10. Expedite Everyone: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

The final challenge is to expedite everyone using the framework, tools, and motivations discussed in this book. You’ll assess where your organization falls in the STaRS model. You’ll need to build a common language throughout the scope of your influence and beyond for effective and efficient communications. You’ll be working with a team and your challenge is to incentivize and motivate the team. You’ll be bringing people from the outside into the organization, cultivating high-potential leaders, strengthening succession plans, and employing performance support tools.

Your goal is to move beyond a sink or swim mentality. If you employ the methods and techniques discussed in the past 9 postings, you be able to accelerate your potential in your new roles. Michael Watkins presents in his book, The First 90 Days, five (5) prepositions that underpin his approach to success in a new job. They are:

1. The cause of success results from a transitional balance between the situational opportunities and pitfalls and the individual’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Your success or failure rests with you.
2. There are systematic methods available to people in leadership roles to lessen risks and reach the transition point swifter converting value consumed into value created. The basic promote yourself strategies apply to all levels and all positions.
3. The overarching goal is to build momentum by creating virtuous cycles that build credibility by avoiding vicious cycles that damage credibility. Leadership is about leveraging ideas, energy, relationships, and influence to form new patterns and advance visions.
4. The transitions periods are crucibles for leadership development and should be managed accordingly. Challenge up-and-coming leaders. Do not feed them, teach them to fish.
5. Adoption of a standard framework for accelerating transitions can yield big returns to organizations. The idea is to help everyone in the organization.

I hope these past 10 weeks have enlightened you and your leadership abilities. It is more important that you absorb the content by going back and refreshing your thoughts as you Proving Yourself on Your New Job

The steps are:

 01. Promote Yourself
 02. Accelerate Your Learning
 03. Match Strategy to Situation
 04. Securing Early Wins
 05. Negotiate Success
 06. Achieve Alignment
 07. Build Your Team
 08. Create Coalitions
 09. Keep Your Balance
 10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; James.Bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

9. Keep Your Balance: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

The life of a leader is a balancing act especially during transition. Keeping your balance amidst transition is a challenge. Thinking you are lone warrior as a leader or that it is lonely at the top is the incorrect thinking. The virtue of being a leader is that you are not alone because you are leading something, someone.

In maintaining balance, you must avoid vicious cycles. You must maintain focus and not ride off in many directions. You will need to defend your boundaries. You cannot become too brittle and be willing to back away from failing course of actions. You cannot be isolated and must be connected to your coalition and team. You’ll need to assess yourself for biased judgments. One of the more challenging efforts is taking the bull by the horns. Some leaders will attempt to avoid the work which is a mistake. All too often leaders create self-generated stress placing them over the top in unnecessary stress.

In balancing there are three pillars of self-efficacy. The first, adopting success strategies have been detailed in the past eight postings that reviewed Watkin’s book. The second is enforcing personal disciplines and doing what you should do. You, the disciplined leader, should plan to plan; prudently make commitments; set aside time for hard work; stand back from your situation; focus on the process; recognize when to quit; and self assess. Self assessment is not easy. You’ll need to reflect upon your emotional and intellectual state as well as the situation at hand. Lastly, is creating support systems that assert local control and stabilize the home front. Also you’ll need to build your support network in order to keep your balance.

Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

8. Create Coalitions: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

If you find yourself in a situation where you must exert influence without authority then you need to build a coalition. In fact, direct authority rarely is sufficient to get things done. Influence networks – informal bonds between people – can assist you much more effectively in getting things done. You will be able to marshal resources, receive backing for ideas, and achieve goals. You’ll need an influence strategy. This means figuring out who can be champions, who will resist, and can be influenced. It is an integral part of the first 90 days.

You’ll begin by mapping the influence landscape. A common mistake is focusing on the vertical dimension of influence and not enough time to the horizontal aspect. You will need to identify key players. There are many approaches. Watkins suggests that you begin by mapping key interfaces and processes identifying the key people. He also suggests that you use your boss to provide connections to people he believes you need to be in contact with and to diagnose the shadow organization. You’ll need to use soft skills to assess connections during meeting and other interactions to determine the alliances and sources of power such as expertise, access, status, control, and personal charisma. You’ll need to identify the opinion leaders who exert disproportionate influence through formal authority, special expertise, or force of personality. Ultimately, you’ll observe power coalitions. Having knowledge of the influence dynamics you’ll need to draw an influence map.

