D Watkins Quotes

To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization. If you do the right things, then your vision, your expertise, and your drive can propel you forward and serve as seed crystals.

In the silence, I could hear the distinct sound of goats maa-ing in the barn. Lying there listening to them made me smile, too. I'd always loved goats - every one of them different from every other one, and all of them goofy and playful.

Match Strategy to Situation

Leadership ultimately is about influence and leverage. You are, after all, only one person. To be successful, you need to mobilize the energy of many others in your organization.

Begin with no; it's easier to say yes later. It's difficult (and damaging to your reputation) to say yes and then change your mind.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected.

Assume that the job of building a positive relationship with your new boss is 100 percent your responsibility. In short, this means adapting to his style.

They'd drink like men, like their fathers and uncles, like George fucking Washington...

Secure early wins. Early wins build your credibility and create momentum.

The most important decisions you make in your first 90 days will probably be about people.

No, Mo," Miss Watkins said, turning to Nesta who was crying with laughter. "Nesta Williams, seeing as you clearly find it so funny. What do you think the name of God might be?" "Er, not sure," said Nesta, looking caught out. "What do you think?" "I don't think," said Miss Watkins."I know." "I don't think I know either," giggled Nesta. The whole class got detention, but it was worth it. I felt like i'd spent the whole morning laughing my head off We never did get to know what God's name was.

The streets provide an education in everything that many of these schools don’t, such as survival skills, kinship, moneymaking opportunities, and love. A love that is absent from the cold hallways of schools such as the ones Butta, I, and millions of other African Americans attend or attended. Butta’s school has been shut down, along

Aligning an organization is like preparing for a long sailing trip. First, you need to be clear on whether your destination (the mission and goals) and your route (the strategy) are the right ones. Then you can figure out which boat you need (the structure), how to outfit it (the processes), and which mix of crew members is best (the skill bases). Throughout the journey, you keep an eye out for reefs that are not on the charts.

She’d long ago given up trying to visualize God. There was no He or She. This was a Presence higher than gender, race or religion, transcending identity. All she would ever hope to do was follow the lamplit path into a place within and yet beyond her own heart and stay there and wait, patient and passive and without forced piety.

What is culture? It’s a set of consistent patterns people follow for communicating, thinking, and acting, all grounded in their shared assumptions and values.

He’d always had a crush on me. I never liked him because he wasn’t a challenge.

Remember: You don’t want to be meeting your neighbours for the first time in the middle of the night when your house is burning

Finally, when your relationship with your boss has matured a bit (roughly the 90-day mark is a good rule of thumb), begin to discuss how you’re doing.

Don’t surprise your boss. It’s no fun bringing your boss bad news. However, most bosses consider it a far greater sin not to report emerging problems early enough.

Don’t stay away. If you have a boss who doesn’t reach out to you, or with whom you have uncomfortable interactions, you will have to reach out yourself.

Poverty, injustice, and reading comprehension issues go hand in hand,

Once people perceive that change is going to happen, the game often shifts from outright opposition to a competition to influence what sort of change will occur.

From Portrait of a Landscape I think art only exists when it's being made. It's like a flower. Once picked, it starts to die.

How much more of this? Merrily sat down in a chair at the end of the back row, feeling as though she’d been mugged. Fragments of faith scattered like credit cards in the gutter.

Remember: simply displaying a genuine desire to learn and understand translates into increased credibility and influence.

Read Talking With Young Children About Adoption by Susan Fisher, M.D., and Mary Watkins, Ph.D. (Yale University Press, 1995).

Pursue good marks from those whose opinions your boss respects. Your new boss’s opinion of you will be based in part on direct interactions and in part on what she hears about you from trusted others.

I was trying to be a good friend,’ said Ilsa, sounding frustrated. ‘However much of a dickhead he is, I don’t want him paying child support to bloody Bijou Watkins for the next eighteen years. She’d make a nightmarish

Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission.

Take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work. This is the flip side of “Don’t stay away.” Don’t expect your boss to reach out or to offer you the time and support you need. It’s best to begin by assuming that it’s on your shoulders to make the relationship work.

