Leadership Book Club: The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins

Ever wonder why some new leaders hit the ground running while others stumble? Kristen and Mike break down Michael Watkins' essential guide The First 90 Days - a book The Economist called "the onboarding bible." Whether you're stepping into your first leadership role or you're a seasoned executive making a change, this episode will help you avoid common pitfalls and set yourself up for success. Mike shares his recent experience applying these principles in his new role, while Kristen draws on her years of using this framework in executive coaching. Plus, some late-night recording session humor and a heated debate about the Oxford comma keep things light while diving into this meaty topic.

Highlights:

• The STARS Model: Understanding whether you're entering a Startup, Turnaround, Accelerated Growth, Realignment, or Sustaining Success situation
• Common traps new leaders fall into when using old strategies
• The "action imperative" trap: Why trying to make changes too quickly can backfire
• Building your team: When to keep people, when to make changes, and how to do it humanely
• Five essential conversations to have with your boss in your first 90 days
• How to identify and secure "early wins" that matter
• Managing the organizational "immune system" response to change
• Creating your personal support network and advice channels
• Balancing technical learning with cultural and political awareness

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
• The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• Start With Why by Simon Sinek
• Boundaries for Leaders by Dr. Henry Cloud
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
• Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker

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Podcast Website: www.loveandleadershippod.com
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Transcript

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.


Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.


Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: \ Hello, and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen,

Mike: And I'm Mike.

Kristen: and today we have an LBC episode,

Mike: Bum bum bum. 

Kristen: And we

Mike: Is that a placeholder for, did you take my sound out and put?

Kristen: out? you're getting

Mike: I'm getting lines cut

Kristen: Well you're getting some editing, otherwise our episodes would be much longer 

Mike: Wow,

Kristen: I love you.

Mike: I resemble that remark.

Kristen: So yes, this is an LVC episode. The book we are doing is The First 90 Days, Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael D. Watkins. And just to start with some background, so Michael Watkins was born in Canada. He has a Ph. D. in Decision Science from Harvard. He also was a professor there for a long time.

He's currently a professor at IMD Business School, as well as a very successful executive coach and consultant at his firm, Genesis Advisors. He originally published this book in 2003, and then he released and updated an expanded edition of it 10 years later in 2013. It's received a lot of recognition.

The Economist called it the onboarding Bible, which is high praise. And I originally read this book in 2014, so right after the second edition came out, when I was starting a new leadership role at a new company. And found it very helpful, revisited it multiple times, and then now I use it heavily in the coaching that I do, particularly for people who are either transitioning into a promotion, a new role within the same company, or starting a new job entirely.

And I, I think it's fantastic. So I also will say, we talk about like a lot of business books have fluff in them. This is a very jam packed book. There's also a lot of stuff that you can't really cover well in podcast form, like checklists and tables and exercises and stuff.

So, I also just highly recommend getting the book, either the e book or, or like hard copy of it, just so that you have all of those as well if you want to actually go through and do some of these exercises, there's so many good resources in this book.

Mike: I like this book too. I have only read it once and I, of course I think it'd be interesting over time to see the real difference between reading things and listening to things, but I mostly listen and I listened to this, I think right around when I started at my hotel in San Francisco.

So

No, was

it? No, it was when we were dating. Yeah. Yeah, it was when we were dating

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Um, We

passed our first date spot today. We um 

Kristen: The one where I showed up late

Mike: Every every date you were late. 

Kristen: But you married me anyway.

Mike: I am congenitally on time. Actually, I am always early. You know, the life of a musician and especially a percussionist, 

I have to move timpani, set up mallets, arrange my triangle, like it is a process. You cannot just waltz in there. And you can't be late to like a Houston Symphony concert or something. 

Kristen: I always managed to with orchestra

Mike: How did you do that?

Kristen: By leaving aggressively early.

Mike: So you can make yourself be on time?

Kristen: If the consequences are dire.

Mike: So you just assumed that I was going to accept? 

I was going on a lot of dates at that time, you knowThis is getting worse.

Kristen: I feel like we had a similar conversation on our first episode. Anywho.

Mike: Anywho, our first date was at the, uh, San Francisco Ferry Building, and I think the first present was I bought you a lab created ruby that was like, I don't know, 30 carats, um, and you were like, rubies are not 

Kristen: No, we, okay. We don't have time to get all the way into this.

Mike: We have all the time in the world. We have a book episode. Anywho. Okay. So I read, but so you're just, can you now admit that rubies are sapphires? 

Kristen: like chemically.

Mike: Yeah. Chemically. 

Kristen: But they don't look the same.

Mike: a very small mineral difference that creates a different color Anywho. Okay.

Kristen: Um. It's a, it's a nighttime recording session, guys. Brace yourselves. 

So, uh, jumping into the book and the introduction. He starts it out by saying that the president of the U. S. gets 100 days to prove themselves. You get 90 as a new leader, he says. The actions you take during your first few months in a new leadership role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail.

He interviewed 1, 300 senior HR leaders as part of his research, and almost 90 percent agreed that transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders. And I thought it was interesting, he, there was a study he co authored, and they, a survey among a bunch of leaders, they had an average of 18 years of professional experience, and they said, they had on average within that 18 years experienced 13. 5 major transitions. Or one every 1. 3 years of their career. And this includes promotions, moving between business functions or units, joining new companies and like moving geographically as well. So I thought that was interesting. I think it's very, that's very different from how it used to be.

Mike: I mean, that was, and I, if you look at my resume you'll see I've jumped around a fair amount. And some of that is, changing cities. But I, I mean I come from a world in restaurants too.

Like most people don't stay in restaurants that long, you know. 

You do about a year or two as a cook and then you've had enough of that abuse. And then you'll go like, I need to get out of here and go somewhere else when they're going to treat you just as poorly, but it's a different kind. So, you knowI don't think it's healthy really that we changed so much now.

And I look at a lot of HR leaders and they seem to change jobs every two years and it seems to be about every two years. So yeah, it's, it struck me immediately when you gave me this book as yeah, you have to come in and be able to amp up your impact quickly. And I guess in the military too, like the billets for leaders, I think are generally about two years. Which is short. It's short. Sometimes it takes a month just to get logged into your account. No, for real.

Kristen: for real.

Mike: real. There's so we have concur and we have ADP and you've got to get your outlook set up and who knows where our property management's at. Oh my god, so many logins just to be up to speed, there's a curve there. My current company turned out to be amazing at that.

Like they sent me all of this, they have a, they're bigger. And so they knew when I was starting and the minute I started, I got all the logins, somebody sent, and they centralized the logins. They're like, log into this. And from this portal, you can log into everything. And they got me set up and there was like one or two out of the 15 that I have to get into.

Hey, I didn't get that. but mostly it was just, it was plug and play, but you have to be pretty organized for that to happen. Usually you're hunting around for your tools, which is a skill.

Kristen: It very dramatically varies by the company

Mike: very dramatically varies,

Kristen: How much they have it 

Mike: But, uh, change, change management, right. And managing yourself as you go through, too many changes probably in your career is going to make you more sane and make you more impactful, more quickly. 

Kristen: Yeah.

So, um, he talks about this concept of a break even point for your transition. So like when you first start a new role, you're subtracting more value than you're adding because it takes time for people to train you, for you to collect knowledge, learn the lay of land, learn the culture, whatever it is, depending on what the transition is.

And over time, you hit a break even point where you're adding more value then you are subtracting. He says that the goal of any transition should be to get to that break event point as quickly as possible. 

Mike: That was an impactful statement for sure, When you're like a cook or a line level person, there's a certain level of entitlement sometimes.

And I certainly had that. I thought the world owed me a living, and they were lucky to have me and they might have been, but at the same time, when you're an executive, they're paying you a lot of money or more money anyway, hopefully To produce a result for the business. It's easy when you're starting out or you're on the front lines to, to envisage corporate America as this, big brother type situation, of rich guys and run, especially guys running around, in, in private jets and Lamborghini. And that's not always the case. A lot of times business owners are not taking as much money out of their business as you might perceive that they are. There's a big difference between a mega corporation and most businesses. And you're not working for Starbucks, you're working for like a little coffee shop that owner might not be making money at all.

You know, they might be losing money and adding money to the coffers every month to make payroll. That is more common than the reverse. So as you ascend in responsibility, you have an obligation to help your business succeed, not just show up. So getting to the point where you're worth your salary, you're bringing more in than your salary was very impactful kind of revelation.

Like, Oh,they don't owe me a job. You know, I owe them productivity and I owe them, profit really for my labor. They're paying me for my labor. My labor has to produce, profit for their business. Impactful statement 

Kristen: For sure. Yeah.And then he goes into these kind of common transition traps that leaders fall into, and these feel so true to me. The first one is sticking with what you know when your new role requires different competencies.

