I don’t quite remember my very first 90 days in a global role. It happened sort of naturally. I started helping folks from my region, sharing stuff I was doing, coaching them, inviting them for discussions, and boom – one day I was told I was officially responsible for them. But nothing really changed. I continued doing what I was already doing: leading them.
The second global role, though, was very different. It required preparation and a lot of effort to understand things, map things, and get to know people before realizing what my next steps should be. Lucky for me, I was in an organization that had a framework to help new global leaders, so I didn’t have to suffer that much. I had to put in the hours and effort, though, based on the framework.
My next global role was quite interesting because I used the same framework that I learned in the previous position. After my first 3 months, I had a meeting with all of my stakeholders, which made them all impressed with the things I have accomplished already, and the things I put in my “plan” for the following 3 years.
Back then, I was very naïve, though, and I would treat all new global roles as if they were the same. In the first 90 days, I would work on the same things and would plan actions in the same order and so on. Only later in life, I found out that having a framework is great, but we also have to make adjustments to our plan based on each business stage.
The first time I learned about the STARS Model Of Business Evolution, it made sense. But I only understood it completely when I had the opportunity to work with all types of business’ stages from the STARS Model. In the book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, Michael D. Watkins shares the STARS Model Of Business Evolution for analyzing businesses.
He basically divided businesses into 5 stages of evolution:
- S for Star-ups.
- T is for Turnaround businesses, those that, if nothing is done, will collapse and/or bankrupt.
- A stands for Accelerated Growth, which is usually those companies that are growing super fast, sometimes faster than management can handle.
- R for Realignment, or those types of businesses that derailed from the right trajectory and now need Realignment in order to move forward and be successful.
- S is the last S and stands for Sustaining-Success or those businesses doing pretty well but tend to become too confident and overlook certain things or strategies.
In the first 90 days, you rely heavily on learning, making connections and alliances, and mapping what needs to be done. Of course, doing that for a start-up is entirely different than from doing it for a business in realignment needs.
Makes sense, right?
So what is the framework for your first 90-days as a global leader?
The First 90 Days - General Framework
STEP 1: Break Up The First 90 Days Into Periods
You can either break up your first 90 days into 3 equal periods or break it up based on the general actions. I usually break them into 3 distinct months just to help me keep track of my deadlines.
You will focus your time differently in each of these periods:
- First 30 days: you will focus on learning things, especially if you came from outside the company. You will learn the terminology the company uses, any acronyms, the communication and leadership style your boss uses, your team’s preferences, and so on.
- Second 30 days: you will focus on mapping things. Now that you have some grip on how the company works and who is who, it’s time to map things out and start understanding patterns. What are the main problems you will have to work on in your position? What are your top priorities? What about your stakeholders? What is important to them, and how can you make an impact?
- Third 30 days: here, you will focus on initiatives to start presenting some results. I like to call this “grabbing low-hanging fruits.” There are always some elementary and quick things you can do to start putting things into action. Don’t be hasty. Make sure to negotiate these things upfront with your boss in your first 90 days plan presentation. You don’t want to clash with anybody or any initiative.
STEP 2: Create A Plan For The First 90 Days
Now that you know your focus in the first 90 days – period by period – make sure to plan out each of these 3 periods with the key things you want to learn, map, and do. Creating a plan is vital for several reasons:
- It helps you by having something tangible to present to your boss and/or stakeholders
- It helps you keep consistency and rigor on what to do next
- It helps you keep track of what you’ve done and which were the results
- It documents your efforts, results, and learning, which will be helpful during your performance review cycle.
STEP 3: Negotiate The First 90 Days Plan
Once you know what to do and have an elaborated plan in your hands, it’s time to negotiate your success with your boss. Basically, what this means is that you will pitch your plan to your boss, hopefully in the first couple of weeks. Your objective is to get an agreement on what you are supposed to accomplish in these first 90 days.
Your boss needs to agree that what you are planning to learn, map, and do in the first 90 days will benefit you as a leader and the company as the primary stakeholder. And if you get these things done, you’ll be deemed “successful.” In other words, this is very similar to when we were in school, and we would ask the teacher which topics we had to cover to ace the test. So long as we studied diligently those (and the teacher would not screw with us), we would ace the test.
The only time in my career I did not do this – negotiating success right upfront – my results were disastrous. I still have a bitter taste when I remember it. Don’t share my pain, and just give it a shot in having a great plan in hand and negotiating success. You’ll thank me later on.
The First 90 Days - STARS Model Of Business Evolution
And how does the STARS Model come into play when it comes to the first 90 days plan? One of the things you need to include in your plan is identifying which stage in the business evolution your business is in. The sooner you do this, the better because you can focus on learning and mapping the right stuff. Unless your business is a start-up, which is quite clear which stage from the STARS model the company is in, you’ll have to put some effort into defining the stage clearly.
The First 90 Days Focus Based On Business Stage:
- Start-ups: you will focus on implementing policies, procedures, systems, product strategies, etc. You are basically shaping things in this business stage, from strategy to entire teams.
- Turnarounds: you’ll focus on which processes will need to be fixed and which policies you’ll have to overhaul to prevent disaster completely. You might need to understand if any divestitures are required and if you’ll have to plan lay-offs or replacements.
- Accelerated growth: the focus on this business stage is how to create the right structure to support growth. Not only the current growth but also the future growth. Businesses do not overgrow forever, but you need to be smart to create a quickly scalable structure. What kind of process can you put in place to hire people swiftly without compromising culture? How can you quickly scale production without compromising cost and quality, and so on?
- Realignment: there is a lot of focus on politics in this business stage. Not everyone will be genuinely comfortable with accepting that things need to change. These types of businesses tend to require a lot of focus on people, communication, politics, and team-building. It is frequently obvious what needs to be done, but the issue in this business stage is to move the entire boat into the new adjusted direction.
- Sustaining-success: this business stage requires a lot of focus on strategy and planning. It also involves a lot of influencing skills because strategy alone won’t cut it. Everyone will have to be engaged in the same ideas and general direction, or it will soon fall into the realignment stage. Sustained success does not last forever. Leaders always have to be at the forefront of a visionary goal not to lose momentum. Leaders in this stage are usually too comfortable, and you’ll poke them to get out of the comfort zone.
One element you’ll have to include in your assessment in the first 90 days is an assessment of the countries and regions you are covering as a global leader. Each stage above might look different in each country you are dealing with, and the related actions might also look a bit different.
For example, if you are in a Realignment type of company, you might need to work on lay-offs, but if you are present in countries like Brazil and Germany, the Unions there might make your time a lot more difficult.
What’s next?
Great! Now you know that you need a plan, you know that you need to negotiate your success for the first 90 days, and you know that your plan must be customized based on the stage your business is in. What’s next?
Next, you have to actually create THE plan that covers what you have to learn, map, and do in your first 90 days and present it to your boss. Need more structure to create your plan? You are on a crazy lucky day! We created a fantastic free guide to help you tackle your plan with confidence. Get your 13-pages Ultimate Guide For Your First 90 Days As A Global Leader below. It includes month-by-month recommendations on what to plan for, templates to use in your first meetings, mistakes to avoid, and much more.
Want a brainstorm partner that has an outside perspective to help you with your plan and execution track? We can customize a program, with interactive and engaging 1-1 coaching calls, to help you walk through this first 90 days like a breeze in the park!
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