Delegating, thinking strategically, communicating—you may think this all sounds like Management 101. And you’re right. The most basic elements of management are often what trip up managers early in their careers. And because they are the basics, the bosses of rookie managers often take them for granted. They shouldn’t—an extraordinary number of people fail to develop these skills. I’ve maintained an illusion throughout this article—that only rookie managers suffer because they haven’t mastered these core skills. But the truth is, managers at all levels make these mistakes. An organization that supports its new managers by helping them to develop these skills will have surprising advantages over the competition.

If you are in a privileged group, and you want to help oppressed people, one of the best things you can do is teach other people in your privileged group. As a person of privilege, you do not have to actually face the oppression, so you have time to teach. Oppressed people do not have the energy to teach everyone about the oppression they have to live through every day.

Don’t run down your checklist. There is a tendency, even for senior leaders, to use meetings with a boss as an opportunity to run through your checklist of what you’ve been doing. Sometimes this is appropriate, but it is rarely what your boss needs or wants to hear. You should assume she wants to focus on the most important things you’re trying to do and how she can help.

My city is gone, my history depleted, ruined, and undocumented. I don’t know this new Baltimore, it’s alien to me. Baltimore is Brooklyn and DC now. No, Baltimore is Chicago or New Orleans or any place where yuppie interests make black neighborhoods shrink like washed sweaters. A place where black history is bulldozed and replaced with Starbucks, Chipotles, and dog parks.

If it is humanly possible, you should plan to have one or more in-person meetings with your boss early on. It is essential to make face-to-face connections early on to begin to establish a basis of confidence and trust (the same is true if you’re leading a virtual team). So if this means you need to fight for the resources and fly halfway around the world, you should do it.

Even though I was born in America, and my ancestors built its infrastructure for free, I’m not a part of the “Our” when they sing, “Our flag was still there!” I feel like the “Our” doesn’t include blacks, most women, gays, trans, and poor people of all colors. And, sadly, our nation reminds us every day. Some may reject the anthem because Francis Scott Key sang for freedom while enslaving blacks. His hatred even bled into the lyrics of the elongated version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” you won’t hear at a sporting event. The third stanza reads: No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave That line was basically a shot at slaves who agreed to fight with the British during the War of 1812 in exchange for their freedom.

Build your team. If you are inheriting a team, you need to evaluate, align, and mobilize its members. You likely also need to restructure it to better meet the demands of the situation. Your willingness to make tough early personnel calls and your capacity to select the right people for the right positions are among the most important drivers of success during your transition and beyond.

Aim for early wins in areas important to the boss. Whatever your own priorities, figure out what your boss cares about most. What are his priorities and goals, and how do your actions fit into this picture? Once you know, aim for early results in those areas. One good way is to focus on three things that are important to your boss and discuss what you’re doing about them every time you interact.

My grandfather was a railroad brakeman, sixty years with the D&H. I'd sit on his lap when I was little, I remember, at the upstairs apartment on Watkins Avenue in Oneonta overlooking the tracks, and we'd look out at the yard together and watch the trains hooking up, and he'd pull his gold watch out of his vest pocket and squint at the dial, a gold pocket watch, and the bulging surface of the watch case was all scritch-scratched, etched with tiny soft lines, hundreds of tiny scratches, interlaced. And then he'd check the yard, my Grandpa, to see if the trains were running on time. In those days there was a rhythm to everything, there was an order to things, but now we're riding a runaway train that's carrying us all away to that final night where nothing is remembered and nothing matters.

The first task in making a successful transition is to accelerate your learning. Effective learning gives you the foundational insights you need as you build your plan for the next 90 days. So it is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can. The more efficiently and effectively you learn, the more quickly you will close your window of vulnerability.

Strategic direction encompasses mission, vision, and strategy. Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission. If you keep in mind the what, the why, and the how, you won’t get lost in debates about what a mission is, what a vision is, and what a strategy is.

If you are leading a turnaround and need to assemble a team quickly, it can make sense to hire capable people you know and trust. But in less-urgent situations, the reflex to bring in people you know can easily be interpreted to mean you’re dissatisfied with the level of talent in your new organization. If you need to replace people on your team, the first place to look is one level below. The second best option is to hire people from the outside—just not from your old organization(s).

When you are diagnosing a new organization, start by meeting with your direct reports one-on-one. (This is an example of taking a horizontal slice across an organization by interviewing people at the same level in different functions.) Ask them essentially the same five questions: What are the biggest challenges the organization is facing (or will face in the near future)? Why is the organization facing (or going to face) these challenges? What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth? What would need to happen for the organization to exploit the potential of these opportunities? If you were me, what would you focus attention on?

