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/book_notes/first_90_days	Book Notes: First 90 Days

Notes

The first proposition is that the _root cause of transition failure always lie in a pernicious interaction between the situation, with its opportunies and pitfalls, and the individual, with his or her strength and or vulnerabilities.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 4 ()

The second proposition is that there are systematic methods that leaders can emply to both lessen the likeihood of failure and reach the breakeven point faster

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 4 ()

The third preposition is that the overrriding goal in a transition is to build momenteum by creating virtuous cycles that build credability and by avodiing getting caught in vicious cycles that damage credability

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 5 ()

Too often, however, the new leader behaves more like a virus: her early actions alienate potential supporters, undermine her credability and stimulate defensive reactions. As a vicious cycle takes hold the organization's immune system gets activated and the new leader is attacked by clumps of killer cells, encapsulated and finally expelled.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 5 ()

The forth prepositon is that transitions are a crucible for leadership development and should be managed accordingly

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 5 ()

Studies have found that more than 40-50 percent of senior outside hires fail to achieve desired results

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 8 ()

Now suppose instead that the new hire is counseled to figure out early on whether his new job is a start-up, turnaround, or sustained success situation.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 11 ()

Conceptual backbone of the road map is a ten key transition challege:

Promote yourself

Accelerate your learning

Match strategy to situation (you need to diagnose the business situation accurately and clarfiy its challenges and opportunities)

Secure early wins (Early wins buid your credability and create momenteum)

Negotiate success (you need to figure out how to have a productive working relationship with your new boss and manage his/her expectations. This means carefully planning for a series of critical conversations about the situation, expectations, style, resources and personal development.

Achieve alignment (The higher your rise in an org the more you have to play the role of organizational architect)

Build your team

Create coalations (Your success will depend on your ability to influence people outside of your direct line of control)

Keep your balance

Expidite everyone

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 15 ()

A related mistake is to believe that you will be successful in your new job by contineing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so. This thinking is destructive because doing what you know how to do and avoiding what you don't can appear to work, at least for a while

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 18 ()

Hit the ground running: regardless of how much preperation time you get, start planning what you hope to accomplish by specfic milestones. What do you want by the end of that day? Then move on to the first week. Focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three month mark.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 22 ()

Access your vulnerabilties: As one senior executive expressed it: 'everyone has an urge to work at one level below where they are. You need to work where you are, not where you were. Access your performance preferences: the kinds of problems you naturally gravitate.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 22 ()

Accessment of problem preferences: |design of appasial and reward systems | employee morale | Equity-Fairness | |Management of financial risk |Budgeting | Cost Consciousness | |product positioning | relationships with customers | organizational customer focus | |Product or service quality | relationships with distributors and suppliers | continous improvement | | Project management systems | relationships amoung R&D, marketting and ops | cross functional cooperation |

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 24 ()

From Ask Your Developer by Lawson on page 127 ()

My thoughts: Ryan's thoughts on this table for engineers

If you have done the exercise and ranked your interest in each of these problems with 1-10, then if one column is noticably lower than the others it represents a potential blind spot for you

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 24 ()

Your weaknesses make you vulnerable but so do your strengths

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 27 ()

Because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever their learning strageies go wrong they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put hte "blame" on anyone and everyone but themselves

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 28 ()

Acceleration checklist:

what has made you successful in your career? Can you succeed in your new psotion by relying soley on those strengths? If not, what are the critical skills you need to develop?

Are there aspects of your new job that are critical to success but that you prefer not to focus on? Why is that the case?

What do you need to do to ensure that you make the mental leap into the new position?

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 21 ()

Baseline question that every new leader should ask is, "how did you get to this point?"

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 36 ()

Effective learning calls for figuring out what you need to learn so you can focus you efforts. [...] Efficent learning means identifying the best availbile sources of insight and then figuring out how to extract maximum insight with the least possible outlay of your precious time

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 24 ()

Your learning agenda defines what you need to learn. Your learning plan defines how to go about learning it

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 47 ()

The heart of your learning plan is a cyclical learning process in which you collect information, analyize and distill it, develop hypothesis, and thest them, thus progressively deepening your understanding of your new organization

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 49 ()

What are the defining features of each of the four STaRS situations?

in a Startup you are charged with assembling capabilities (people, funding, tech) to get the project off the ground.

