#Goals for first 90 days in new job how to
#Goals for first 90 days in new job series

Your transition begins the moment you learn you are being considered for a new role. According to Michael Watkins, leaders experience a major role transition every one and a half years on average.

#Goals for first 90 days in new job series

A successful career is a series of new assignments, all of which require successful transitions. If you're a high performer or aspiring leader, you should invest time and effort into getting good at role transitions. Today, a long career at a single company in a single role is rare. The ability to successfully transition into new roles is a critical skill. And once you officially start the new role, you enter the taking charge phase. Once you have been selected, you enter the pre-entry phase. Michael Watkins calls this the preselection phase. In a new role, the actions you take during your first few months dictate whether you will succeed or fail. Don't forget about the stakeholders who fall outside of your reporting hierarchy. Also, Identify your key stakeholders and develop the working relationships and trust required to succeed. Identify the cultural norms and align with them. Understand the strategic business plan, the products and services, the industry, and the competition. Develop a “birds-eye view” of the people, processes, and systems.

When you join a new company, you should start by getting familiar with the business.

You also often have to start from zero with credibility and build new working relationships. When you join a new organization, you have to adjust to a new business context, political structure, and culture. If you don't fit, the company's immune system may reject you. You're the organ and the company is the body. Joining a new company is like an organ transplant. You’ll also need to establish new communication channels to inform you about what is happening and communicate your strategy and vision across the organization. As you rise in an organization, leveraging authority becomes less effective for getting stuff done. This includes rethinking what you are delegating and how you leverage influencer versus authority. This comes with increase scrutiny and requires you to rebalance your role in the organization. When you're promoted, your responsibilities grow. The two most common types of transitions are 1) getting promoted within a current organization and 2) onboarding into a new organization. During your first 90 days, it's important to accelerate your learning, secure early wins, and create alliances. You are vulnerable because you lack established working relations and a clear understanding of the new role. Transitions into new roles are the most challenging periods of a professional's life. In 2006, The Economist called The First 90 Days “the onboarding bible.” The First 90 Days provides strategies for getting up to speed faster in a new leadership role. When you accept a new leadership role, you embark on what Michael Watkins calls a 'leadership transition'. He specializes in helping first-time CEOs work with their boards, navigate and shape external complexities, and assess and reshape their teams.

#Goals for first 90 days in new job how to

Michael advises C-level executives on how to succeed as they take on challenging new roles. Michael Watkins is the author of The First 90 Days and the co-founder of Genesis Advisers.