Onboarding checklists Business orientation checklist As early as possible, get access to publicly available information about financials, products, strategy, and brands. Identify additional sources of information, such as websites and analyst reports. If appropriate for your level, ask the business to assemble a briefing book. If possible, schedule familiarization tours of key facilities before the formal start date. Stakeholder connection checklist Ask your boss to identify and introduce you to the key people you should connect with early on. If possible, meet with some stakeholders before the formal start. Take control of your calendar, and schedule early meetings with key stakeholders. Be careful to focus on lateral relationships (peers, others) and not only vertical ones (boss, direct reports). Expectations alignment checklist Understand and engage in business planning and performance management. No matter how well you think you understand what you need to do, schedule a conversation with your boss about expectations in your first week. Have explicit conversations about working styles with bosses and direct reports as early as possible. Cultural adaptation checklist During recruiting, ask questions about the organization’s culture. Schedule conversations with your new boss and HR to discuss work culture, and check back with them regularly. Identify people inside the organization who could serve as culture interpreters. After thirty days, conduct an informal 360-degree check-in with your boss and peers to gauge how adaptation is proceeding.

The climate for relationships within an innovation group is shaped by the climate outside it. Having a negative instead of a positive culture can cost a company real money. During Seagate Technology’s troubled period in the mid-to-late 1990s, the company, a large manufacturer of disk drives for personal computers, had seven different design centers working on innovation, yet it had the lowest R&D productivity in the industry because the centers competed rather than cooperated. Attempts to bring them together merely led people to advocate for their own groups rather than find common ground. Not only did Seagate’s engineers and managers lack positive norms for group interaction, but they had the opposite in place: People who yelled in executive meetings received “Dog’s Head” awards for the worst conduct. Lack of product and process innovation was reflected in loss of market share, disgruntled customers, and declining sales. Seagate, with its dwindling PC sales and fading customer base, was threatening to become a commodity producer in a changing technology environment. Under a new CEO and COO, Steve Luczo and Bill Watkins, who operated as partners, Seagate developed new norms for how people should treat one another, starting with the executive group. Their raised consciousness led to a systemic process for forming and running “core teams” (cross-functional innovation groups), and Seagate employees were trained in common methodologies for team building, both in conventional training programs and through participation in difficult outdoor activities in New Zealand and other remote locations. To lead core teams, Seagate promoted people who were known for strong relationship skills above others with greater technical skills. Unlike the antagonistic committees convened during the years of decline, the core teams created dramatic process and product innovations that brought the company back to market leadership. The new Seagate was able to create innovations embedded in a wide range of new electronic devices, such as iPods and cell phones.

recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage.

done. Why did he stick around? Why would he force that encounter with you on the road, and that night at the diner . . .” He looked at Chris as though willing him to fill in the blanks, but Chris’s implacable eyes gave away nothing. “Wait,” Beck said, “I just remembered something. When Watkins came into the diner, I remember him looking surprised to see us there. But it was only me he was surprised to see, wasn’t it? He said he was there for a business . . . Ah,” he said with sudden enlightenment. “The payoff. He was meeting you there to get his money. “That was the night of Billy’s accident. I’d just come from the hospital. Our unscheduled meeting in the diner prevented you from conducting your transaction with Watkins. No wonder he was so angry that night on the road. He still hadn’t been paid. He was getting antsy. The heat was shifting from you onto him. In desperation, he went to Sayre and got Scott focused on the fratricide angle. That brought things to a head, so you arranged for a meeting with Watkins at the camp this morning.” Chris grinned. “I bet you aced law school, didn’t you? You’re actually very sharp. But, Beck, the only thing I would swear to under oath is that Slap Watkins came crashing through the door of the cabin, waving a knife and telling me he was going to kill his second Hoyle and how giddy he was at the prospect.” “I have no doubt that’s what happened, Chris. He just arrived earlier than you expected. He wanted to get the jump on you because he didn’t trust you. Justifiably. Even Watkins was smart enough to realize that you weren’t about to hand over money and let him walk away from that last meeting. He signed his own death warrant the minute he agreed to kill Danny.” “Please, Beck. Let’s not get sentimental over Slap. A double cross was his plan from the very beginning. Why do you think he left that matchbook in the cabin?” Beck mentally stepped back from himself and considered his options. He could leave now. Simply turn around and walk out. Go to Sayre. Live out the rest of his days loving her, and to hell with Chris and Huff, their treachery and corruption, to hell with their stinking, maiming, life-taking foundry. He was so damn weary of the struggle and the pretense. He longed to throw off this mantle of responsibility, to forget he ever knew the Hoyles and let the devil take them—if he would have them. That was what he wanted to do. Or he could stay and do what he had committed to do. As appealing as the former option was, the latter was preordained. “Slap Watkins didn’t plant the matchbook in the cabin, Chris.” He held Chris’s stare for several seconds, before adding, “I did.” • • • George