TurnAround you take on a unit or group that is recognized to be in trouble and work with them to get back on track

Realginment your challenge is to revitalize a unit, product, proces or projecct that is drifting into trouble

Sustaining(-Succcess) you are sholdering the responsbility for preserving the viality of a successful organization and taking it to the next level

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 61 ()

To put it another way, in turnarounds the problems teach the people about the need for major changes. In realginments, by contrast, you musts teach people about the problems

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 68 ()

In particular, clarity helps you make three fundimental early choices:

How much emphasis will you place on learning as opposed to doing?

How much emphasis will you place on offense as opposed to defense?

What should you do to get some early wins?

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 69 ()

Securing early wins But what is a win differs drastically among the four situations.

In a start-up, getting the right team in place an achieving strategic focus are key wins.

In turnarounds, getting the right team in place is also a potential early win, as idenfitying the defendable core of the business and making major progress in paring the organization back up to it.

In realignments, gaining acceptance of the need for change and instilling a sense of urgency are often big wins

in sustaining success situations, gaining and displayin understanding of what has made the organization successful is a key early win, because it helps you win the right to make decisions about the organization's future.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 72 ()

This should be part of a broader, four demensional, approach to high-potential talent development. The four dimensions are:

Managerial functions

Geographic regions

Career crossroads

STaRS business situations

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 75 ()

Do you watn to develop different horses for differnent courses ' for example, specialists in turnarounds and startups? Or do you want to develop people who can hunt and farm in a wide variety of business situations? If the former you should select specailists with the right inclinations and give them increasing responsibiltites in those speciic situations. If the latter, then your future general managers should get expereicne with a spectrum of business situations, and you should coach them to succeeed in each.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 76 ()

Elena began by communicating her goals to employees. In a series of memos and small-group meetings she laid out a vision for more participative, more problem solving culture. These overtures met with skepticism from frontline employees and outirght distrust from some supervisors

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 79 ()

My thoughts: Ddid these match how the team works in a Seeing Organizational Patterns type way?

Avoding common traps:

Failing to focus (It's too easy to take on too much during a transiton and results can be ruinous.)

Not taking the business into account (What constitutes an early win will differ dramatically from one buisness situation to another)

Not adjusting for culture (Be sure to understand what your buisness does and not does constitute as a win)

Failing to get wins that matter to your boss

Lettingyour means undermine the ends (An early win that is accomplished in a way that exemplifies the behavior you hope to install in your new organiation is a double win

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 81 ()

Each wave [of change] ought to consist of distinct phases: learning, designing the changes, building support, implementing the changes, and observing results. Thinking this way ccan release you to spend time up front to learn and prepare, and afterwards to consolidate and get ready for the next wave.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 84 ()

The goal of the first wave of change is to secure early wins

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 84 ()

The second wave of change address more fundimental issues of strategy, structure, systems, and skills to reshape the organization.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 84 ()

In the frist 90 days, a key goal is to build personal credability and create organizational momemteum. You can do this by securing some early wins

From First 90 days by Watkins on page 85 ()

My thoughts: * old jobs: 90 days

modern jobs: 9 days
new jobs: 90 billable minutes

Specfically, your efforts to secure early wins would be:

consistent with your A-item buisness priorities

introduce the new pattersn of behavior you want to introduce in the organization

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 85 ()

Defining your A-item priorities:

A-item priorities should follow naturally from core problems. Establishing A-item priorities calls for pinpointing the critical areas of your organization that demand attention, as well as those that offer the greatest opportunties to dramatic improvement in performance.

A-item priorities should be neither too general nor too specfic

A-item priorities should offer clear direction yet allow for flexability while you learn about the situation

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 86 ()

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

do you have the insight and stediness to make decisions?

do you have values that they releate to, admire, and want to emulate?

do you have the right kind of energy?

do you demand high levels of performance from yourself and others?