You’ll need to develop the art of persuasion. There are numerous approaches to include shaping perceptions through choices, framing compelling arguments, force actions through events, employing entanglement, and building momentum. Each has its merits and time or circumstance for use.

In the end, the leader pulls it all together consolidating support while building relationships and connections to succeed. Keep everyone up to date, observe how they react. The sequencing in which you work to build support is key to a strong coalition. Reflect on the old adage that it is not about what you know, it is about who you know!

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

7. Build Your Team: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

When you come into a new position it is important to recognize that you cannot have the incorrect talent on your team. When you inherit a team of direct reports, it is essential to marshal the talent you need to achieve superior results. In the first 90 day the most important decisions you make will be about the talent on your team according Watkins the author of “The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels” This discussion will walk you through the process of organizing your team.

The first point of understanding is to avoid common traps. Some leaders keep the existing team too long. Timing is everything, in the first 90 days the plan should come forth and by 6 months the strategy should begin. After that the team is yours and adjustments are very difficult to achieve. Another pitfall is not repairing the airplane. You have inherited the staff and did not build it from scratch. Therefore, you must figure out what is wrong on the fly and repair it in flight without crashing. Another common mistake many leaders do is not aligning the team and organization in parallel, failing to hold onto good people, team building before the core is built, making team buy in decisions too soon, or trying to do everything by yourself. Leaders should avoid these traps.

The new leader must assess the team. This involves establishing criteria such as competence, judgment, energy, focus, relationships, and trust. There are a host of methods to evaluate teams. Watkins offers a method that is a quick read of weighted criteria. It essentially gives you, the leader, a gut feel for the team and areas to focus on. You must also factor in the situation regarding how the team operates, the team’s capabilities and capacity to function, and the STaRS model situation. Then you must also become more granular assessing the individuals for their preparedness and verbal or non-verbal clues. Ask probing questions and test their judgments. You’ll also need to assess key functional actors on the team. Then wrap your findings up into a team assessment as a whole assessing group dynamics, the data, and asking systematic questions.

Next the leader must restructure the team. You must keep in place talent performing well, move some talent into stronger performing positions, observe and develop other staff that has potential, replace some staff based on a priority plan, recruit other talent to fill gaps and missing needs. Termination in unpleasant and you should consider the alternatives such as lateral moves and transplants. As a leader you should have back up plans and treat people respectfully.

Finally, with your team in place you should begin to align goals, incentives, and measures of performance. In designing your incentive systems there are push and pull approaches to motivate people. Most incentives are push styled. There should be a mix of monetary and nonmonetary rewards as well as an appropriate emphasis on individual and team rewards. The incentive equation offered by Watkins helps gauge the performance and team based mix for the team. Ambiguity and nebulous terms should be avoided.

So the team is now structured and motivated. The final push is to establish the new team processes. First, you’ll need to assess existing processes then target processes that need to change. This may require altering participants and managing decision making. You may need to centralize some decisions and loosen control on other decisions. In the end, whatever you decide influences the team’s ability to deliver superior results.

The bottom line is that you cannot go at it alone. Your team will either make you or break you. Having strong team building skills, understanding your organization, and making sound judgments based on the framework present thus far will propel you in your first 90 days to superstardom.

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

6. Achieve Alignment: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

If you are moving up the ladder, so to speak, your role becomes more of an organizational architect, creating the environment supportive of other achieving superior performance. If this is the case then you will find that you have strategy, structure, systems, and skills in your purview and will need to analyze organizational architecture for alignment amongst the key elements. If your position cannot alter the organization then you are in a position to influence those who can. Therefore, in the first 90 days, according to Watkins, you should diagnose and begin addressing alignment issues then begin the plan to identify areas for improvement and assess architectures. This early diagnosis should be aligned with other efforts in the first 90 days to create value and attain breakevens quickly for those early wins. If anything else understanding the organization will can aide in building credibility.

Designing organizational architecture begins by imagining yourself as an architect of your unit or group. It is never too late to begin to learn about organizational design. There are five elements to organizational design. First, there is a core approach to accomplishing goals or a strategy. Then there is structure of how people are situated and work is coordinated. Systems are the processes that communicate between structural units adding value. Meanwhile, skills of the people add capabilities. Misalignment of any of these elements can make any strategy useless.
Misalignments can happen many ways. Your job in the first 90 days is to identify potential misalignments then plan for correcting them. Common misalignments include Skills & strategy, Systems & strategy, or Structure & systems. Correcting these misalignments can be complex. Simplistic fixes can also be a pitfall which should be avoided and include:

1. Restructuring the way out of deeper structural issues. Address the root causes.
2. Creating solutions that are too complex. Keep it simple, Occham’s razor.
3. Entrenching problem processes. Automation does not resolve problems.
4. Making changes for change’s sake.
5. Overestimating capacity or capabilities to absorb strategic shifts.