I think this really goes back to, you know, What got you here won't get you there in Marshall Goldsmith, right? What got you to this role is not necessarily what you need to be successful in it.

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: And then falling prey to what he calls the action imperative. Which is trying to put your stamp on the organization too early, like being too eager to change things and make things happen before you've actually really taken the time to get the lay of the land and map out like what is going to be the effective order of operations. Setting unrealistic expectations. Versus, it's in, and, this is definitely a theme in the book, is like, coming in and setting expectations in an appropriate place, because a lot of times, you're brought in to do something in a timeline that is not actually achievable. So it is your responsibility as the leader to set appropriate expectations..

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: Which is hard, but we'll get into it more.

Mike: It's so hard.

Kristen: Attempting to do too much, in which case nothing actually gets done if you're not prioritizing. Coming in with what you think is the answer, the solution, before you've actually gone through like a diagnosis process, just thinking you know it's going to fix the organization and making those assumptions because you may be actually be completely wrong if you're not taking the listening time. Focusing your learning on technical aspects and ignoring like the cultural and political dimensions of your role is also very common. And like those are the ones that are really going to make or break your career as a leader. And then neglecting horizontal relationships as well. It's really easy to focus on the up and down relationships.

Your direct reports and people below them and your immediate supervisor and their bosses. But it's also really important to establish relationships with peers and other stakeholders. And those can often be really impactful in your career to have those relationships already established and healthy. And then he says there's 10 essential transition tasks to set yourself up for success, which are the 10 chapters of the book. So first one, Chapter One is Prepare Yourself. And he breaks down the two most common transitions, so one of these is promotions, and one of these is like starting a job at a new company.

He kind of breaks down some of the inherent challenges with these. So when you're talking about a promotion, one is balancing breadth and depth because every time you're promoted, your horizon is broadening to like a wider set of issues and decisions. So you can't just focus on the area you came from.

You have to be thinking about the overall. Like rethinking what you delegate. This is going to look very different with like a team of five, where you're probably delegating specific tasks to like a team of one 500, you're probably delegating like product lines or like much broader things.

Influencing differently. He talks about like when you get promoted, your positional authority actually becomes less important for pushing agendas forward. So meaning the authority that comes from you being in that position is less important versus the influence that comes from like working with other people to move things forward.

And this is because A, you're just, you're dealing with more complex, ambiguous issues, but especially at the higher levels, people are more capable and they also have higher, like much stronger egos to manage. So like the political part of influence is much more important. 

Mike: Well, who not how. Yeah. 

I came from a world where being technically competent gets you far and then I hit a kind of a ceiling where that wasn't always necessary. And I, then I started to encounter leaders that were, sometimes they were very technically competent, but sometimes not.I had a vice president and I remember somebody joking one time he was, the vice president of hotels, like their portfolio will include a range of Hyatt's Hilton's and Marriott's and they don't know the operating systems on all of the, like, he can't go to the Hampton Inn and check somebody in.

He doesn't know how to do that. 

I remember reading this and it was like,

you don't have to do everything yourself, nor can you apparently. So you got to figure out the relationships pretty quick. Yeah. 

Kristen: And then the last two challenges for promotions, communicating more formally. So like the more people you have under you, the further you are from the front lines. So you need different channels in both directions.

Both to get information from them and get information out to them. And then exhibiting the right presence. So really understanding like what kind of leadership presence is necessary for your new role and how you'll make it your own. And then for starting at a new company, the main challenges are the business orientation, because you're like, you need to not just learn about your specific part of the business, but learn about the business as a whole, and be thinking about like bigger things like financials, product strategy, like that's what's gonna really get you to rise in your career as a leader, is be thinking about the overall business orientation..

Stakeholder connections. So identifying key stakeholders and building productive working relationships.

Mike: I like the one where it's like find the keeper of the secrets. Yeah. There's somebody that's been there forever and knows, where all the 

Kristen: Where all the bodies are buried.

Mike: You know, I, I use that joke once in my current.

And I can't use that in senior living. 

Kristen: Oh no, you cannot.

Mike: I used it once and I was and I watched the, and I knew I was wrong as it was. I was like, okay, not the right Nope. 

Kristen: else. Different analogy. Different analogy.

Mike: Rewind. But yeah, there's it makes sense, right?

There's somebody there's a janitor or someone that's been at the company for 25 years And has seen 20 people in your role he's not impressed with your new initiatives you know. He'll only be impressed if you treat him very well and are kind to then he'll hook you with the secrets 

Kristen: Yep. Yeah. 

Mike: It pays to be kind andgenerous of spirit with people. 

Kristen: And then expectations alignment. This is, again, you need to set expectations on what is achievable. But you need to be checking and rechecking these and also not just understanding what your boss's expectations are but what your stakeholders want as well. And then the last one is cultural adaptation. So understanding what the culture is overall and how it's manifested in the business unit that you are joining. Because sometimes the individual business unit can have a very unique subculture. So he defines culture as a set of consistent patterns people follow for communicating, thinking, and acting, all grounded in their shared assumptions and values.

And he recommends thinking about culture as a pyramid. Or I think actually I like the iceberg analogy for this a little better. But you have the things that are really visible, like symbols and languages are the most visible aspects of a culture. Some things that are maybe like partially submerged, so like norms and patterns of behavior.

And then there's the stuff that is less tangible. So things like fundamental assumptions and values that are beneath the surface, like those are actually the foundation of culture. So you can't ignore those. And I also, I love this analogy he gives. Joining a new company as a leader is like an organ transplant and you are the new organ.

So if you're not really thoughtful in how you adapt to the new situation, you can end up being attacked by the organization's immune system and ultimately rejected. 

Mike: Oh yeah.

Kristen: It's such a good analogy!

Mike: It's a good analogy.

Kristen: Yeah. Yep. So I love that.And then he takes through, there's some good checklists in this chapter as well about things to do to prepare yourself.

But some of the things that he talks about, if you are changing roles, establishing a clear break point. So you're not like trying to do two jobs at once indefinitely, that's not a path to success. Assessing your vulnerabilities by kind of understanding your problem preferences. So there's a whole exercise around this in the book, but thinking about what are the kinds of problems that you naturally gravitate toward?

And then this exercise in the book splits them out by technical, political, and cultural categories as well as by function. So that can give you an idea of like, okay, what problems do I gravitate towards and which ones do I avoid? Which gives you an idea of your vulnerabilities. 

Mike: I mean, even starting to think in these terms is like where you need to be as a leader, as an executive. Like, these are not the kind of things that you think about when you're, the line in a restaurant. You're like, which dishes do I like to cook? Doesn't matter. You're cooking them all. But when you get to be the chef, you have to start to think like, do I maybe use potatoes too much or something?

You know, like there's a lot of different kinds of potatoes in the restaurant here. Yeah. yeah, you start to have to really assess what problems do I like to solve? What, which ones do I ignore. It matters. 

Kristen: Yeah. He also says, this also I think really echoes Marshall Goldsmith and What Got You Here Won't Get You There, but watch out for your strengths because they may actually turn out to be weaknesses in your new role,

Mike: Yeah. 

Kristen: Because again, what got you here won't necessarily get you there.

Relearning how to learn. Reworking your network. So building, and he gets into this a little more later in the book, but building out a collection of advisors and counselors that you can go to. Watching out for people who want to hold you back because they will

Mike: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Kristen: if you try to, if you're in denial about it, it's just going to blow up in your face in the long run.

Mike: it's like alignment. the only goal everyone should have is the success of the mission, success of the organization, success of the team. But we're fragile beings with egos and personal agendas, you know. Your best chance of promotion, your best chance of success long term is that attitude.

However, most people don't do that. They find, niches that they stick to and, they resort to manipulations and maneuverings. I get it. We're all trying to like stay employed and protect our livelihoods. the best way to do that is to win for the organization and win in your position and win in your team.

And of course you're going to be valuable. But if you can get people to align with that and to believe in that, you'll get really good results. It's like,Commander Abershoff, like where he had his four department heads or three department heads, who are all like lieutenants or lieutenant commanders or something like that.

And they all want to get command of their own boat and only one or two of them is going to get a recommendation. But, and so they fight, they compete. And he said, my recommendation is for you guys is going to, and he has an incredible ability to either advance their career or put a stop to it. is going to be based off how well you work together.

So smart. And let that be your leading culture. So 

Kristen: Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And then the last thing he mentions is, is get help.

So if you work for a larger company and they have like resources to help leaders in transition take advantage of them, but that's usually not the case. But also like work with HR, partner with stakeholders and your boss on your 90 day plan. So that you're not just doing it in a vacuum. 

