The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

The choice of behavior-change techniques should be a function of your group s structure, processes, skills, and ”above all ”its situation. Consider the difference between promoting behavior change in turnaround and realignment situations. In a turnaround, you face a combination of time pressure and the need to rapidly identify and secure the defendable core of the business. Techniques such as bringing in new people from the outside and setting up project teams to pursue specific performance-improvement initiatives often are a good fit. Contrast this with realignments, where you are well advised to start out with less obvious approaches to behavior change. By changing performance measures and starting benchmarking, for example, you set the stage for collective visioning about how to realign the business.

Finally, keep in mind your overarching goal: creating a virtuous cycle that reinforces wanted behavior and contributes to helping you achieve your A-item priorities. Remember that you are aiming at modest early improvements so you can pursue more fundamental changes.

ACCELERATION CHECKLIST

1. Given your situation, what should be the timing and extent of each of the waves of change you envision?

2. Based on what you know now, what are your A-item priorities? Given these priorities, what do you need to do during your transition to lay the necessary groundwork for achieving them?

3. How would you like to see people behave differently by the end of your era in the organization? Describe as vividly as you can the behaviors you would like to encourage and discourage.

4. What can you begin to do to change behaviors during your transition?

5. How do you plan to connect yourself to your new organization? Who are your key audiences, and what messages would you like to convey to them? What are the best modes of engagement?

6. What are the most promising focal points for your early performance-improvement efforts? Select one focal point and think about how early wins in this area could serve as a model for how you want people to behave.

7. Given the changes you want to make, in what areas do you need to engage in collective learning?