The First 90 Days - Watkins

Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at all levels.

The book, The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins gives you your own personal "on-boarding" plan, a complete set of goals and objectives to help you establish yourself in a new organization, and quickly become an effective leader.

If you've had the experience of being hired into an organization in a leadership role, you're probably aware of how ineffective most companies are at bringing new people on board and helping them prepare for their new responsibilities. It would be nice if we all could benefit from a well planned approach to bringing new management and leadership staff on board, but it is a rare company that does it well.

Watkin's book, The First 90 days is useful in two ways. First, it provides a plan you can personalize to help yourself quickly transition into a new company or into a new leadership position in your current company. Second, it gives you a framework of ideas that you can use in your organization's leadership development program to build new, stronger managers and leaders more quickly than before.

The book builds on the premise that if you have not established your position and achieved some successes in the first three months or so, you are not likely to be viewed as an "A" player, and could even become a candidate for replacement. It recommends and elaborates on a number of objectives that work like a road map to help you in establish and keep your position as a successful leader. Here's a short sample:

Promote Yourself - Describes ways to reinvent yourself to fit the new role, establish yourself in the organization and set yourself up for success.

Accelerate Your Learning - teaches you how to invest time in yourself, how to learn deliberately through planning, identify resources, and use structured learning methods.

Secure Early Wins - tells you how to avoid traps, establish the right kind of priorities, build your credibility, create a common vision, and begin improving team performance.

Create Coalitions - Authority is not enough, determine the best sources of support, map out how your co-workers relate to each other, alter perceptions and build a support network.

He devotes the final topic, Expedite Everyone, to talking about the way organizations can evaluate and accelerate their own leadership development programs. He includes coverage of transitioning, succession planning, and developing stronger leaders.

Michael Watkins writes in a style that is approachable and easy to understand and assimilate. He starts with an anecdotal story that relates to the topic at hand and describes someone's experience and success. He then goes on to critique the story and then logically develop the structure and mechanics of the topic. By the time you've finished the topic, you feel thoroughly enlightened.

The First 90 Days is easy to read, easy to understand, and yet contains plenty of meat to keep the purist satisfied.

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