The first 90 days for a leader in a new organisation is all about getting up to speed as quickly as possible, creating the best first impression and generating a positive momentum for success. However senior leader transitions are a challenging and risky time for both the organisation and the leader.
Organisational costs include delays in business momentum as a new leader gets up to speed, the impact of poorly onboarded leaders on their teams, and the cost to the business in general of a new leader who performs disappointingly or ultimately exits the business early.
There is also the impact on the leader themselves, the personal toll, and stress, of starting a new role or taking on new responsibilities, often paired with feeling out of control, fear of failing, out of their depth, and potentially losing their confidence as a leader. The statistics on the business impact of failed transitions are summarised in this post on Executive Transitions by Navid Nazemian.
A 90-day program can help a new leader navigate the challenges of assimilation into a new organisation. At its heart, a 90-day program is a structured way of thinking about and analysing a new situation, clarifying outcomes and expectations, creating a plan, getting stakeholders aligned…and doing all this efficiently and effectively in a condensed period. It’s remarkably adaptable for any transition: taking on a program or project, a secondment or inheriting a new team or additional part of the business. It’s an approach that will be helpful many times over in any career. After all a career is just a series of transitions.
There are some great books about how to assimilate new leaders, the best known being Michael Watkin’s The First 90 Days which is a complete guide to hitting the ground running in a new role. Many of the insights I share below are taken from his work.
A good 90-day transition program is about much more than simple onboarding, it’s about assimilating the new leader as efficiently and effectively as possible.
As a leader helping another leader assimilate successfully what should you be aware of?
There are some unique challenges for leaders who are promoted internally, and I have written about them here. However, a leader moving to a new organisation has probably been hired as a lateral move, meaning they have been brought in to do something they already have experience in, at a level they are mostly used to operating at. As well as the general challenges of matching leadership style to the situation and forming a relationship with their new boss and team, their additional challenges are going to be understanding the new company and culture. These form the 5 focus areas in a 90-day plan to assimilate an external leader.
1. Matching leadership style to situation
Each leader has particular ways of leading that have made them successful in the past. Good leaders have more than one style that they bring into play depending on the situation and different business situations call for different leadership styles.
However when we are under pressure we tend to just default to our most comfortable style, and a new job is a time of pressure. If the new leader defaults to a style that is a mismatch for the situation it can delay effectiveness or even result in failure for the new leader.
The work by Dan Goleman on different leadership styles and when to use them is a useful resource. He describes 6 leadership styles, the pros and cons of each and which situation calls for which style.
An important focus for the new leader, therefore, is to understand the situation they are coming into, understand their default style preferences and be coached on what leadership style will give the best outcomes.
Without this matching of leadership style to the situation, there is a greater risk of the new leader falling into any of the 6 common derailers.
2. Having the 4 key conversations with their new boss
There are 4 key conversations new leaders need to have with their new boss in the first 90 days:
Conversation on the situation:
This is important so the new leaders can bring the most effective leadership style for the situation. The types of situations a new leader faces differ in the degree to which initiating, shaping the direction, maintaining a path, growing, transforming or re-focussing are seen as priorities. The new leader needs to understand this in order to match their leadership style.
Conversation on expectations:
This conversation needs to include role expectations and both what is in, and importantly out of, scope. Helping the new leader by clarifying what is off limits is important, and expectations should include the “how” as well as the “what” to give the new leader some cultural insights into how work gets done at the organisation.
Conversation on resources and support:
Agreement on resources and what the new leader needs in order to be successful (people, time, financials, support, decisions). Like the conversation on expectations, this happens early on but can only be firmed up as an agreement, with expectations, once the new leader has fully diagnosed the situation and has thought through some approaches.
Conversation on the relationship:
Understanding the boss’s view on how the relationship will work (what the boss wants to be informed/consulted on etc), and how, and what, they will communicate and share updates.
3. Leading the new team
Taking a team workshop approach to assimilate a new leader into their team saves a lot of time and builds trust early on. This is most effective when done in the first week before the leader starts doing 1:1’s with their team. See above for how to run the new leader/team onboarding workshop, depending on the size of the team it takes about 3 hours when run in one session:
Following this workshop, the new leader should have 1:1’s with each team member, which can be more directed to the individual as the generic introduction has already been done in the workshop.
To help the new leader get a feel for the team it’s good practice to prepare a small number of standard questions to ask each team member. This consistency is really helpful to see the different perspectives of each team member and general team make-up.
4. Understanding the organisation
It may have been a while since a new leader has had to plan an approach to learning but joining a new organisation requires a structured approach to quickly identifying the knowledge that is needed to operate effectively.
Having a clear learning plan for the new leaders will help them be intentional, structured and systematic about learning. A plan should include where to find sources of information and who to go to for information. It should cover all inputs and outputs of the role, the strategy, finances, the operating model and people processes. Unless the new leader has taken such an approach in the past it is easy to get swept up in the vast amount of organisation information and quickly become overwhelmed and inefficient in learning.
5. Understanding the organisational culture
Matching leadership style to the situation is one thing, but it needs to be in the context of the organisational culture (and sub-cultures). Think of cultural awareness as the oil that is going to make a new leader’s assimilation smoother. As culture is mostly invisible it can be really hard for a new leader to understand but cultural mistakes tend to trigger significant reactions that impact first impressions.
Culture becomes clearer if you know where to look for it. A new leader should focus on observing how decisions are made, how and what is communicated and how meetings are run as a guide to the new organisation’s culture. By comparing these to the culture in their previous organisation they can start to build a picture of the culture in their new organisation. We learn things quicker (new culture) when we can compare them to something we already know (old culture). New leaders can be supported by coaching to notice and reflect on what these differences are indicating and how to adapt their approaches to suit the new culture.
Cultural reports and engagement surveys are useful but will need to be translated for the new leader into how each cultural element in the reports manifests itself at the level of the organisation and their function/team.
Getting the right 90-day plan
There is no one best 90-day plan, it depends on the complexity of the organisation and the role. The benefit comes from having a structured plan that makes sense for the context the new leader is entering and is based on the 5 focus areas: leadership style, key conversations with new boss, leading the new team, and understanding the business and the culture.
Overall, the first 90 days in a new role are a critical time for a new leaders to establish themselves, build relationships and set the stage for their success in the role, however, it can be a very high-risk and challenging time for the organisation and the leader. With the support of a structured 90-day program, a new leader can build their organisational knowledge and awareness in a focused way, enabling them to get up to speed and effectiveness quickly.
To find out more about how to structure and run a 90-day program for successful leadership transitions book a discovery call with Sarah Robertson Consulting.
