Proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter – Businessday NG

Author: Michael D. Watkins

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Genre: Leadership and Management

Reviewer: Kenneth Athekame

Why do accomplished professionals sometimes fail when promoted to leadership positions or appointed to head new organisations? The answer may lie not in their competence, but in their inability to adapt to unfamiliar responsibilities, relationships and organisational expectations. In The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Michael D. Watkins challenges the assumption that past success automatically guarantees future performance. He argues that leaders must learn to navigate new environments, establish credibility and deliver results without making costly early mistakes.

Watkins, an expert on leadership transitions, presents the first three months of a new appointment as a critical period for establishing the foundations of long-term effectiveness. Rather than treating a promotion or appointment as a continuation of previous achievements, he encourages leaders to assess their new circumstances, understand organisational expectations and develop a deliberate strategy for creating value. His central argument is that leadership transitions require accelerated learning, strategic judgement, relationship-building and the ability to translate early decisions into sustainable results.

One of the book’s most significant contributions is the STARS framework, which identifies five organisational situations: start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment and sustaining success. Watkins uses these categories to demonstrate why leaders must diagnose the conditions they inherit before deciding how to respond. A start-up may require the development of systems and processes, while a struggling organisation may need urgent restructuring. A successful business, by contrast, may require a leader who can preserve its strengths while preparing it for future challenges.

The framework challenges the assumption that one leadership style works in every situation. Its practical value lies in helping leaders match their priorities to an organisation’s circumstances. However, the model also exposes a limitation in the book’s structured approach: real organisations rarely fit neatly into one category. A rapidly expanding company may simultaneously face financial difficulties, weak internal controls and declining customer confidence. A turnaround may also require investment in new products rather than cost-cutting alone. Leaders who classify an organisation too quickly risk overlooking the overlapping problems that determine its performance. The STARS model is therefore useful as an initial diagnostic tool, but it cannot replace detailed financial, operational and cultural analysis.

Another central theme is accelerated learning. Watkins argues that leaders must understand their organisations’ cultures, business models, performance challenges and internal relationships before committing themselves to major decisions. This requires listening to employees, asking informed questions, testing assumptions and identifying the expectations of key stakeholders. The principle is particularly valuable for professionals moving into unfamiliar industries or assuming responsibility for teams with established working practices.

Yet learning quickly is not simply a matter of gathering information. Leaders must also determine whose information is reliable, recognise competing interests and distinguish genuine operational problems from the concerns of influential individuals. In organisations where employees are reluctant to challenge senior management, formal reports may conceal difficulties that emerge only through confidential conversations or closer examination of operational results. Watkins’s emphasis on learning provides a sound foundation, but its effectiveness depends on the leader’s ability to interpret information critically and create an environment in which people can speak honestly.

The book’s argument also raises a difficult question: how much time can a leader realistically devote to learning when an organisation is already in crisis? Financial distress, operational failures or serious ethical problems may demand immediate intervention. Waiting for a complete understanding of the organisation could worsen its difficulties. Conversely, acting too quickly can lead to unnecessary restructuring, the loss of experienced employees or the abandonment of practices that were working. The challenge is to distinguish decisions that require further investigation from those that cannot wait. This tension suggests that leadership transitions demand not only a framework but also the judgement to know when the framework should be adjusted.

Watkins further advocates securing early wins: meaningful initial achievements that demonstrate competence, build confidence and establish momentum. These may include resolving a persistent operational problem, improving communication or removing obstacles that prevent employees from performing effectively. The principle recognises that credibility must be earned through results rather than assumed from a new title.

However, the pursuit of early wins can become counterproductive when leaders prioritise visible achievements over structural improvements. A manager might introduce a popular initiative to demonstrate progress while neglecting deeper problems in governance, employee development or financial management. Early wins can also become political performances designed to impress superiors rather than produce meaningful organisational value. Watkins’s advice is most convincing when early achievements are treated as evidence of a broader strategy, not as ends in themselves. Sustainable leadership requires results that remain valuable after the initial excitement surrounding a new appointment has passed.

The book also emphasises negotiating expectations with superiors, building effective teams and securing cooperation across organisational boundaries. These principles recognise that leadership failures often arise not from a lack of technical expertise but from poor communication, conflicting expectations and an inability to build trust. Nevertheless, the advice assumes that leaders have sufficient access to decision-makers and room to negotiate priorities. In highly centralised organisations, a new executive may have limited authority to challenge an influential superior or obtain the resources required to deliver agreed objectives. In such circumstances, relationship management involves navigating power imbalances as well as aligning expectations.

