Transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders. Early missteps can create bad first impressions, leading to negative feedback loops in which leaders look increasingly unsuited for the job. Left unchecked, irreparable harm can have a lasting effect on a leader’s transition to a new position.
In the updated edition of Master Your Next Move: The Essential Companion to “The First 90 Days, leaders will learn how to avoid making common mistakes — not learning enough about their new company’s culture and politics, trying to do too much too soon, not aligning expectations, and coming in with “the answer” — the likes of which, can lead to underperformance or derailment.
In his international bestseller The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Better, Michael Watkins outlined a framework for getting up to speed more effectively in a new role. Since its initial release in 2003, Watkins has worked with global enterprise leaders — both in the classroom at Harvard University, INSEAD and the IMD Business School, and in his private consulting practice at Genesis Advisers — helping them make successful transitions. The First 90 Days® framework can be applied in every career transition, but the way it is applied changes according to the transition challenge or mix of challenges.
Billed as “The Essential Companion to The First 90 Days,” Master Your Next Move answers a distinct need, focusing on the most common types of transitions leaders face and the unique challenges posed by each. Based on years of research and practical experience, this book explores eight crucial transition challenges, including promotions, leading former peers, onboarding, aligning expectations with new stakeholders, figuring out how to save an organization from failure, and uprooting a family to a new place while finding a fresh support system.
Organizations face a constant churn of career transitions. Cumulatively, the success or failure of those transitions has a major impact on overall organizational performance. Addressing transitions is an essential element of enterprise risk management and a source of competitive advantage. Research shows that the right support can yield 50 percent reductions in the time required for leaders to reach optimal performance in their new roles, and Michael Watkins has provided a clear road map to navigate these potentially turbulent times and guidance on how to apply his framework in a variety of common transition challenge contexts.
With real-world examples and many practical tools, the updated edition of Master Your Next Move: The Essential Companion to The First 90 Days is your guide to surviving and thriving as you make your next move and each subsequent move across your career. It is available for purchase here, where you can also download the new introduction.
About the Author
Michael Watkins is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD Business School. He has spent the last two decades working with enterprise leaders as they transition to new roles, build their teams and transform their organizations.
