The First 90 Days

• Author: Michael Watkins
• Amazon link

I was given this book by my boss at Cisco, Shailesh Shukla, when I took on a new role as head of engineering for MARSBU. If you are curious about the acronym, yes, it is the Business Unit from MARS. I opened the book and randomly landed on page 115 which had a section titled "Educate your Boss"; that definitely made this a must read.

The book is definitely a quick read and I had to pace myself so that I don't read it all in a couple of sittings and quickly forget all that I had read. There are some narratives in each chapter thath outline some simple example scenarios, but the author fails to develop any of them beyond a couple of paragraphs. The main theme of the book is compelling. Whenever a manager takes on a new role, he/she will take several days to reach the break-even point, which is defined as the point where the executive creates more value than he/she consumes. Regardless of which level you are at, your first few days in a new role set the stage for your success and if you can properly plan your transition you can make the right first impressions and greatly improve your chances of success. Around 25% of the managers in a Fortune 500 company take on a new role every year. If this book accelerates the transition of even a small fraction of these, then it has achieved its purpose.

There are a few things in the book, that while obvious, are a useful reminder for all of us. The author carefully underscores the importance of first understanding the situation that you are in, i.e. are you in a startup situation, or is it a mature organization in need of a turnaround, re-alignment or sustaining operation. Your strategies are different depending on the situation. There are several other nuggets that the book imparts and I will not give it all away here. The book does tend to get repetitive and does not have too much meat behind the nuggets of wisdom. Nevertheless, it is a useful reminder to all of us when we take up a new role. I recommend this book to anyone who is recently promoted or changing jobs and is most relevant before or as soon as you take on your new role.