This limitation becomes especially relevant when considering Nigerian and wider African business environments. Leaders entering organisations across the region may encounter constraints such as expensive financing, unreliable infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, skills shortages and complex relationships between businesses, governments and other stakeholders. These challenges vary substantially by country, sector and organisation, but they can affect the resources available to implement a transition plan. A new chief executive of a Nigerian manufacturing company, for example, may need to understand power costs, foreign-exchange exposure, supply-chain vulnerabilities and working-capital pressures alongside internal management issues. A leader in a growing technology business may instead need to prioritise talent retention, investor expectations, cybersecurity and regulatory compliance.

In such environments, Watkins’s emphasis on diagnosis and prioritisation is valuable because it discourages leaders from importing solutions without understanding local conditions. Yet the book does not provide a context-specific framework for addressing all these institutional and economic constraints. Its principles must therefore be adapted to local realities rather than applied as though every organisation operates with comparable access to finance, infrastructure and managerial resources. The 90-day framework can help leaders organise their response, but it cannot compensate for inadequate capital, weak institutions or structural barriers beyond their control.

The book’s originality also deserves a more precise assessment. Watkins did not invent the underlying principles of listening, strategic planning, team-building or relationship management. These ideas have long been part of management practice. His more distinctive contribution is to organise them around the specific challenges of entering a new role, connecting organisational diagnosis, learning, stakeholder alignment and early performance within a coherent transition process. The STARS framework gives leaders a vocabulary for assessing different business situations, while the emphasis on early wins links the learning process to visible results.

This is a meaningful contribution of synthesis and application rather than a wholly new theory of leadership. The distinction matters because the book’s value should be judged by whether its framework improves the way leaders make decisions, not by whether every underlying principle is original. Its strength is the organisation of established practices into a practical method; its limitation is that the method can appear more predictable and comprehensive than actual leadership transitions allow.

The book is consequently best suited to readers who need a structured guide to taking on new responsibilities. Newly appointed managers can use it to shift from individual performance to leading through others. Experienced executives can apply its frameworks when entering unfamiliar organisations or taking responsibility for struggling businesses. Entrepreneurs may find its diagnostic approach useful when moving from a founder-led operation to a more formal organisation with established systems and professional management. Public-sector administrators can also draw lessons from its emphasis on stakeholder alignment and organisational assessment, although political mandates and public accountability may require adaptations not fully addressed by a corporate transition framework.

It is less likely to satisfy readers seeking a deeply theoretical exploration of leadership, an extensive investigation of organisational politics or a detailed account of African institutional challenges. Its practical models are accessible, but readers who follow them mechanically may overlook the importance of context, informal power and unexpected events. The most effective readers will treat Watkins’s framework as a disciplined starting point for independent judgement rather than a formula guaranteeing success.

Ultimately, The First 90 Days makes a compelling case that leadership success begins with understanding rather than authority. Through the STARS framework, accelerated learning and early wins, Watkins shows how leaders can assess unfamiliar environments, establish credibility and align their decisions with organisational priorities. The book’s greatest strength is its practical organisation of complex challenges; its main weakness is that its structured approach cannot fully capture the uncertainty, power struggles and resource constraints that shape real-world transitions.

For Nigerian and African readers, its greatest value lies in the questions it encourages leaders to ask about their organisations, their stakeholders and the conditions required for success. Its lessons are applicable, but their implementation must reflect local economic, institutional and organisational realities. Leadership effectiveness ultimately depends not on completing a checklist within 90 days, but on using sound judgement to build the conditions for lasting performance.

I recommend the book to newly appointed managers, aspiring executives, entrepreneurs and professionals preparing for significant career transitions. It is particularly useful for readers seeking a practical method for diagnosing unfamiliar organisations, setting priorities and building effective teams. Readers looking for a comprehensive theory of leadership or a context-specific analysis of African business challenges will need to supplement it with other works.

A strong practical guide to leadership transitions, distinguished by its systematic application of established management principles. Its real contribution is not the invention of entirely new leadership ideas, but the way it organises those ideas into a framework that helps leaders approach unfamiliar responsibilities with greater discipline, clarity and purpose.

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