When getting started, start with the end in mind. Develop the strategy to get there, decide how to introduce the strategy, and align the structure, systems, and skills then foster the culture to implement and sustain the end state.

A well thought out logical strategy will enable your unit, group, and/or organization to achieve the goals and contribute towards the organizations competitive advantage. Typical strategic questions involve customers, capital, capabilities, and commitments. Your strategic effort should focus on coherence, adequacy, and implementation. You’ll need to develop further skills with strategy through self study. A common challenge with strategic implementations is the discovery that the strategy must change due to a flaw, external factors, or other reasons. Making strategic course corrections depends on your STaRS model posture and your ability to persuade people.

Once you’ve made course corrections, often changes or alignments need to be made in the other areas; structure, skills, culture, and systems. You’ll need to juggle tradeoffs, conduct further analysis, and strengthen skills and systems. Adjusting culture is the greatest challenge. There are innumerable resources on managing cultural changes. Most cultural changes come down to perceived power and value added.

Getting aligned means identifying misalignments, developing a corrective plan, fostering a supporting culture, and a willingness to adjust mid-stream. You should already know the organizations STaRS model and prepare to operate in that environment earning your early wins! 

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

5. Negotiate Success: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

Negotiating success means proactively engaging the boss to shape the game in order to achieve desired goals. Too many just play the game reacting to the situation and failing to produce results. One alternative is to set the conditions or shape the environment to close the gap between expectations and realizations. This requires one to achieve a consensus on the situation then secure resources in order to deliver results. The higher up in the organization the greater the autonomy. The situation should be vetted against the STaRS model presented in an earlier blog posting in order to determine the level of involvement with the boss. While there is much to the relationship with the boss, this discussion will highlight the necessary discussions.

One mistake that should be avoided is assuming that older methods with the previous boss can be continued with the new boss. New boss means new approaches. Let us begin by focusing on fundamentals.

1. Do not trash the past
2. Reach out to your boss
3. Give your boss a heads up of emergent situations
4. Approach boss with solutions and workarounds
5. Engage your boss to overcome obstacles requiring his involvement
6. Adapt to the bosses style and idiosyncrasies
7. Take 100% responsibility for making the relationship work
8. Close the gap between expectations early and often
9. Negotiate timelines for diagnosis and solution planning
10. Aim early wins on issues important to the boss
11. Pursue positive remarks from those whose opinions the boss respects

There are five kinds of conversations that will occur during dialogue with your boss. Rarely, these conversations are distinctly made alone and may be combined or comingled in the ongoing conversations. Each style of conversation requires some sort of planning.

Situational diagnosis dialogues will reveal how the boss sees the situation. The first conversations should center on the STaRS model discussed in earlier post to determine the current situation type. In further planning this conversation, the challenges need to match organizational capabilities and capacity. Likewise, opportunities should match the organizational objectives. Thus, support matches the situation.

Conversations that expose expectations center on the situation and attempt to negotiate expectations. In planning the talk the short term and long term goals, timing, and how success is measured are aligned. Aim to match the situation to the expectations by assessing early wins aligned with what is important to the boss. Also seek to identify untouchables paying close attention to body language and listening to chatter. Float ideas gently when uncertain to get reactions. Educate the boss in order to shape the boss’s perceptions of the limitations. Bias yourself by under-promising or over-delivering results. This builds towards credibility. Clarify your boss’s expectations routinely.

Stylistic conversations seek to clarify how you and the boss communicate. In planning these conversations the process involves diagnosing your boss’s style, scoping the limitations of the boss, adapting to your boss’s style, and addressing difficult issues. The boss’s comfort zone is the limitations of the position. Address difficult issues to avoid the risk of being perceived as disrespect of incompetent.

Resource negotiations attempt to negotiate resources to meet the expectations. This may require a rethinking of the expectations if resources are constrained. Resource conversations begin by understanding the STaRS model situation then identifying tangibles and intangibles. The determination must be made to maintain the status quo or to change the circumstances. If establish processes need to change clarify needs first before speaking then stick to your guns. Finally, negotiate for the necessary resources by focusing on underlying interests and mutually beneficial exchanges then couple resources to results.

