Master Your Next Move: The Essential Companion to The First 90 Days

Transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders. Whether you are being promoted, joining a new company, or making a move overseas, the actions you take during your first few months can determine whether you succeed or fail. Learning the fundamental principles of leadership transitions can help you avoid the common mishaps many leaders face throughout their career journey. (Download the new introduction.)

In the updated edition of Master Your Next Move: The Essential Companion to The First 90 Days (Harvard Business Review Press, April 9, 2019), professor and bestselling author Michael Watkins helps leaders self-diagnose their current transition challenges and provides a robust framework that they can apply to accelerate any transition they are facing. In this follow up to The First 90 Days, the book The Economist called “the onboarding bible,” Watkins provides specific strategies to help professionals deal with both personal adaptive changes and organizational change challenges. Leaders can come back to this book at any point over the course of their career and receive actionable advice on how to overcome these eight common transition challenges:  

1. The Promotion Challenge

As leaders move to a higher level, they need to learn how to delegate, show their leadership presence, and define a new measure of success.

2. The Leading-Former-Peers Challenge

When a new team includes former peers, leaders will need to learn how to establish authority with them and reengineer existing relationships.

3. The Corporate Diplomacy Challenge 

Leaders that are now able to influence others will need to identify those who hold power and build strong and supportive alliances with them.

4. The Onboarding Challenge

Learning to adapt to a new company culture is difficult—leaders must quickly align expectations with everyone from their new boss to their peers.

5. The International Move Challenge

In a culture different from their own, leaders must not only lead their team, but also simultaneously deal with a big transition for their loved ones.

6. The Turnaround Challenge

When leaders enter a failing organization, they become responsible for figuring out how to save it quickly. 

7. The Realignment Challenge

Some organizations don’t believe they need to change, but they do. Leaders must create a sense of urgency before issues escalate.

8. The Business Portfolio Challenge

If different units are in different phases (i.e. start-up, turnaround, etc.), it is the job of the leader to focus their attention on the units that need help.

Master Your Next Move is an essential guide for the most common — and most difficult — transition challenges leaders face when taking on a new role. The First 90 Days was written to introduce leaders to the principles of successful transitions. This complementary book helps leaders apply those principles to the challenges they encounter in their new role and in turn, sets them up for future success.