Mike: So chapter two is accelerate your learning. So and this is kind of reiterating, you're risking that organizational organ rejection syndrome if you're not taking the time to focus on learning and adapting to the new culture. And to maximize your ROI on learning, he says you need to effectively and efficiently extract actionable insights. This is knowledge that enables you to make better decisions earlier and therefore helps you reach that break even point faster. So he says you should start by identifying your learning agenda. So this is a focused set of questions about the past, present, and future that you need to answer within your learning.

Kristen: So these are, and he has It's a full list in the book, but for the past, it's things like performance, root causes of issues, history of changes. For the present, it's things like the vision and strategy, people, processes, landmines, and early wins. For the future, it's things like challenges and opportunities, barriers, resources, and culture. And then once you've made your learning agenda, the next step is to identify the best sources of insight. So this is, you're going to have some more hard data sources like, financial reports, employee surveys, et cetera, but this is specific people that you can go to who are going to be the best sources of insight.

And these are both internal and external. So for external, this is going to be, this could be a combination of like customers, suppliers, distributors, outside analysts. For internal, things like frontline R& D and operations, sales and procurement, staff, integrators, who he defines as people who coordinate cross functional interaction. And natural historians, this is what Mike, you referenced, but these are like the old timers who've been in the organization for a long time and they just naturally absorb its history.

Mike: Yeah, it can be newer people too who are key stakeholders.

The main takeaway is find out who does what. And who can create leverage for you.

It's all about creating leverage to accelerate your impact.

Kristen: Yep.

Mike: And you know, I've, I've been at my current role for 30 days. Just 30 days. It doesn't feel like that. And the gentleman that was there. As an interim director for two months. He also got a lot done, he was super familiar with the business and he was able to make an impact in two and a half months because your learning curve is quick, Even my experience with things like HR platforms or payroll platforms. I don't know how all of them work, but I know what they do.

I know there's a button for labor reporting. I just have to find where that report is. You bring some transferable skills to your role and then you figure out what the rest of them are, you know the new ones, but a lot of it is transferable. Something you can build on. 

Kristen: Yeah, absolutely. So then once you've identified those people to go to, then he talks about using like a structured learning process. So creating like structured ways to get information from people. And he gives a bunch of examples of this, but one thing I also really like he has in here is five questions to ask your direct reports in one on ones and ask your directs all of these same questions. So like everybody gets same questions, as well as other individualized questions. But these five questions I love. So what are the biggest challenges the organization is facing or will face in the near future? Why is the organization facing 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? And if you were me, what would you focus your attention on?

Mike: People will tell you.

Kristen: Yeah, absolutely. People like being

Mike: love being asked these things. It doesn't mean you have, it doesn't mean they're right, but if you ask ten people, you're going to get some crossover of the answers and you'll be like, that's actually, I agree with that.

Yeah. When you have eight of ten people say, no, the real problem 

Kristen: and you that.

You're going to definitely see patterns.

Mike: It's amazing how much information you can get just by asking people. Yeah. And how little we actually do that. 

Kristen: Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, a lot of times, depending on how senior your directs are, a lot of times these are questions like nobody asked them. 

Mike: Nobody asked them and they're not used to leaders who ask them very like Direct questions like that even back to our feedback episode from last week. How can I do a better job of leading here? Or what can I do to be more effective, not do you like me? But ask them they'll tell you. They might not be right. But they might be. 

Kristen: So yeah, the last part of this chapter is creating a learning plan, which is identifying how you're going to go about learning all these different items. So breaking out into like what are your learning actions before entry into the new role, soon after entry, and by the end of the first month.

And he says this plan should be your primary focus for the first 30 days. So, chapter three, Match Strategy to Situation, this is where he goes into the STARS model, which is I think probably the most well known, thing from this book. But this comes from the idea of like leaders in a new role need to answer two questions, which is what kind of change am I being called upon to lead?

And what kind of change leader am I?

And the whole STARS model idea is that there's five types of organizations that you could be entering into as a leader. And these are startup, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success.

Mike: Genius. It's 

Kristen: It's so good. Yeah. 

Mike: And I've, I know I've internalized, it was realignment.

I couldn't remember, but knowing this is absolutely the most important thing you can know going into a new role. 

Kristen: Absolutely.

Mike: What has been going on and why am I here? 

Kristen: Yep. So diving in a little deeper into each of these, so for startup, what you're doing is assembling the capabilities to get a new business or initiative off the ground, which includes people, financing, technology, et cetera.

So the main challenges with a startup organization is that you're building everything from scratch without a clear framework or boundaries. You need to recruit and put together a high performing team and you often have limited resources that you're making do with. But the opportunities of it is you can do things right from the beginning.

People tend to be really energized by the possibilities in a startup situation. 

Mike: That'll change. That will change. 

Kristen: And there's no like rigid preconceptions of like, this is how we've always done it, that you're working with, like you are in more mature organizations. 

Mike: Well, it's like each of these is going to have something that is positive and something that is challenging. 

Kristen: Exactly. So, T is for turnaround. This is your saving a business initiative that is, or a company, that is widely acknowledged to be in serious trouble.

Mike: The Lee Iacocca model.

Kristen: So, the challenges here is, reenergizing demoralized employees and stakeholders. You can be entering a really ugly situation here. Making effective decisions under time pressurebecause he gets into this a little bit more, but in a turnaround, like you need to make things happen fast. And going deep enough with like really painful cuts and difficult personnel choices when you're coming into this situation. It's very difficult. The good things, like the opportunities, or at least in this situation, like everybody recognizes that change is necessary.

Mike: I I don't know that everybody

Kristen: I mean, not always, but at least if it's a bad enough situation, turn around, a lot

Mike: Maybe, but there's a lot of delusion out there.there might be key senior stakeholders that have a broad enough perspective that they know that this is a turnaround.

But a lot of employees are like, this is fine.

Kristen: I think you're right, actually. I think there is a lot of denial and there's not 

Mike: not 

Kristen: be a big disconnect 

Mike: disconnect. It's a big

Kristen: and what employees 

Mike: Because employees are fine, they're getting their paycheck, they've carved out a certain existence for themselves. They're not super accountable, right?

Why would they not think everything was fine? Their world is fine. Then when you go in and you're like, hey, everything is not fine, they're like, what are you talking about? Do you follow us on LinkedIn? Do you follow the company in the news? Did you see that expose piece by,you know, CNN last week?

Kristen: No, I do think you're right on that. Yeah. That is not always true, 

Mike: and that's part of the turnaround, my experience is the senior leadership will know, but not everybody does. And you have to be like, hey guys, hey folks,

We actually have a big lift ahead of us and they're like, we do? it was fine. People are, people will accept mediocrity.

Kristen: It also, and there are people who are naturally very resistant to change depending on 

Mike: All of us are resistant.

All of us

Kristen: That's not true. There are a lot of personality types who love change.

Mike: I have not met those 

Kristen: I have for sure. We can talk about this later. Well, we should do an episode on like Big Five Personality traits and like DISC profile, maybe like something like that

Mike: I don't believe the DISC, well, you know, I believe those profiles, mostly those profiles are over simplifications and can't encompass the

Kristen: I'm going to table this, but we should absolutely do an episode on this future. Cause it'll be an interesting conversation. 

Mike: I'm just curious, what percentage of the people that you've met or worked with do you think love change and embrace change and are all about change?

Kristen: Oh, I'm not saying it's a majority of people, but there, it's a certain percentage of I do, I do not have like an exact

Mike: percentage. I could, I could figure it out probably

Kristen: I could figure it out probably via Big Five.

There's a lot of, so much psychological research

Mike: on it. Um, 

Kristen: Um, this is a tangent, but, but

Mike: Sorry, you married me. 

Kristen: Fine. I'll talk about it really quickly. So there's a lot of different assessments of personality traits, but this is the one that's most researched. So it's also the one I use unless is different one is requested as far as assessments go.

Mike: Does this one have conscientousness in it? Okay, so that's the only factually based model that

Kristen: Is not the only one, but, it is the one with the most research behind it, just because it's used widely

Mike: I don't know if, I don't know if it's because it's used widely. I think 

Kristen: It's been around a long time. It's open source, but yeah, it's used the most in research.

Mike: It encapsulates a lot of overarching human behavior.

the, 

Kristen: The five personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. So we should do an episode on this. This will actually be interesting. 


Mike: I'm agreeable. Is that one of the traits? 

Kristen: That is a trait.

Mike: Yeah, I'm agreeable to that. I think those are a very, telling and pertinent rubric of characteristics that will tell you how somebody is going to behave in a group setting, in a civilization, 

Kristen: but one of these specifically, there's specific components of it that, or how amenable are people to change. So it is measurable,

Mike: For sure.