Personal development conversations seek to promote your success and tenure with the boss. This conversation occurs after the relationship has matured. Gather candid feedback and listen in a soft analysis manner. Do not focus on hard skills only. Key soft skills become exceptionally important in higher positions.

Early conversations focus on situation diagnosis then mature towards personal development conversations. All the conversations contribute towards organizing the 90 day plan. The first 30 day block is dedicated to learning and developing credibility. The second 30 day block is a plan that has developed and is being executed. The third 30 day block is the plan reviewed, adjusted, then moved forward towards realization of the expectations. At each conjuncture there is a formal conversation with the boss and ongoing dialogues during the blocks evaluating and adjusting the plan and expectations as appropriate.

In the end, you are a boss as much as reporting to one. Watkins delivers the Golden Rule of Transitions essentially commenting “Transition unto others as you would have others transition unto you.”

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

4. Securing Early Wins: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

Early wins are a key to proving yourself quickly and establishing credibility according to Michael Watkins, author of The First 90 Days. Watkins encourages that by the end of your transition, you’ll want everyone; the boss, peers, and subordinates alike, to feel like something new, something good, is happening. This will energize people. When executed well, the early wins help you create value and attain breakeven points quicker. Watkins offers further clarification into securing early wins.

First, he discusses avoiding common traps. That includes failing to focus, not taking the business situation into account or adjusting to the culture, letting the means undermine the results, and finally failing to achieve wins that matter to your boss. Addressing problems that your boss cares about will go a long way towards building credibility and cementing your access to resources.

Second, Watkins addresses making waves of change. Watkins model for change is 4 staged; transition, immersion, reshaping, and consolidation. This model’s time line may vary and early wins must occur in the transition stage of the model in support of the long term.

Watkins then moves off to discuss the long term goals based on early wins. The early wins, if effective, should build credibility and lay a foundation for the longer term goals. Two characteristic qualities of the effective early win is that the win is consistent with the A item list of business priorities and introduces new behavioral patterns. Be sure to define A list item goals with distinct end states in mind. Defining the A list items follows some basic guidelines. They should flow naturally from core problems and not be too narrow or broad. If developed accurately, A list items should provide clear direction and flexibility during the overarching learning process developing the longer term goals. Once the A list items are identified then behavioral patterns that are dysfunctional must be targeted. These dysfunctional behaviors typically center on focus, discipline, innovation, teamwork, and a sense of urgency. Therefore, the effective early win properly structured builds the foundation for the longer term goals.

Watkins then details how to proceed with early wins once armed with good A list items, the end state in mind, and behavioral changes that need to be made. The process begins with the objective to build credibility. Early actions will have a disproportionate influence on how you are perceived. Getting connected to the organization must be thought through. The first effort is to determine the messages being sent and modes of engagement. Cut out redundant meetings and repair relationships beginning with external ones. New leaders are perceived more credible when demanding but able to be satisfied, accessible but not familiar, decisive but judicious, focused and flexible, active without causing a commotion, and makes tough calls but is humane. These leaders leverage the teachable moments and secure tangible results by keeping long term goals in mind, identifying and concentrating on promising focal points, use pilot projects to build momentum and introduce new behaviors, and engage change agents.

Watkins points to avoiding predictable surprises in order to increase early win impacts. He identifies potential problem areas as external environmental trends, opinions, and legislation; changes in customers, markets, and strategies; internal capabilities and capacities; and organizational politics. In the end, leading change requires situational awareness, diagnoses of effective change, vision, planning, and building effective support. The effective leader matches strategy to the situation as discussed last week. Early modest improvements lead to greater fundamental changes desired in the long term goals. Therefore, the leader must understand the dynamics of effective early wins.

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

3. Match Strategy to Situation: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

You’ve stepped into your new position with a head full of good ideas and ambitious goals. Then you discover the situation is not so rosy. There are several serious problems that were masked by good performance numbers. Relationships are strained and structural problem prevent quick fixes. How does one tailor the strategy to solve these issues? In the book ‘The first 90 days’, the author Michael Watkins, discusses the process begins by methodically diagnosing the situation then understand the history followed by several more process steps to be discussed below.

