The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded

No matter how much preparation time you get, start planning what you hope to accomplish by specific milestones. Even a few hours of preentry planning can go a long way. Begin by thinking about your first day in the new job. What do you want to do by the end of that day? Then move to the first week. Then focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three-month mark. These plans will be sketchy, but the simple act of beginning to plan will help clear your head.

What will it take for you to reach the break-even point more quickly? What are some traps you might encounter, and how can you avoid them? What can you do to create virtuous cycles and build momentum in your new role? What types of transitions are you experiencing? Which are you finding most challenging, and why? What are the key elements and milestones in your 90-day plan?

Her earlier success in marketing was the result of extraordinary attention to detail. Accustomed to managing with authority and making the calls, she had a high need for control and a tendency to micromanage. When she tried to continue making decisions, members of the team initially said nothing. But soon two key members challenged her knowledge and authority. Stung, she focused on the area she knew best: the marketing aspects of the launch. Her efforts to micromanage the members of the marketing team alienated them. Within a month and a half, Julia was back in marketing, and someone else was leading the team.

She failed to grasp that the strengths that had made her successful in marketing could be liabilities in a role that required her to lead without direct authority or superior expertise. She kept doing what she knew how to do, making her feel confident and in control. The result, of course, was the opposite. By not letting go of the past and not fully embracing her new role, she squandered a big opportunity to rise in the organization.

It’s a mistake to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job,

doing what you know how to do (and avoiding what you don’t) can appear to work, at least for a while. You can exist in a state of denial, believing that because you’re being efficient, you’re being effective.

At the broadest level, preparing yourself means letting go of the past and embracing the imperatives of the new situation to give yourself a running start. It can be hard work, but it is essential. Often, promising managers fail in new roles because they’ve failed to prepare themselves by embracing the necessary changes in perspective.

You must figure out what it takes to be excellent in the new role, how to exceed the expectations of those who promoted you, and how to position yourself for still greater things.

Each time you’re promoted, your horizon broadens to encompass a wider set of issues and decisions. So you need to gain and sustain a high-level perspective in your new role.

You also need to learn to strike the right balance between keeping the wide view and drilling down into the details.

the keys to effective delegation remain much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics to monitor their progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through process.

Paradoxically, when you get promoted, positional authority often becomes less important for pushing agendas forward.

Decision making becomes more political—less about authority, and more about influence.

the issues you’re dealing with become much more complex and ambiguous when you move up a level—and your ability to identify “right” answers based solely on data and analysis declines correspondingly. Decisions are shaped more by others’ expert judgments and who trusts

at a higher level of the organization, the other players are more capable and have stronger egos. Remember, you were promoted because you are able and driven; the same is true for everyone around you. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the decision-making game becomes much more bruising and politically charged the higher up you go. It’s critical, then, for you to become more effective at building and sustaining alliances.

you are farther from the front lines and more likely to receive filtered information. To avoid this, you need to establish new communication channels to stay connected with what is happening where the action is.

meet regularly with groups of frontline employees, all without undermining the integrity of the chain of command.

establish new channels for communicating your strategic intent and vision across the organization

Your direct reports should play a greater role in communicating your vision and ensuring the spread of critical information

what does a leader look like at your new level in the hierarchy? How does he act? What kind of personal leadership brand do you want to have in the new role? How will you make it your own? These are critical considerations, worth taking the time to explore.