Kristen: But anyway, back to the STARS model, we'll table the rest of that for a future episode.

Mike: Let's table it.

Kristen: I've been in a lot of corporate meetings in my lifetime. Can you tell?

Mike: we show, isn't it more appropriate to put it on the shelf for the moment? If we're talking about furniture,

Kristen: Put it in the parking lot. Or the

Mike: bike rack, That's farther away and you gotta lock it up and somebody might steal it, especially in the city so turn around. 

Kristen: Finishing the opportunities, affected constituencies in a turnaround situation will often offer significant external support and a little success goes a long way 

Mike: when you're in a turnaround situation. You have to be emotionally prepared for that. 

Kristen: SoA is for accelerated growth.

So accelerated growth is when, this is kind of the opposite in a lot of ways, you're managing a rapidly expanding business. So this could be, a phase following a startup phase where, things are going really well and it's expanding rapidly. So the challenges in this situation is putting structures and systems in place to permit scaling.

This is really all about scaling effectively, right? And often you have a lot of new employees at once and you have to integrate them into the culture and everything else within the company. But the opportunities are the growth potential motivates people. And people are more inclined to stretch themselves and their reports when they're in this kind of situation.

So you're coming into like a higher morale situation. There's a lot of fulfillment that comes from people with being a part of a rapidly growing organization. And then the R is realignment. So this is your re energizing a organization that was previously successful and is now facing problems.

So this is, he gets more into the differences about like turnaround versus realignment, but this isn't your like saving a business initiative that's in the toilet. This is this was a previously successful business, but has some challenges now. So the biggest challenges with that are convincing employees that change is necessary can be very difficult in this kind of situation.

Because it's often less obvious than in a turnaround situation. And

you have to really carefully restructure the top leadership team and refocus the organization. The positives, like opportunities, are the organization has significant pockets of strength already and people generally want to continue to see themselves be successful once you convince them that change is necessary. And then the S is finally for sustaining success. So this is a successful organization and you're preserving the vitality of it and taking it to the next level. And the challenges here is often you're living in the shadow of a previous leader and managing the team that they created. in many cases, you have to play good defense before you take on too many new initiatives and finding ways to take, like, an already very successful business to the next level can be challenging. The opportunities are that you probably already have a strong team in place and people are similar with the last one. People are motivated to continue their history of success. Once they've identified themselves as successful, they want to keep it that way. And you likely have a foundation for continued success.

Like you might already have a really compelling product pipeline in place. So that is the STARS model. This can also, he notes, this can be used at any level of your organization. So,we tend to think of this in terms of whole companies, but you can be managing like a startup part of a larger company.

You can be turning around a particular business unit. So this can be looked at different levels and you're, less likely to find like a pure example of one of these, but there could be like different elements of the role that are in different parts of this. So also thinking about like,different components of your role like in where they fall into each of these. And then he gets a little bit more into turnarounds versus realignments because I think it's a little harder to differentiate, and how as a leader you would work differently within these.

So for learning, these are like different categories different things you would do as part of the First 90 Day Plan.

So your learning for a turnaround is, needs to focus on technical learning and you have to prepare to act really quickly versus a realignment is often going to be more focused on cultural and political learning and your actions going to be much more deliberate versus just happening quickly.

The strategic intent for a turnaround is pruning non core businesses versus with a realignment, it's a little more complex.

You're honing and leveraging existing capabilities and you also want to stimulate innovation. Your key priorities for a turnaround are going to be making faster, bolder moves and focusing on the strategy and the culture versus a realignment is going to be much more like slower, more deliberate moves and focus more on the system skills and also culture. For the leadership team, usually with a turnaround, you're going to be cleaning house at the top, and bringing in some external talent versus with realignments, like you, you're probably still going to make a few important changes and promote high potentials from within, but it's a little bit different.

And again, like slower, more deliberate.

And then early wins for a turnaround are more around shifting the organizational mindset from despair to hope 

Mike: Yikes! 

Kristen: Yeah, I mean, depending on how bad the turnaround situation is, right? Versus a realignment, it's shifting the mindset from denial to awareness. So again, a lot of this is getting people aware that change needs to happen.

And as far as the alliances go, in a turnaround, you're gonna want to gain support from your bosses and other stakeholders to invest the required resources versus a realignment that you're going to be building alliances sideways and down to ensure better execution. So he says it's really important to understand like what type of leader you are and whether you're fit for that particular situation.

So in general, turnarounds need a more heroic style of leadership is people who are acting like very quickly and decisively versus realignments need more like stewardship, servant type of leadership. So like more diplomatic, less ego driven, more focused on building consensus. 

Mike: I remember when I read this and I realized I'm not a turnaround. That's as an analyst, as described by Mr. Voss, I wasn't driving the hotel as much as I needed to because, and now I really, as you explained this, I really see more of a difference between realignment and turnaround.

And probably I've been involved in more realignment than turnarounds.Turnarounds really like Chrysler's about to go out of business and Lee Iacoca swoops in and saves it, you know? I don't think of some others, but still you, there's, I don't think it's a black or white scenario. When you do a realignment, there's a lot of flavor of turnaround in there and having some on at least on a day to day basis, especially when you're in an action oriented, business like the service business, you need somebody to drive the daythen have a strategic thinker as well. Who's also like working on a longer timeframe and belief, the Stockdale paradox, like we're, it's really bad right now. We know it will get there, but like you have to confront the reality of 

Kristen: with plans to move forward. It's interesting. I see exactly when I internalized this. It's probably like march 

2022. Fortunately you were dating somebody who had great book recommendations. Next.

Mike: Lucky I was not turned off by your lateness.

Kristen: don't know.

Mike: really care, to be honest. I don't know.

Kristen: You didn't seem like you cared.

Mike: care. I was like, whatever.

Kristen: was like, whatever.

Mike: At least showing up. Somebody will date me

Kristen: as someone who's dating me. Aw. Okay. We're going to keep us focused.

Mike: Okay. 

Kristen: Good luck 

Mike: with that.

Kristen: that. I know.

I'm gonna challenge that, a challenge. Challenge of podcasting with certain people. I love you.So the last thing on the, the STARS model that I thought was really interesting is that they did a survey of which situations leaders find most challenging and which situations they prefer. So they found realignments to be most challenging, followed by sustaining success and turnaround, which totally makes sense. I think sustaining success can be very difficult to come in as a new leader. 

Mike: Yeah, you're little, a little bit superfluous in a way. Yeah, like, well

Kristen: Yeah,you have, there's a lot of pressure,

Mike: you can only mess it up at this point. I think one of my first, like my first general manager job, the hotel was already successful.

The leaders were already in long tenured position. I just kinda came in and didn't mess it up. I think that's easier, I don't know. 

Kristen: Yeah, I guess it depends on who you ask, right?

Mike: I think it's your, like your personality and your skillset, an analyst personality is probably very good for realignment and for sustaining success because you come in and you break it down and you analyze all the factors and you develop a plan around that, whereas like the turnaround seems to be more like personality driven.

Kristen: Yeah that's like a driver if you think of it. 

Mike: the stereotypical leader coming in on the white horse, going to save the day. But you need that. If you don't do that,you're going to probably not get the support and garner the,the loyalty that you're going to need to fix it. 

Kristen: And then the other question they asked was which one do leaders prefer? And like startup was the overwhelming winner. Like nothing else was even close.

Mike: I loathe, I would loathe a

Kristen: Yeah. You're not like a startup leader. I'm not really

Mike: I'm not a startup leader. That

Kristen: have a startup in terms of my own business, but, in terms of, yeah, like coming in and leading a team, it was not, I've done a lot of these and that was not

Mike: I feel like I could adapt to do that. And, I guess I, at some point you have to like, 

Kristen: I mean, I guess that's not true. I guess I've

Mike: you didn't like it though.

Kristen: Yeah, well, I was thinking like pure startup but I've also done starting up like a role within another organization and I did enjoy that so I guess it depends, but. But yeah, we spent quite a bit of time on the STARS model. But I think it's a pretty core component of this book.

So Chapter Four is Negotiating Success This is basically proactively engaging with your boss to shape the game, he says, so that you have a fighting chance of achieving your desired goal.

So think of it as a negotiation when it comes to setting the expectations. And he has these do's and don'ts in here for building a relationship with your boss.

I think this is so useful for everyone, even if you're not a leader. It's so useful. So, uh,

Mike: Everyone's a leader

Kristen: And also, yeah, everyone can be 

Mike: Can be a leader.

Kristen: So the don'ts are don't stay away. So if they are a very low touch boss who doesn't reach out to you, like you need to reach out to them and be proactive. Don't surprise your boss.