Consciously or unconsciously, you may choose to delay by burying yourself in other work or fool yourself into believing that the time isn’t ripe to make the call. The result is what leadership thinkers have termed work avoidance: the tendency to avoid taking the bull by the horns, which results in tough problems becoming even tougher.1

But she would ask and ask and ask to get to the bottom of something. You would say something to her, she would say it back to you, and that way everyone was 100% clear on what we were talking about. Once she got the information and knew what you were doing, you had to be consistent. She would say, ‘You told me X; why are you doing Y? I’m confused.’” Although she was demanding, she didn’t demand that people do things her way. Her subordinates were committed to the team’s goals because they were empowered, not ordered, to achieve them.

To a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

you can decide to learn and adapt, or you can become brittle and fail.

The first task in making a successful transition is to accelerate your learning.

it is essential to figure out what you need to know about your new organization and then to learn it as rapidly as you can. The more efficiently and effectively you learn, the more quickly you will close your window of vulnerability.

leaders strike the right balance between doing (making things happen) and being (observing and reflecting).

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ. If you’re not thoughtful in adapting to the new situation, you could end up being attacked by the organizational immune system and rejected. Witness David’s challenges at Energix.

To overcome these barriers and succeed in joining a new company, you should focus on four pillars of effective onboarding: business orientation, stakeholder connection, alignment of expectations, and cultural adaptation.

Planning to learn means figuring out in advance what the important questions are and how you can best answer them. Few

Therefore, I was stuck with Joi. I didn’t have many female friends. Well, none, actually. Since high school, I’d lost one friend after another. Women just didn’t like me.

Terrance didn’t even bother to complain about my attitude either. Like I said, he’d left me for my ex best friend.

I’d taken her cell phone as punishment and to keep her from calling Twon. I couldn’t believe that she had the audacity to go over to Faye’s house.

recruiting is like romance, and employment is like marriage. As

I beg your pardon, dune sea, but I am just here to get my girls. If you would kindly. This is not my first desert, you see. I am not done with my life—I’d say I’m about halfway through. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. I am a young white man in America and we typically do quite well here. So if you will excuse me.

FOGLAMP project checklist FOGLAMP is an acronym for focus, oversight, goals, leadership, abilities, means, and process. This tool can help you cut through the haze and plan your critical projects. Complete the table for each early-win project you set up. Project: __________________________ Question Answer Focus: What is the focus for this project? For example, what goal or early win do you want to achieve? Oversight: How will you oversee this project? Who else should participate in oversight to help you get buy-in for implementing results? Goals: What are the goals and the intermediate milestones, and time frames for achieving them? Leadership: Who will lead the project? What training, if any, do they need in order to be successful? Abilities: What mix of skills and representation needs to be included? Who needs to be included because of their skills? Because they represent key constituencies? Means: What additional resources, such as facilitation, does the team need to be successful? Process: Are there change models or structured processes you want the team to use? If so, how will they become familiar with the approach?

They put me in the job because of my skills and accomplishments," the reasoning goes. "So that must be what they expect me to do here." This thinking is destructive, because 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. You may keep believing this until the moment the walls come crashing down around you.

To identify skill and knowledge gaps, first revisit your mission and strategy and the core processes you identified. Ask yourself what mix of the four types of knowledge is needed to support your group’s core processes. Treat this as a visioning exercise in which you imagine the ideal knowledge mix. Then assess your group’s existing skills, knowledge, and technologies. What gaps do you see? Which of them can be repaired quickly, and which will take more time? To identify underutilized resources, search for individuals or groups in your unit who have performed much better than average. What has enabled them to do so? Do they enjoy resources (technologies, methods, materials, and support from key people) that could be exported to the rest of your unit?

