The First 90 Days

The First 90 Days delivers an exact, play-by-play roadmap for acing a career transition, be it a promotion or job at a new company, from mentally preparing before the move to adapting when on the role to securing early wins, managing expectations, and aligning yourself with a new team, boss, and culture.

After 8 years in marketing, Julia was promoted to product launch manager. Instead of delegating work across functions, however, she micromanaged and neglected non-marketing tasks. Soon, she was back in her old role.

“She kept doing what she knew how to do,” Watkins writes, but that didn’t cut it. The hardest part of nailing a new role is to let go of your old one. Watkins suggests a 7-step checklist to help you do so:

Make a clean break mentally. Life goes fast. Take time to acknowledge your new role, if only informally, for example by celebrating with friends on the weekend. Assess your problem preferences. List out technical, political, and cultural challenges across core business units, like HR, finance, etc. Rate them from 1 to 10 on whether you can (and want to) solve them. Which problems will you enjoy, and which ones do you need help with? Take stock of your strengths. Note how they might help or hinder you. Being hands-on might have gotten you here, but will it still get you there? Re-familiarize yourself with learning. If you’ve been comfortable in your old role, starting from scratch can be hard. Get into a mindset of learning so you can adjust as required. Adjust your network. With a new role, you’ll need new advice. Who’s a mentor you can still rely on, and who should you ask to be one now that you have different tasks? Watch out for gatekeepers. From your old boss to former colleagues turned subordinates, some people might be less happy about your transition than you are. Manage them and set the right expectations. Seek help when and where you need it. Be it a leadership development program or the 90-day plan you agree on with your manager: You’re not alone in making change, and it’s okay to ask for help.

Sliding into a new job rarely goes smoothly during the best of times. With this checklist, however, at least you won’t accidentally set yourself up to fail.

One of the first things you should do once you’re on the job, Watkins says, is run a “STARS” analysis. “STARS is an acronym for five common business situations,” he writes. They are: Start-up: Getting a new business, product, team, or project off the ground. Turnaround: Taking a deeply troubled brand, business unit, or product line, and steering it back on track. Accelerated…