According to Watkins, diagnosing the business situation involves four types of situations; start-up, turnaround, realignment, and sustaining success. This is known as the STaRS model and involves a lifecycle of a business operation. Understanding the character and politics of each situation will aide any new person at any level in the organizations at selecting the correct strategy.

Understanding the history of the operations aids in determining where the organization is at in the lifecycle of the STaRS model. Watkins illustrates the STaRS model and its transition phases of crisis, recovery, growth cycles (Watkins, 2003, p 63). Depending if the organization is in phase transition or maintaining a specific phase will determine the strategy necessary to achieve the right goals.

Identifying challenges and opportunities is dependent on the transition type which presents a distinct set of challenges. The principle idea Watkins presents is that good leaders will preserve what is good in the organization and leverage situational characteristics to build momentum for the right opportunities.

Watkins then discusses transforming organizational psychology and leading with the right skills. People’s mental condition is caveated by the STaRS situation at hand. Identifying the correct transition circumstances then understanding the psychology will allow the leader, you, to properly channel momentum and deflect, deter, of diminish negative emotions. Often the leader must ‘invent the challenge’ and rally people behind that challenge. Selecting the right skills for the challenge is also dependent on the transition mode of the organization.

Focusing your energy on the right activities is important. Watkin’s discusses three critical fundamentals; learning verses doing, offense verses defense, and securing early wins. Learning verses doing centers on time management. If too much time is spent learning then the situation could be overcome by events, OBE. Offense verses defense is focused on the balance between introducing new activities verses focusing on existing activities in the organization. This varies in relation to the STaRS model. Obviously a startup is high doing and offense, the introduction of many new processes, as compared to sustaining success which involves high defense and learning. Securing early wins builds momentum and supports all transition modes equally. As early credible wins are made momentum will build that carries the efforts along further since everyone wants to be on a winning team.

Watkins cautions that the STaRS model works but circumstances are not always pure. The leader must further diagnose the transition circumstances for hybrid or mix of transitions. He offers an example where at a high level the transition fits one STaRS model well but at lower levels of the organization there are multiple transitions ongoing in the various divisions as new product lines are introduced and older lines are being transitioned. The leader will assess this and determine the best approach, skills, and tools to employ.

In the end, rewarding success is dependent on the STaRS model positioning. High performance is rewarded differently in the STaRS model. Measureable outcomes are achieved differently based on the organizational situation. Hence, the rewards are formulated differently requiring more work and a deep understanding of the challenges faced. Finally, Watkins offers adopting a 4-d development process in your organization using the STaRS model to select talent and succession and development planning.
By employing Watkins approach leaders in new positions can add this to their tool kit in preparing for and executing success in the first 90 days.

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

2. Accelerate Your Learning: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

You’re in your new job and hit the deck running. You noted many areas of improvement and want to make your mark. You have the knowledge and enthusiasm to make the necessary changes. However, you find the people around you are reluctant and the changes you’ve effected are not causing the intended effects had hoped. What happened?

When a leader in a new position derails, a failure to learn is almost always a factor. Many leaders on their new job fail to take the time to do their due diligence. That is study the company, operations, and history of their new employer. According to Michael Watkins, author of the First 90 Days, there are a host of reasons why leaders fail to learn that range from innate learning disabilities to poor learning skills to, worse yet, unwillingness and/or not planning to learn.

The learning process begins with a genuine ability to listen. This begins to establish credibility and influence according to Watkins. Watkins then calls learning an investment discussing effective and efficient learning methods. Effective learning identifies what is important and the areas where learning should occur. Efficient learning relates to extracting the maximum knowledge with the least effort in terms of time.

Early questions should center on why things are the way they are. In a brief assessment, one should question beginning with the past then move into the emergent and then focus on the future. The learning process typically involves hard data but also includes soft knowledge. Soft system analysis involves questioning and listening sage people within and external to the organization. In doing so, the leader must distinguish between perceptions and realities. Once this brief assessment is made the leader should have idea on where to focus learning efforts.

The next step is to adopt a systematic structured learning method in order to delve into the focus areas vetted during the brief assessment. Structured learning is not locked into a specific method but is generalized usually involving a set of carefully crafted questions and a structured investigation that discovers the answers. The process begins with the carefully crafted questions and a learning plan. Watkins offers a template for this learning plan which involves learning about the culture and assessing the best approach to instituting workplace reforms. Should your changes being an adaptation, alteration, or assimilation?