Strategic direction encompasses mission, vision, and strategy. Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission. If you keep in mind the what, the why, and the how, you won’t get lost in debates about what a mission is, what a vision is, and what a strategy is. Some fundamental questions about strategic direction concern what the organization will do and, critically, what it will not do. Focus on customers, capital, capabilities, and commitments:

Focus, too, on understanding the operating model, planning and performance evaluation systems, and talent management systems, because they often powerfully influence how you can most effectively have an impact.

Rework Your Network As you advance in your career, the advice you need changes. Preparing yourself for a new role calls for proactively restructuring your advice-and-counsel network. Early in your career, there is a premium on cultivating good technical advisers—experts in certain aspects of marketing or finance, for instance, who can help you get your work done. As you move to higher levels, however, it becomes increasingly important to get good political counsel and personal advice. Political counselors help you understand the politics of the organization, an understanding that is especially important when you plan to implement change. Personal advisers help you keep perspective and equilibrium in times of stress. Transforming your advice-and-counsel network is never easy; your current advisers may be close friends, and you may feel comfortable with technical advisers whose domains you know well. But it is essential to step back and recognize where you need to build your networks to compensate for blind spots and gaps in your own expertise or experience.

PREPARE YOURSELF—CHECKLIST If you have been promoted, what are the implications for your need to balance breadth and depth, delegate, influence, communicate, and exhibit leadership presence? If you are joining a new organization, how will you orient yourself to the business, identify and connect with key stakeholders, clarify expectations, and adapt to the new culture? What is the right balance between adapting to the new situation and trying to alter it? What has made you successful so far in your career? Can you succeed in your new position by relying solely on those strengths? If not, what are the critical skills you need to develop? Are there aspects of your new job that are critical to success but that you prefer not to focus on? Why? How will you compensate for your potential blind spots? How can you ensure that you make the mental leap into the new position? From whom might you seek advice and counsel on this? What other activities might help you do this?

TABLE 1-2 Assessment of problem preferences Assess your intrinsic interest in solving problems in each of these domains on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means very little interest and 10 means a great deal of interest. Design of appraisal and reward systems __________ Employee morale __________ Equity/fairness

Identifying Cultural Norms The following domains are areas in which cultural norms may vary significantly from company to company. Transitioning leaders should use this checklist to help them figure out how things really work in the organizations they’re joining. Influence. How do people get support for critical initiatives? Is it more important to have the support of a patron within the senior team, or affirmation from your peers and direct reports that your idea is a good one? Meetings. Are meetings filled with dialogue on hard issues, or are they simply forums for publicly ratifying agreements that have been reached in private? Execution. When it comes time to get things done, which matters more—a deep understanding of processes or knowing the right people? Conflict. Can people talk openly about difficult issues without fear of retribution? Or do they avoid conflict—or, even worse, push it to lower levels, where it can wreak havoc? Recognition. Does the company promote stars, rewarding those who visibly and vocally drive business initiatives? Or does it encourage team players, rewarding those who lead authoritatively but quietly and collaboratively? Ends versus means. Are there any restrictions on how you achieve results? Does the organization have a well-defined, well-communicated set of values that is reinforced through positive and negative incentives?

. But if you dig yourself into a hole early on, you will face an uphill battle from that point forward.

Once you have distilled these early discussions into a set of observations, questions, and insights, convene your direct reports as a group, feed them back your impressions and questions, and invite discussion. You will learn about both substance and team dynamics and will simultaneously demonstrate how quickly you have begun to identify key issues.

