COOto CEO because his extraordinary attention to detail,which had been a virtue in his previous jobs infinance and operations, proved to be a hindrance inhis new position.

10 Ivester could not free himself fromday-to-day operations enough to take on the strate-gic, visionary roles of an effective cause of Ivester s failure wasn t what hecouldn t do, but what he couldn t let go of. Animpressive career came to a deeply disappointingconclusion because he persisted in focusing on whathe felt most competent doing instead of focusing onwhat the CEO position three-month time frame isn t written in stone the time depends on the type of situation you re in. Butfor planning purposes, you should use the 90-day markas an important milestone. It will help you realize thatyou ve got to get things done in that short time frame.