In the end, listening and learning are the key complimentary efforts to each other. These will be important in the early assessment which will be used to develop prudent and salient questions to be investigated. The result of the learning process should be to determine the tolerance levels for changes that need to be made and the approach to implementing those changes.

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

1. Promote Yourself: Proving Yourself on Your New Job

So, you are on your new job, what is next? Promote Yourself! The efforts that make many people successful and result in a promotion are often not reflected in the new opportunity. According to Michael Watkins, author of the First 90 Days, a fundamental challenge leaders have is mentally preparing oneself for the new opportunity. Watkins argues that promoting oneself is not self-serving, grandstanding, or a marketing campaign. Instead, he argues that leaders must prepare themselves mentally for the challenges ahead by releasing old habits and focusing on new methods. Watkins provides some guidance on this.

1. Establish a clear breakpoint. In the real world events sometimes are not so defined. You may work two jobs or go off to a new job nearly instantly. Whatever happens you must be disciplined and make the mental transitions.
   
2. Hit the ground running. You’ll get the first 90 days to make your transition. It is a key milestone. Educate yourself to the maximum about the position and organization.
   
3. Assess your own vulnerabilities. You are hired based on your skill set and your perceived future value. All people tend to gravitate towards their preferences and away from their weaknesses. You want to avoid an imbalance that creates exposure for you. Watkins offers an assessment of your preferences in order to score your natural tendencies. The result illustrates the spheres of your strengths and weaknesses. You can manage vulnerabilities through self-discipline, team building, advice, and sound counsel.
   
4. Manage your strengths. Strengths can become a weakness. You must manage the application of your strengths.
   
5. Relearn how to Learn. Steep learning curves are formable. There is a tendency to gravitate towards that which is comfortable. You’ll need to embrace learning and anticipate then prioritize in the learning process. All new leaders get the cold sweat. So you are not alone.
   
6. Rework your Network. Your new position requires a new network of talent and resources. Therefore, trim the old connections that no longer apply and seek fresh new input and support.
   
7. Watch out for those who want to hold you back. Other people may not want you to progress. Some rely on your stability or being around. Others may be nay sayers. Either way you need to be realistic and communicate expectations.

Promoting yourself can be challenging work. You must think through the difficult tasks and barriers ahead of you and effectively management them. It is a journey not a destination. Your success or failure depends on your journey and avoiding backsliding. You have the skills, you just have to learn to use them.

I will explore in the next several blogs postings, Proving Yourself on Your New Job. The steps are:

01. Promote Yourself
02. Accelerate Your Learning
03. Match Strategy to Situation
04. Securing Early Wins
05. Negotiate Success
06. Achieve Alignment
07. Build Your Team
08. Create Coalitions
09. Keep Your Balance
10. Expedite Everyone

Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; james.bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

Proving Yourself on Your New Job

This post is the beginning of a series of posts summarizing the book The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels by Michael Watkins.

Every new job, new friendship, or any other new interpersonal relationship is graced with a first impression and honeymoon term. During this term, everyone is blissful. However, actions and activities during this period determine your future relationship. This is a chance to start fresh and to make needed changes in yourself and an organization. There are risks and rewards. The idea is to get past this period converting value consumed into value created by your presence.

Michael Watkins presents in his book, The First 90 Days, five (5) prepositions that underpin his approach to success in a new job. They are:

1. The cause of success results from a transitional balance between the situational opportunities and pitfalls and the individual’s strengths and vulnerabilities.
2. There are systematic methods available to people in leadership roles to lessen risks and reach the transition point swifter converting value consumed into value created.
3. The overarching goal is to build momentum by creating virtuous cycles that build credibility by avoiding vicious cycles that damage credibility.
4. The transitions periods are crucibles for leadership development and should be managed accordingly.
5. Adoption of a standard framework for accelerating transitions can yield big returns to organizations.

With his propositions understood, his plan then hinges on a 10 step road map for accelerating success and Proving Yourself on Your New Job

The steps are:

 01. Promote Yourself
 02. Accelerate Your Learning
 03. Match Strategy to Situation
 04. Securing Early Wins
 05. Negotiate Success
 06. Achieve Alignment
 07. Build Your Team
 08. Create Coalitions
 09. Keep Your Balance
 10. Expedite Everyone

I will explore in the next several blogs postings Proving Yourself on Your New Job. Should you have any comments or questions please feel free to post or email me; James.Bogden@gmail.com.

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.