So whenever there's a developing problem, let them know as soon as possible, instead of waiting until it blows up and then them finding out about it. Don't approach your boss only with problems. Come in with plans for how you're going to proceed, even if you don't have the full solution yet, and you do want help with that, at least have some ideas.

Don't just come in and be like, help me with

Mike: Don't come in, don't come with at least one or two ideas. You'll look like not in charge. 

Even if they're wrong, like just, Yeah. I think there's like a, an idea that leaders have all the answers that kind of, we don't, we just, we're making it up to, we're running through a decision making protocol every time we're faced with one of these problems doing our best to like draw on experience, best practices, creativity, just come up with some stuff, you know?

Kristen: And then don't run down your checklist, so this is basically don't use your one on ones with your boss to just run through your task list. Focus on the things that are most important and how they can help you. And finally, don't expect your boss to change.

Mike: Don't expect anyone to change

Kristen: Or any, yeah, but I mean, but when people report into you, you have a little bit more 

Mike: Yeah, you can ask them to modify.

Kristen: With your boss, like it is your responsibility to adapt to their style and their approach.

Mike: Yes, it 

Kristen: Yeah, This can be hard for people to realize it's definitely a lesson I had to learn.But, so for the do's on these lists, clarify expectations early and often. So he says, begin managing expectations before you even accept the role. So if you see something that they're talking about they want you to achieve that you know going in is not realistic.

Bring that up up front and continue to check in on those and lower unrealistic Take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work. So again, this is your responsibility. This is your job. Your boss is not, don't expect your boss to change and adapt to you.

Negotiate timelines for diagnosis and action planning.

So don't jump straight into fighting fires. Buy yourself some time to actually diagnose the organization and come up with an action plan. Aim for early wins in areas that are most important for your boss.

So figure out what they care most about, like their top three things.

And pursue good marks from people whose opinions your boss respects.

So like figure out like who are their like most trusted people and make sure that you build a good relationship with them because your boss's opinion, especially if they're really busy, have a lot of reports, like their opinion of you is going to be only partially based on their actual interactions with you.

It's going to also be based on what they hear about you from people they trust. I think these are so good.

Mike: They're so good.

Kristen: I wish I had these earlier in my career, honestly.

Mike: There's a lot of dovetails.

Jocko said you should aim to have the same relationship with every one of your bosses, whether they're good, bad, or atrocious. You want them to trust you, you want them to listen to you when you have something to say, and you want them to give you the resources you need to accomplish your mission.

Knowing your boss, knowing what's important to them, right? And Abershoff said, going from a high achiever to thinking like your boss is the difference between being a, an individual contributor and a leader in a team and that I think is one of the most genius statements.It's so genius and, and it's true.

You go from, you can micromanage yourself into success, but you cannot micromanage an organization or a team. And if you just see your part of it and don't look up the chain and see what the organization's objectives are or might be, at least make some hypothesis about what you think your boss wants.

And Abershoff did that. He's like, I took a lot of risks, but he made calculated risks that he thought his boss would want him to make within his job description. And he figured his boss was going to want, a self starter who delivered like combat readiness and a highly effective ship without having to be micromanaged.

Yeah, I want that if I have to be somebody for sure. Bring me a completed project. Bring me some ideas. Bring me, you know, a well trained workforce, motivated and on time. 

Kristen: Anyway. So a lot of like,connections with some of the really profound stuff we've read in other books.

Definitely. Yeah. 

And then he talks about there are five conversations that you should, prepare to have with your boss. So the first one is like the situational diagnosis conversation.

So this is understanding how your boss sees the STARS portfolio of your role. 

Mike: Yeah. I do this. It's amazing. Like I haven't read this in a while, but I've done, I've internalized it and I had to, that exact thing, sir, how do you see this organization?

Are we sustaining success? Is it a turnaround? And I don't think there's a perception of the difference between turnaround and realignment in most people's brains if they haven't read this book, but you're going to get an idea of.my boss thinks this is a turnaround. He doesn't expect instant success.

He expects a longer process. Great. Well, now I know where to focus my efforts. 

Kristen: Yep. I see all the difference,

Mike: Yeah. All the difference.

All the difference. 

Kristen: Two is the expectations conversation. So this is the negotiation of expectations, right? And specifically also identify your boss's untouchables.

Mike: Oh my god, yes.

Kristen: This is like things that they're sensitive about, so you can not push on them. But a lot of this is really shaping your boss's perceptions of what you can and should achieve and on what timeline. Number three is the resource conversation. So this is also a negotiation but for critical resources and a lot of this is going to be focusing your boss on the benefits and costs of what you can accomplish with different amounts.

And then, number four is the style of conversation. So this is how you and your boss can interact on an ongoing basis in the best way possible. So things to talk about, forms of communication they prefer, frequency of meetings, kinds of decisions that they want to be consulted on. This is so important, right?

Like, what does your boss want to be looped in on when it comes to decisions and what do they trust you to just make on your own? And that will probably change over the duration of your relationship as you develop trust. And also you can talk to other people, too, but you want to kind of understand what your boss's style 

Mike: Just to get off on a little tangent, I think this is, incredibly underutilized. 

Kristen: Uh huh. 

Mike: Peter Drucker, who was one of the first people to write in leadership.In the fifties, he had a, a little book called, Managing Yourself. And he said, one of the most important things you could figure out was, do you observe absorb information better in written form or an oral form?

And he used the example of Dwight D Eisenhower, who when he was a general gave the most fabulous press conferences. And when he was president gave the, most atrocious press conferences and it was because General Eisenhower President Eisenhower absorbed information better in written form and when he was in the military the reporters would submit questions to him like an hour before, and he would go through with his staff and he would think it through and write out very thoughtful responses.

And when he was president, he wanted to do it the way everybody else had done it and just go to the press conference and answer questions. And he did not do that well. So if you can find out whether your boss prefers things in writing or things in person, uh, you are going to get a massive, boost.

Yeah, it's so

important. It's so important.

Kristen: I have like worksheets I take clients through when they're going through a transition, or have a new boss and something like just all the different things you should understand about your boss.

And yeah,it's so impactful and really affects your relationship positively.And then number five is the personal development conversation. So this is after you've been in your role for a few months, but have the conversation about how you're doing and what your developmental priority should be So I love these.Chapter five is Secure Early Wins. So this is a critical part of your 90 day plan is figuring out like what your early wins are going to be. And he gives guidelines around these. He recommends planning. the changes that you want to make in like successive waves. So you have like the first wave which is like the, earlier quicker wins and then each wave you have a period of phases where you're learning, you're designing the changes, you're building support, you're implementing the changes, and then you're observing the results. And this kind of gets into change management which should also be the focus of either an LBC episode or a topic episode in the near future. Because it's really awesome to go through different models for that.One thing I really liked that I think is important is he says, don't fall into the low hanging fruit trap because it's really easy to just identify quick wins that are easy, because they're easy and you can get them done, but your early wins should still contribute to achieving your longer term business objectives. I think that is so important when you're choosing what to do first. And also identifying any problematic behaviors that are happening.

So is the team lacking focus, discipline, innovation, teamwork, sense of urgency? And the principles he gives for basic principles of early wins are focus on a few promising opportunities. Don't try to do too much again. Get wins that matter to your boss is a really good way to build a relationship upfront. Get wins in the right ways. So you're really exemplifying the values and behaviors that you want to instill organization. Take your STARS portfolio into account because what constitutes an early win is going to vary by situation and also adjust for the culture. This includes understanding what is and isn't considered a win in that particular culture. And then, It gets into a few other things around this, one of these I like, like new leaders are perceived as more credible when they display these characteristics. So in a lot of these, I think going back to The Dichotomy of Leadership we talked about 

Mike: Nice.

Kristen: Your, one of your favorite Jocko books that we have not done, but,these are dichotomies, right?

So demanding, but able to be satisfied. So you know when to celebrate success and you know when to push for more. Accessible but not too familiar, like boundaries. Decisive but judicious, so you make some quick decisions, but you also defer the ones that you need more time to make the right call on.

Focused but flexible, so you do consult others and encourage input. Active without causing commotion, so like making things happen without overwhelming your team. 

Mike: Sometimes it's, I think I agree with all of this, but sometimes all of these need to be intentional.

Kristen: Oh yeah,

Mike: Sometimes when you have an underperforming team or people who have never been pushed before, it's all right to make some waves, if you're doing it on purpose and not just you have too big a personality.The Chinese say don't come in with three bundles of fire. 

Kristen: Hmm.Yeah, Yeah, these are all a balance, right? might make sense to lean in more, one direction

a dichotomy, and the last one is willing to make tough calls, but humane. So you'll do what needs to get done.

You'll make the really hard personnel decisions, but you're going to do it in a way that preserves people's dignity and that other people would generally perceive as fair.

Mike: I just want what's fair.