Structured methods for learning Method Uses Useful for Organizational climate and employee satisfaction surveys Learning about culture and morale. Many organizations do such surveys regularly, and a database may already be available. If not, consider setting up a regular survey of employee perceptions. Useful for managers at all levels if the analysis is available specifically for your unit or group. Usefulness depends on the granularity of the collection and analysis. This also assumes the survey instrument is a good one and the data have been collected carefully and analyzed rigorously. Structured sets of interviews with slices of the organization or unit Identifying shared and divergent perceptions of opportunities and problems. You can interview people at the same level in different departments (a horizontal slice) or bore down through multiple levels (a vertical slice). Whichever dimension you choose, ask everybody the same questions, and look for similarities and differences in people’s responses. Most useful for managers leading groups of people from different functional backgrounds. Can be useful at lower levels if the unit is experiencing significant problems. Focus groups Probing issues that preoccupy key groups of employees, such as morale issues among frontline production or service workers. Gathering groups of people who work together also lets you see how they interact and identify who displays leadership. Fostering discussion promotes deeper insight. Most useful for managers of large groups of people who perform a similar function, such as sales managers or plant managers. Can be useful for senior managers as a way of getting quick insights into the perceptions of key employee constituencies. Analysis of critical past decisions Illuminating decision-making patterns and sources of power and influence. Select an important recent decision, and look into how it was made. Who exerted influence at each stage? Talk with the people involved, probe their perceptions, and note what is and is not said. Most useful for higher-level managers of business units or project groups. Process analysis Examining interactions among departments or functions and assessing the efficiency of a process. Select an important process, such as delivery of products to customers or distributors, and assign a cross-functional group to chart the process and identify bottlenecks and problems. Most useful for managers of units or groups in which the work of multiple functional specialties must be integrated. Can be useful for lower-level managers as a way of understanding how their groups fit into larger processes. Plant and market tours Learning firsthand from people close to the product. Plant tours let you meet production personnel informally and listen to their concerns. Meetings with sales and production staff help you assess technical capabilities. Market tours can introduce you to customers, whose comments can reveal problems and opportunities. Most useful for managers of business units. Pilot projects Gaining deep insight into technical capabilities, culture, and politics. Although these insights are not the primary purpose of pilot projects, you can learn a lot from how the organization or group responds to your pilot initiatives. Useful for managers at all levels. The size of the pilot projects and their impact will increase as you rise through the organization.

Creating a Learning Plan Your learning agenda defines what you want to learn. Your learning plan defines how you will go about learning it. It translates learning goals into specific sets of actions—

Learning Plan Template Before Entry Find out whatever you can about the organization’s strategy, structure, performance, and people. Look for external assessments of the performance of the organization. You will learn how knowledgeable, fairly unbiased people view it. If you are a manager at a lower level, talk to people who deal with your new group as suppliers or customers. Find external observers who know the organization well, including former employees, recent retirees, and people who have transacted business with the organization. Ask these people open-ended questions about history, politics, and culture. Talk with your predecessor if possible. Talk to your new boss. As you begin to learn about the organization, write down your first impressions and eventually some hypotheses. Compile an initial set of questions to guide your structured inquiry after you arrive. Soon After Entry Review detailed operating plans, performance data, and personnel data. Meet one-on-one with your direct reports and ask them the questions you compiled. You will learn about convergent and divergent views and about your reports as people. Assess how things are going at key interfaces. You will hear how salespeople, purchasing agents, customer service representatives, and others perceive your organization’s dealings with external constituencies. You will also learn about problems they see that others do not. Test strategic alignment from the top down. Ask people at the top what the company’s vision and strategy are. Then see how far down into the organizational hierarchy those beliefs penetrate. You will learn how well the previous leader drove vision and strategy down through the organization. Test awareness of challenges and opportunities from the bottom up. Start by asking frontline people how they view the company’s challenges and opportunities. Then work your way up. You will learn how well the people at the top check the pulse of the organization. Update your questions and hypotheses. Meet with your boss to discuss your hypotheses and findings. By the End of the First Month Gather your team to feed back to them your preliminary findings. You will elicit confirmation and challenges of your assessments and will learn more about the group and its dynamics. Now analyze key interfaces from the outside in. You will learn how people on the outside (suppliers, customers, distributors, and others) perceive your organization and its strengths and weaknesses. Analyze a couple of key processes. Convene representatives of the responsible groups to map out and evaluate the processes you selected. You will learn about productivity, quality, and reliability. Meet with key integrators. You will learn how things work at interfaces among functional areas. What problems do they perceive that others do not? Seek out the natural historians. They can fill you in on the history, culture, and politics of the organization, and they are also potential allies and influencers. Update your questions and hypotheses. Meet with your boss again to discuss your observations.