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 90 ()

In general, though new leaders are perceieved as more credible when they are:

demaing but able to be satisfied: effective leaders press people to make realistic commitements and hold them to promises

accessible but not too familiar

decisive but judicious

focused but flexible

active without causing commotion

willing to make tough calls but humane

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 91 ()

identify two or thre key areas, at most, where you will seek to achieve rapid improvement

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 93 ()

keep your long term goals in mind

identify a few promising focal points

concentrate on the most promising focal points

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 94 ()

Simply blowing up the eisting culture and starting over is rarely the right answer. People - and organizations - have limits on the change they can absob all at once

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 101 ()

It is wise to negotiate success so you don't play a losing hand

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 104 ()

Negotitating success means practively engaging with your new bos to shape the game so you have a fighting chance of achieving desired goals

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 104 ()

What you need from a boss also varies among the various STaRS business situations. If you are in a realgihmentm you need your boss to help you make the case for change. In a sustaining-access situation, you will need to help to learn about the business and avoid early mistakes that threaten the core assets. In startups, you need resources and protection from too much higher-level interference. In turnarounds, you need to be pushed to cut back the business to the defendable core quickly.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 105 ()

Focusing on the fundimentals:

Don't trash the past

don't stay away

don't surprise your boss

don't approach your boss only with problems

don't run down your checklist

take 100% responsibility for making the relationship work.

clarify mutual expectations early and often

negotitate timelines for diagnosis and action planning

aim for early wins in areas important to the boss

Persue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 106 ()

Prepare for five conversations:

The situational diagnosis conversation (how your new boss sees the buisness situation)

The expectations conversation (seek and negotitate expectations, align your-both expectations around the future)

style conversation

resource conversation

personal development conversation (what areas do you need improvement? Are there projects or special assignments you could undertake (without sacrificing focus) Are there coruses or programs that would strengthen your capabilities?)

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 109 ()

Whatever your priorities, pinpoint what your boss cares about most and aim for some early wins in that area

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 114 ()

If you are uncertain, float an idea gentely as a trial balloon and then watch the boss's reaction closely.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 114 ()

Intitially, expect to be confined to a relatively small box. As your new boss gains confidence in you, the dimensions of the box should increase. if not, or if it remains too small to allow you to be effective, you may have to address the issue directly.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 119 ()

You may be able to achieve your goals by playing the game according to the prevailing rules... In other situations - notably realignments and turnarounds - you may need to change or even abandon establighed ways of doing buisness.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 122 ()

Don't restrict your focus to hard skills. The higher you rise the more important key soft skills of cultural and poltical diagnosis, negotitaion, colation building, and conflict management will become.

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 124 ()

Your 90 day plan should be written, even if it just consists of bullet points. It should specify priorities and goals as well as milestones. Critically, you should share it with your boss and seek buy-in for it

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 124 ()

The higher you climb in organizations, the more you take on the role of organizational architect, creating the context in which others can achieve superior performance. No matter how charismatic you are, you cannot hope to do much if the key elements in your unit are fundimentally out of alighment

From First 90 days by Watkins on page 130 ()

My thoughts: OR organization not matching prevailing Organizational Pattern!

Identifying misalignments:

skills and strategy misalignment

systems and strategy misalignment

structure and systems misalignment

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 133 ()

A skills base comprises of these four types of knowledge:

individual expertise

relational knowledge

embedded knowledge

meta-knowledge

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 149 ()

From First 90 days by Watkins on page 150 ()

My thoughts: This may be part of onboarding and/or talent acquisition, not just team skills inventory

One common mistake of new leaders is to devote too much of their transiton time to the verticle dimension of influence - upwards towards bosses and downwards to direct reports - and not enough to the horizontal dimension, namely peers and external contituencies.

From First 90 days by Watkins on page 186 ()

My thoughts: ESPECIALLY horizontal, see Art of being Indispensible at Work

Start by identifying the key interfaces between your unti and group and others

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 187 ()

The usual sources of power in an organization are:

expertise

access to information

status

control of resources, such as budgets and rewards

personal loyality

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 188 ()

The point of influence mapping is to help you identify supporters, opponents, and "convincables" - people who can be persuaded with the right influence strategy

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 190 ()

Buil your advise-and-counsel network. As a starting point you need to cultivate three types of advice givers:

technical advisors

cultural interpreters

political counselors

From First 90 Days by Watkins on page 219 ()

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