Good tie into Chris Voss. Yeah. I, I do want to say, I hope at this point with our LBCs people, if you're listening, you get the idea that this is a class in a way, like if you reallyut putn the time and effort, you can grow your capacity by, by, studying. And you can fill in the gaps in your knowledge, and not just your knowledge, but the way you behave.

Even, you can adapt your personality a little bit to what's needed. And you can grow, think growth is really, should be limitless.The Peter Principle only exists because people stop looking to learn. No, if you have a, like a humble mindset, you could, you can keep going.

Confucius says where I see three people walking together, one of them is my teacher. And he was already like a perfect person at that point. If he can learn from people, so can we. 

Kristen: Love it. So last couple of things on identify your early wins. He says, identify three or four areas max where you will seek to achieve rapid improvement. And with this, again, keep your long term goals in mind. Start with a few promising focal points where you think improvement can dramatically strengthen financial or operational performance. Elevate change agents, so people at all levels of your unit who have the insight drive and incentives to advance your agenda. So give them appropriate roles and use the early win projects as ways to introduce new behaviors that you want to distill into the culture.

He also notes that you need to identify ticking time bombs that could potentially ruin your efforts.

This could be things in the external environment, like trends in public opinion, government action, economic conditions, be like things around your customers, markets, competitors, and strategy. This could be internal capability related. So like your units, processes, skills, and capabilities lead to a crisis.

And also organizational politics. So this is, these are also important to understand when 

Mike: This is like the SWOT 

Kristen: Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah.

Mike: absolutely the SWOT.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. You should always be thinking in those terms 

Kristen: But anything you're, yeah, anything you're trying to roll out, 

Mike: There's always threats, People, processes, I like economic situations. If you're not paying attention to that. You're gonna, you can hit a big wall quick, quickly.

Kristen: So chapter six is Achieve Alignment. This is basically talking about like the higher you climb in an organization, the more you take on a role of an organizational architect.

So you're like creating and aligning the key elements of the organizational system. And some of like the traps that people fall into when they're trying to fix complicated organizational problems, making change for change's sake, not adjusting for the STARS situation. Trying to restructure your way out of deeper problems, which compares to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, which makes me laugh because I have seen this happen so many times in corporations.

Mike: You just say rearranging the deck chairs on

Kristen: huh.

Mike: Oh my god, that's amazing. It's 

Kristen: It's amazing. Yes, I've seen so many cases where it's like, Oh, we're doing a reorg to fix things. And it's like, you're not actually fixing the real 

Mike: That's like having a child to save your relationship. Yeah, right? Yeah. Let's just move these chairs around. The water, just move the water, it's going to look better over there. I see it now. 

Kristen: Yep.

Yep.Creating overly complex structures, another thing I laugh at because I have seen so many times in corporations, and also overestimating your organization's capacity to absorb change is another big one. If you do too many reorgs, people get change fatigue, so incremental change is better. And then the rest of this chapter goes pretty deep into. organizational strategy. so I'm going to skip over most of this. I, how much it matters depends on how senior you are. And it goes pretty deep into it, but if that interests you, you can read entire books and take entire courses on that.

Mike: It's It's just fascinating. I would have like to gone to school for that and not classical music but okay. Coulda shoulda woulda. A.

Kristen: I mean, I don't remember anything from my business degree because I had no work experience. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Kristen: I, like I did, I did strategy courses in my Master's program and that was way more interesting because I had already been in the workplace for quite a while. there's that. So chapter seven is Build Your Team.

And like with many of these, he talks about common traps and ohCommon traps when it comes to building your teams. Criticizing the previous leadership.

Mike: We may or may not have seen an example of that. In the last job that I just left. It's so unwise. Like, unless the person before you was very obviouslynot just incompetent, but like maybe criminal or something, and you have to do a hard, like a hard shift, that's not what you want to say.

Cause you don't know who is still who loved that guy and is still like friends with them and telling them everything that you just said. I had, it was funny. I had, when I was a musician, we had a saxophone teacher come in just like a local jazz guy come in to our percussion studio and give like jazz lessons.

I was so bad at it. So, so, so bad at it.But he talked about feeling the vibe and like listening to the music that was being played before you and like how you joined that music even if you were playing a new song. Like he gave an example of I don't know he was on some gig and there was just like this slow romantic melodious ballad and then you know it was just languid and heartfelt and just, and then the minute the song stopped, this young saxophonist just ripped out, some like super fast, and he was like, you can't do that.

Like you're gonna, you're gonna shock people and you got to lead them back to that and you can lead them wherever you want it to go, but you can't like do such a hard shift that they can't follow you or they like, it shouldn't be that jarring. So don't do that.

Kristen: Yeah, be very careful. This doesn't mean you have to, you know, be like, oh, that person was wonderful. I mean, you can absolutely talk about like poor performance, you can highlight problems, but really keeping your focus on the changes that you're making 

Mike: Yup. 

Kristen: Key.

Mike: Yup. No one's fooled by you. Your insecurity of having to like make that comparison.

Kristen: comparison. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's not,

We're 

Mike: going to make this place happy again.

Are you sure we weren't happy? I don't know. Like,

okay. 

Keeping the existing team too long. 

Uh huh.

Kristen: Uh huh.

Mike: huh. 

Kristen: Cause usually you're, unless it's a startup, you're usually inheriting a team, and you need to mold them into what you need to achieve your priorities. Some leaders will make changes too quickly, but it's probably more common for people to keep the team longer than is wise when there are people who are just not working out. So like establishing clear deadlines as part of your plan for making personnel decisions is important

Mike: Yeah. You don't want to, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot and make too many changes too quickly. Timing is everything. You got to have an, a plan for that 

Kristen: Other traps, so not balancing stability and change. So I like this, he has so many great analogies in here. Building a team you've inherited is like repairing a leaky ship in mid ocean. You won't reach your destination if you ignore the necessary repairs, but you don't want to try to change too much and sink the ship.

So good.

Mike: I mean, this book is 

Kristen: I know it's incredible. Yeah. I love this book if you can't tell after, over an hour of this into thisbut yeah, so like focusing on the truly high priority personnel changes, don't try to change everything once.Not working on organizational alignment initiatives and team development in parallel.

As all tho, those things are going to affect each other, not holding onto the good people, which means doesn't just mean like don't fire the good people. It also means that if there's a lot of uncertainty, if you're dragging out the personnel decisions, uncertainty about who's gonna be on the team can lead people, your best people to find new jobs.

Mike: So you must build consensus with the key players. If you find people that are high achievers and high performers, get them on side

Kristen: Yeah. Like signal, find ways to signal to them that you value their 

Mike: Well, and that things are going to change because a lot of people are, disheartened. That in terms of not like criticizing past leadership, a lot of people don't, should not be leaders in the positions and they traumatize their team and it's you must convince them that, it's not always going to be like that and demonstrate to them how you're going to be different. 

Kristen: Different.

Yeah. Undertaking team building activities before the core is in place. So he basically says like, don't focus on the team bonding and when you have these impending for like big personnel changes happening, like wait until the group is in place and kind of keep the focus on business until that. Making implementation dependent decisions too early.

So when you're making changes on the team, and successful implementation of certain things requires their buy in, like you need to wait on those. And then lastly, trying to do it all yourself. It's like restructuring a team is fraught with emotional, legal, and company policy complications. So figure out who in the organization can best advise you and help you chart out a strategy for it.

Yeah, these all resonate a lot.The rest of this chapter goes through a process for, evaluating and making changes within your team. So a big thing he talks about is establish criteria.

I think this is important for many things, including like hiring also, but establish what criteria you're going to evaluate team members based on. So things like competence, judgment, energy, focus, relationships, trust, and establish like a weight for each criteria and the minimum threshold you need to see from any person on your team. And then check your assumptions about what you can and can't change, factor in like critical functional expertise, factor in the STARS mix, like how much of a fit is each person for what you're trying to accomplish for the organization, and also factor in how critical that particular position is.

So it might be okay to keep like a B player in a less critical role for a while, but if there's a highly critical role, you need to get somebody really good in that role quickly if they're not already in place. And then assess each =person on your team, he goes into more detail on things to keep in mind for this.

And then by the end of the first 30 days, you should provisionally be able to place people in one of the following categories, which are keep in place, keep and develop, move to another position, replace low priority, people who can stick around a little longer, replace high priority, and observe for a while. And, he does talk about like considering alternatives before firing somebody. This is going to depend a lot on your organization

Mike: at your organization. Well, sometimes, directors are underserved, or leaders are underserved by their previous administrations, if you will. Absolutely. Yeah, and you can see somebody who may have been underperforming, didn't have the guidance or support that they needed, and you have to make that assessment.