ACCELERATE YOUR LEARNING—CHECKLIST How effective are you at learning about new organizations? Do you sometimes fall prey to the action imperative? To coming in with “the” answer? If so, how will you avoid doing this? What is your learning agenda? Based on what you know now, compose a list of questions to guide your early inquiries. If you have begun to form hypotheses about what is going on, what are they, and how will you test them? Given the questions you want to answer, who is likely to provide you with the most useful insights? How might you increase the efficiency of your learning process? What are some structured ways you might extract more insight for your investment of time and energy? What support is available to accelerate your learning, and how might you best leverage it? Given your answers to the previous questions, start to create your learning plan.

If you are joining a new organization, how will you orient yourself to the business, identify and connect with key stakeholders, clarify expectations, and adapt to the new culture? What is the right balance between adapting to the new situation and trying to alter it? What has made you successful so far in your career? Can you succeed in your new position by relying solely on those strengths? If not, what are the critical skills you need to develop? Are there aspects of your new job that are critical to success but that you prefer not to focus on? Why? How will you compensate for your potential blind spots? How can you ensure that you make the mental leap into the new position? From whom might you seek advice and counsel on this? What other activities might help you

It’s best to put as much as possible on the table as early as possible.

Joining a new company is akin to an organ transplant—and you’re the new organ.

MATCH STRATEGY TO SITUATION—CHECKLIST What portfolio of STARS situations have you inherited? Which portions of your responsibilities are in start-up, turnaround, accelerated-growth, realignment, and sustaining-success modes? What are the implications for the challenges and opportunities you are likely to confront, and for the way you should approach accelerating your transition? What are the implications for your learning agenda? Do you need to understand only the technical side of the business, or is it critical that you understand culture and politics as well? What is the prevailing climate in your organization? What psychological transformations do you need to make, and how will you bring them about? How can you best lead change given the situations you face? Which of your skills and strengths are likely to be most valuable in your new situation, and which have the potential to get you into trouble? What are the implications for the team you need to build?

I want to operate on a 90-day time frame, starting with 30 days to get on top of things,” he told her. “Then I will bring you a detailed assessment and plan with goals and actions for the next 60 days.” Michael updated her regularly on his progress. Pressed by her to make a call on a major systems purchase after three weeks, Michael held firm to his schedule. At the end of 30 days, he delivered a strong plan that pleased his new boss.

The situational diagnosis conversation. In this conversation, you seek to understand how your new boss sees the STARS portfolio you have inherited. Are there elements of start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success? How did the organization reach this point? What factors—both soft and hard—make this situation a challenge? What resources within the organization can you draw on?

The expectations conversation. Your goal in this conversation is to understand and negotiate expectations. What does your new boss need you to do in the short term and in the medium term? What will constitute success? Critically, how will your performance be measured? When?

The style conversation. This conversation is about how you and your new boss can best interact on an ongoing basis. What forms of communication does he prefer, and for what? Face-to-face? Voice, electronic? How often? What kinds of decisions does he want to be consulted on, and when can you make the call on your own? How do your styles differ, and what are the implications for the ways you should interact?

The personal development conversation. Once you’re a few months into your new role, you can begin to discuss how you’re doing and what your developmental priorities should be. Where are you doing well? In what areas do you need to improve or do things differently? Are there projects or special assignments you could undertake (without sacrificing focus)?

The management theorist Tom Peters said, "Purpose rarely comes from sitting down and contemplating purpose. Mostly, surely in my case, one accidentally trips over purpose." It's not built in a lab; it develops as a natural by-product of working with thoughtful observation [...].

How does your boss like to communicate? How often? What kinds of decisions does he want to be involved in, and when can you make calls on your own? Does your boss arrive at the office early and work late? Does he expect others to do the same?

Think of this zone as defining the boundaries of the decision-making box in which you will operate. What sorts of decisions does she want you to make on your own but tell her about? Are you free, for example, to make key personnel decisions? When does she want to be consulted before you decide? Is it when your actions touch on broader issues of policy—for example, in granting people leave? Or when there are hot political issues associated with some of the projects you’re working on? When does she want to make the decision herself?

Your 90-day plan should be written, even if it consists only of bullet points. It should specify priorities and goals as well as milestones. Critically, you should share it with your boss and seek buy-in for it. It should serve as a “contract” between the two of you about how you’re going to spend your time, spelling out both what you will do and what you will not do. To begin to sketch out your plan, divide the 90 days into three blocks of 30 days. At the end of each block, you will have a review meeting with your boss. (Naturally, you’re likely to interact more often than that.) You should typically devote the first block of 30 days to learning and building personal credibility.

