CONTENTS
Introduction: The First 90 Days
Why transitions are critical times. How new leaders can take charge
more effectively. Building career transition competence. Assessing
transition risk in taking a new role.
1. Prepare Yourself
Why people fail to make the mental break from their old jobs. Preparing
to take charge in a new role. Understanding the challenges of promotion
and onboarding. Assessing preferences and vulnerabilities.
2. Accelerate Your Learning
Learning as an investment process. Planning to learn. Figuring out the
best sources of insight. Using structured methods to accelerate learning.
3. Match Strategy to Situation
The dangers of “one-best-way” thinking. Diagnosing the situation to
develop the right strategy. The STARS model of types of transitions.
Using the model to analyze portfolios, and lead change.
4. Negotiate Success
Building a productive working relationship with a new boss. The five-
conversations framework. Defining expectations. Agreeing on a diagnosis of the situation. Figuring out how to work together.
Negotiating for resources. Putting together your 90-day plan.
5. Secure Early Wins
Avoiding common traps. Figuring out A-item priorities. Creating a
compelling vision. Building personal credibility. Getting started on
improving organizational performance. Plan-then-implement change
versus collective learning.
6. Achieve Alignment
The role of the leader as organizational architect. Identifying the root
causes of poor performance. Aligning strategy, structure, systems,
skills, and culture.
7. Build Your Team
Inheriting a team and changing it. Managing the tension between short-
term and long-term goals. Working team restructuring and organizational architecture issues in parallel. Putting in place new team processes.
8. Create Alliances
The trap of thinking that authority is enough. Identifying whose support
is critical. Mapping networks of influence and patterns of deference.
Altering perceptions of interests and alternatives.
9. Manage Yourself
How leaders get caught in vicious cycles. The three pillars of self-
efficacy. Creating and enforcing personal disciplines. Building an
advice-and-counsel network.
10. Accelerate Everyone
Why so few companies focus on transition acceleration. The opportunity
to institutionalize a common framework. Using the framework to
accelerate team development, develop high-potential leaders, integrate
acquisitions, and strengthen succession planning.