In general, I think err on the side of giving them a moment to prove you wrong, you know,

Kristen: And sometimes it's like right person, wrong role.

Mike: Yeah.Right bus, wrong seat. 

Yeah. So,And then once you've done those major high priority changes, figure out kind of your push and pull tools for motivation. This is kind of a cool way to look at motivation, but basically push tools are motivating things that are like motivating people through authority, loyalty, fear, rewards. So these things like incentives, goals, performance measurement. systems and procedures and pull tools are you're motivating people by provoking a positive and exciting future. So this is much more about your vision and the team as a whole. I like that. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah, that's,

Kristen: He gonna, he talks about creating a shared vision.

We've talked about this with like Start with Why.

And lastly, a brief note on like kind of decision making processes, team decision making processes. So the two most common ones are Consult and Decide and Build Consensus. So Consult and Decide, the leader is soliciting information and advice from others like either individually as a group, but ultimately is reserving the right to make the final call versus building consensus is the leader is actually like seeking buy in from the group for the decision.

So with a goal of getting to like a majority or critical mass and like never. Never a goal of getting to a hundred percent, but, so the difference between these is, so like use, consult and decide when it's a decision that's likely to be highly divisive, there's a lot of potential conflict when you have inexperienced team members, when you're first put in charge of a group that you need to establish authority with. And built use consensus when this decision really requires energetic support for implementation, especially when from people that you can't always observe or control their behavior. So if it's something that people need to really be on board in order to achieve the implementation of, that's where you want to look towards a build consensus . So yeah, last few chapters. So chapter eight is Create Alliances. This is getting into a lot of understanding the influence landscape, Making a list of influential players, what you need them to do and when you need them to do it. Identifying potential winning alliances. These are people who, winning alliances are people who have the power to support your agenda and blocking alliances are those who collectively have the power to say no.

And identify these for each of your early win initiatives. And then mapping out influence networks. So, looking at, who influences whom, and

Mike: Nice.

Kristen: Oh, the grammar? Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Mike: Nice.

Even at night.Do they use the Oxford comma on the West Coast?

Kristen: I am not a fan of the Oxford comma, personally. 

Mike: Divorce. 

Kristen: No, I would never. No. People have very strong

Mike: I mean, maybe we need marriage counseling for that one. Oh my god. I just, why would you not continue to use, okay.

Kristen: Focus!

Mike: Who and whom. Nice.

Kristen: And then identifying like the sources of power that give people particular So is it their expertise? Is it from their control of information? Is it because of who they're connected to? Is it their access to resources? So like what gives these people power? And also recognizing power coalitions.

So these are people who either explicitly or implicitly cooperate over the long term. So like they'll vote as a bloc, It's a more tangible example of that. But this happens in organizations. And then you're going to want to identify potential supporters, potential opponents, and persuadables.

Mike: This book is so 

Kristen: It's so good. Yeah. So

Mike: I mean, this is not just the first 90 days. This is a roadmap to continued success.

Kristen: is. Absolutely. And that's kind of like his whole thesis, right? Is like the first 90 days is what's going to

Mike: What's going to, well, just with the amount of change we go through nowadays, like you have to accelerate.

You don't have two years to make an impact. You have two months. And if, you haven't done it after 90 days, you're probably not going to, to be honest.. 

Kristen: Yeah.

True.

Mike: You might not have fixed everything, but your presence should be felt.

Kristen: So, yeah. How

Can 

Mike: we analyze the current political structure and see maybe when they're doing some things that are not in this book?

Or contraindicated by this book? I don't know. strong change, necessary, sometimes, okay.

Anyway, anywho, not 

Kristen: That's a very

Mike: podcast. Where's the, Yeah. where's the Kermit, me, and me sipping tea? That's none of my business. 

Kristen: I mean, I have mixed feelings about this cause there's a lot to say right now, but, also there were a lot of podcasts who talk about politics and I also respect that. Like when you're listening to a leadership podcast, you don't necessarily want to think about the current world realities.

Mike: sure. But you know, I'm sorry. Lao Tzu spent the entire second part of the Tao Te Ching talking about good governance. Confucius spent his entire life trying to get into government.

And he kept saying, if somebody would give me, control of the government, I could achieve, harmony in the country in like under three years, maybe he said three months. I don't know. And he absolutely could have, In China, in ancient times in order to get into government, you had to pass rigorous exams, not just to test your capabilities, but to test your virtue. If it was even rumored that you were impolite to your mother, you would not get that government job.

Nowadays. It is

Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: Something else,

Kristen: Yeah. Yep.

Mike: We, as a people, I will, I'm sorry, I will tangent a little for this.

We must demand that the people that represent us have the highest moral virtues and characteristics. We must ask them to strive for better as people. And, care for the people that they're entrusted with serving, and not serve their own interests. And if you're not doing that, you don't belong in government.

Or, really, any leadership position. 

Kristen: position.

I 

Mike: Any leadership position.

Kristen: I agree. That is should be striving for. 

Mike: Yeah. Well, it's not just that in, in corporations and companies, like you as the leader, your main purpose is the success of the organization and the success of your people. That's your role. And if you're looking to just enrich yourself, go be like an options trader or something.

You're being given the trust of an organization and the trust of the people that you lead. You have to do right by them. That has to, that's a heavy burden. And if you don't actually feel that you should not be a leader. 

Kristen: be a part of it. Yeah.

Mike: Agreed,So it's not just politics. It's any position of response.

Positions of, do you want it? Do you want the position for the authority and the power? You should not want it because the, those positions come with such responsibility that it should make you shake a little bit. 



Kristen: Yeah.

Mike: You're trusted to be a leader because you have the, hopefully the virtue and capabilities to lead an organization to success. Make choices that are in the best interests of the organization and of the most people that you possibly can. It should be hard for you to make the difficult decisions. And if it's not you shouldn't be in charge. Give it back.

You don't deserve it Yeah.

Kristen: 

So yeah, so back to influence. You're looking to identify your potential supporters, your potential opponents and the persuadables, who are people who are undecided, or indifferent. And then, um, once you've understand who the pivotal players are thinking about, what are their intrinsic motivators? Like, are they motivated individually? Like, are they motivated by recognition, power, affiliation? People, everybody has different motivators. What are their situational pressures?

It's like the forces acting on them because of the situation that they're in and how do they perceive their potential alternatives or choices. These are so helpful.And then he gets into these. classic influence strategies. I am going to go through these because even though this, again, could be kind of its own book, or own episode, but I do like how he lays these out. So there's consultation, which is posing questions, encouraging people to voice their real concerns, summarizing what you've heard. There's framing. So this is your, you're carefully crafting your arguments on a person by person basis and understanding like what appeals to them individually. And there's like the three planes of existence, or the three planes of this, right?

So you have logos, the data and reason arguments. So what data logic do they find persuasive? Ethos. Like the principles, policies, and other rules. So like are there particular principles or policies that they could be convinced to apply to this situation? And then pathos, emotions and meaning. So do they have emotional triggers that you can appeal to?

Like how can you create a sense of meaning for them?

Mike: Well, that's from Mr. Voss's book, right? Know Their Religion.

Kristen: Definitely relates.Choice shaping, so influencing how people perceive their alternatives and making it really hard for them to say no. Social influence, so this is using the impact of the opinions of others and general like rules of society. And a lot of a lot of these also, I think we'll do influence. I, I mention Influence by Robert Cialdini a lot. It's such, it's so 

Mike: lot I need to read that.

Kristen: It's good. It's, it's meaty, but it's, it's really

Mike: good. I like meaty. As long as there's,

Kristen: Like it'll definitely be a two parter if we do an LBC on it, there's a

Mike: a lot. I don't know if you're, yeah, Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow could have been about half this, half the

Kristen: Yeah, yeah, we're going to do that one soon,

too, but, 

Just 

Mike: do the first half.

And then incrementalism. So like moving people in your desired direction, step by step, if you can't get them in a single leap. Sequencing, so being really strategic about the order in which you try to influence people. So you're building momentum. So again, you're recognizing who influences whom, right. And then action

Nice. 

Kristen: Oh my god.

Then action forcing events. So this is things like using things like deadlines, things, forcing decisions based on a particular timeline or particular commitments. So it's just get people to make a decision. So, yeah, there's so much in that chapter.

It's so good.Chapter Nine is Manage Yourself. Okay. and we've talked about different versions of this, but there's a few things in this I think are really worth talking about. So, watching out for certain behaviors in yourself, undefended boundaries. So if you fail to establish solid boundaries around what you're willing and not willing to do, the people around you will take whatever you have to give. We talked about this a lot in like Boundaries for Leaders, but look out for those. Look out for brittleness, which is where like uncertainty over an extended period of time can make leaders more rigid and defensive, which often can lead you to you over committing to of a course that is failing.