NEGOTIATE SUCCESS—CHECKLIST How effectively have you built relationships with new bosses in the past? What have you done well? Where do you need improvement? Create a plan for the situational conversation. Based on what you know now, what issues will you raise with your boss in this conversation? What do you want to say up front? In what order do you want to raise issues? Create a plan for the expectations conversation. How will you figure out what your new boss expects you to do? Create a plan for the style conversation. How will you figure out how best to work with your boss? What mode of communication does he prefer? How often should you interact? How much detail should you provide? What types of issues should you consult with him about before deciding? Create a plan for the resource conversation. Given what you need to do, what resources are absolutely needed? With fewer resources, what would you have to forgo? If you had more resources, what would the benefits be? Be sure to build the business case. Create a plan for the personal development conversation. What are your strengths, and where do you need improvement? What kinds of assignments or projects might help you develop skills you need? How might you use the five conversations framework to accelerate the development of your team? Where are you in terms of having the key conversations with each of your direct reports?

it’s wise to negotiate success. It’s well worth investing time in this critical relationship up front, because your new boss sets your benchmarks, interprets your actions for other key players, and controls access to resources you need.

Clarify expectations early and often. Begin managing expectations from the moment you consider taking a new role. Focus on expectations during the interview process. You are in trouble if your boss expects you to fix things fast when you know the business has serious structural problems. It’s wise to get bad news on the table early and to lower unrealistic expectations. Then check in regularly to make sure your boss’s expectations have not shifted. Revisiting

Negotiate time lines for diagnosis and action planning. Don’t let yourself get caught up immediately in firefighting or be pressured to make calls before you’re ready. Buy yourself some time, even if it’s only a few weeks, to diagnose the new organization and come up with an action plan.

The resource conversation. This conversation is essentially a negotiation for critical resources. What do you need to be successful? What do you need your boss to do? The resources need not be limited to funding or personnel.

In general, though, new leaders are perceived as more credible when they display these characteristics: Demanding but able to be satisfied. Effective leaders get people to make realistic commitments and then hold them responsible for achieving results. But if you’re never satisfied, you’ll sap people’s motivation. Know when to celebrate success and when to push for more. Accessible but not too familiar. Being accessible does not mean making yourself available indiscriminately. It means being approachable, but in a way that preserves your authority. Decisive but judicious. New leaders communicate their capacity to take charge, perhaps by rapidly making some low-consequence decisions, without jumping too quickly into decisions that they aren’t ready to make. Early in your transition, you want to project decisiveness but defer some decisions until you know enough to make the right calls. Focused but flexible. Avoid setting up a vicious cycle and alienating others by coming across as rigid and unwilling to consider multiple solutions. Effective new leaders establish authority by zeroing in on issues but consulting others and encouraging input. They also know when to give people the flexibility to achieve results in their own ways. Active without causing commotion. There’s a fine line between building momentum and overwhelming your group or unit. Make things happen, but avoid pushing people to the point of burnout. Learn to pay attention to stress levels and pace yourself and others. Willing to make tough calls but humane. You may have to make tough calls right away, including letting go of marginal performers. Effective new leaders do what needs to be done, but they do it in ways that preserve people’s dignity and that others perceive as fair.

They should focus instead on who you are, the values and goals you represent, your style, and how you plan to conduct business. Think about modes of engagement, too. How will you introduce yourself? Should your first meetings with direct reports be one-on-one or in a group? Will these meetings be informal get-to-know-you sessions, or will they immediately focus on business issues and assessment? What other channels, such as e-mail and video, will you use to introduce yourself more widely? Will you have early meetings at other locations where your organization has facilities?

Focus on strained external relationships, and begin to repair them. Cut out redundant meetings, shorten excessively long ones, or improve problems with physical work spaces.

Launch early-win projects. Manage your early-win initiatives as projects, targeted at your chosen focal points.

Awareness. A critical mass of people is aware of the need for change. Diagnosis. You know what needs to be changed and why. Vision. You have a compelling vision and a solid strategy. Plan. You have the expertise to put together a detailed plan. Support. You have sufficiently powerful alliances to support implementation.