So watch out for that. Isolation, like you, you need to be connected to people who are making things happen.and to like the flow of information that's happening within the organization.

And work avoidance, which is basically putting off making tough decisions. Which is very easy to do.Very

Mike: It's not easy to make the 

Kristen: No, it's not. But as you, I mean, I like what you said, like this should be making tough calls should be something that's hard for you.

Mike: It should be hard. 

Kristen: Yeah. Like you should never find doing mass layoffs easy. You

Mike: I mean, even a single layoff should be hard. I think that should be hard. You're, even if you think like this is probably the best thing for this person, it should not be easy to like rock somebody's boat like that. 

Kristen: Yep. Yeah. If it is, it's time to question yourself. 

Mike: Sorry, you're in the wrong job.

Kristen: He calls out the Yerkes Dodson curve, so this 

This is the curve that shows you like stress will increase performance until you hit a peak and then it will decrease performance until you hit burnout. So watching out for that, your own personal curve when it comes to stress and how it's affecting your performance. And then he kind of summarizes this with like three pillars of self management.

So the first pillar is adopting 90 day strategies, this is basically what the whole book is about. Number two is developing personal disciplines. So these are like the regular routines that you're enforcing on yourself, he says ruthlessly. So planning time daily to evaluate, reflect, and make adjustments, devoting time each day to the most important work that needs to be done.

So like not letting, with the Eisenhower Matrix, not letting urgent crowd important. Judiciously defer commitment when people ask you to do things. So like you don't always need to commit to things in the moment and be careful about what you commit to.

Going to the balcony, which is when you know you're too caught up in like the emotional escalation of a situation.

Like, take the time out to stand back and really take stock

Mike: What a genius, 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: that an analogy?

Kristen: I guess. Yeah. 

Mike: I want to say picture with word picture. what is

Kristen: don't know that he created that. I don't remember, but, but it's great.and then checking in with yourself regularly and recognize. When to quit working in a particular moment, like when you're at the point of diminishing returns. 

Mike: Oh, this is such good stuff.

It's so hard to go into new roles. You can just work 24 hours a day.

Kristen: Uh huh. As you are experiencing right now. It's hard. Yeah. 

Mike: You have to manage yourself. You have to treat yourself as a resource and push yourself and stretch yourself. And I saw the comment in here about stress being good and accelerating success until you reach the point of breaking. It's true. If you have no stress ever, you will not grow. You will not change.

You will not adapt. Adaptation is absolutely essential for your own survival, and the species' survival, right? If you go to the gym and you put no weight on the bar, you will not get stronger if you put too much weight on the bar, you will stop and slow your progress because you can't do it and you will hurt yourself. And now you're out of commission for weeks not months so. Check the ego, my friends. I will try to check my own It's not

Kristen: It's not, no, none of this is easy for sure.

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: So the third pillar is all about building your support systems. So this starts with, as he puts it, asserting control locally. So this is everything like get your new office set up, get your, don't put off, put that off because there's too many things to jump into, develop your routines and stick with them.

Things like that. Stabilize the home front. Which is likepartner, family, whatever, whoever's like your primary support outside of work. He talks about this especially a lot. if there's relocation, this is super important, but in general, stabilizing the home front is a war concept, I guess. 


Mike: War as an analogy is extremely useful. Because it's the most stressful 

Kristen: The last part of this is building what he calls your advice and counsel network. I tend to call this your personal boardroom. 

Mike: The square squad

Kristen: Or the square squad. Yeah. Though that's a little bit different. That's like your inner 

Mike: This isn't the inner

Kristen: This is like building your network of people who are going to be advisors and counselors and people playing different 

Mike: Sure. So build your team. yeah, 

Kristen: Yeah,

So this is going to be a mix of technical advisors. It's cultural interpreters, people who help you understand the culture of the organization, and political counselors. And also should be a mix of external and internal advisors, people at the company, people not at your company.

So you need external supporters who are loyal to you as an individual. So people you've worked with before and who care about you and your success. Internal advisors who are trustworthy, who have agendas that don't conflict with your own because it's going to be hard for them to be an advisor and to offer you straight and accurate advice.

And then finding representatives of key constituencies like given stakeholder areas that can help you understand their perspectives. So this is if you having a customer that you trust that you can go to get their perspective on things like And yeah, I think this is a great advice. I, my thought, I think we can do another episode.

This is something I coach on a lot as well, which is like building your network, and your social capital. So we can talk more about that in the future. And yeah, chapter 10 is accelerate everybody or accelerate everyone. This chapter is focused more on like how organizations can support their leaders in transition and implement organizational change.

So I didn't really go into this, much because this is more impacting if you're like somebody who is in a very senior HR leadership role for a company. This, might have more impact on you, but, I think for the majority of our listeners, it probably won't. So. Now we've made it to the end.

Mike: Bum, bum, bum. Not the right.

Kristen: Not the right sound effect.

Mike: No.

Kristen: So Mike, what did not resonate with you from this book?

Mike: I'm gonna steal yours. I kindthat

Kristen: So probably putting mine in the documents so he can read it ahead of time. Well, no, I,

Mike: no, I, to be honest, I really felt overall, this book really hit on all cylinders. I think the, I agree with you, his chapter on organizational strategy was a, I don't want to say outside his wheelhouse, but not a, not what this book was about.

Kristen: It's just a big topic. Such 

Mike: a big topic and it does feel just a little bit thrown in.

To throw it in. And the rest of this stuff is broken down in such exquisite detail, and that chapter did, feel I don't want to say necessary, but it felt obligatory and not his 

Kristen: Yeah, I feel like it's the kind of thing.

It'd be better to like refer people to other resources on it. So I took multiple courses on this

Mike: I mean, it's a P it's a PhD

Kristen: I still don't understand a lot. So I think it's hard to cover in a chapter.

Mike: Yep. I agree. Especially when everything else is like the seminal work on this topic. Yeah.

Kristen: And like so practical. And so like, 

Mike: Honestly, I'm, I've this, all of this, I have internalized a lot of this and it's powerful stuff. 

Kristen: I love it.

Well, what was your most life changing takeaway?

Mike: the STARS and really identifying the type of situation you're going into and identifying the type of person that you are. Both of those have helped me immeasurably, and I've been able to adapt my personality a little bit when it was called for so that I could rise to the challenge of the situation I found myself in. I mean, for a while, all hotels were turnarounds. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: was no such thing as probably all service business everywhere. They still are like, honestly, they, this, the industry restaurant and hotel, they have not really recovered. And I mean, they have, they look like they have, but they're, they haven't.

And I restaurants are worse off.It's hard to find people. 

Amazing concept and identify the, you know, in The Art of War, that's like identify the terrain on which you will fight.

Kristen: Yep. Yeah. 

Mike: Yours, Kristen.

Kristen: So I've definitely gotten different things out of this book every time I've read it or referred back to it. I think this time I was really struck by, he does this in several of the chapters, like listing out the potential like traps and pitfalls that leaders in new roles fall into.

I just, I found these so relatable. I've seen so many of them in reality. And, I think it's really helpful to identify them up front and talk about what to be careful of. And it's just very practical. 

Mike: I'm gonna, I'm gonna re read that part.

Kristen: There's, yeah, there's a lot. I mean, there's a reason why I kept a lot of that in notes, right?

Mike: Obviously, we can't include everything when we're trying to cover a whole book in an episode. But I just love those, Awesome. So

Kristen: yeah, that's that another,

Mike: you know, pretty

Kristen: lengthy LBC episode, but I think we've, we've kind

Mike: we've kind of established that

Kristen: our book club episodes are going to be longer because we're covering a lot.

Mike: lot. 

All right, well

Kristen: Thank you guys for listening. And as always,

Mike: Kristen, thank you for introducing me to this book.

It's pretty life changing. This has got to be top 10 of all the books you can possibly 

Kristen: yeah. I mean, it's definitely, it's one of the four or five books I keep on the shelf behind me because I, referencing them all the time and pull them out in coaching sessions and recommend them.

So it's definitely up there for me, for

Mike: This, I think you have to reach a certain level in your career for this to really, 

Kristen: yes, I think like What Got You Here Won't Get You There. This probably not if you're like a pretty junior

Mike: Yeah. This is when you take control of your own boat. It might not be just your own department where this will really start to impact how successful you are.

But once you reach that level, this is a must read. 

Kristen: It's so helpful. I think even if you're not at that level, it's helpful to know this stuff 

Mike: For sure. 

Kristen: It will help you direct

Mike: For sure. Yeah.

Kristen: yeah. Awesome.

Mike: Thank you, everyone.

Kristen: Thanks

Mike: Thank you, Kristen.

Kristen: See you next time. Thanks Okay, 


The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

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