Review: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at all Levels

by Michael Watkins

Review by Rev Dr Darren Cronshaw

Preparing for my first pastoral appointment, I asked my Bible College mentor what I should do when I started. He said he always gave the same advice, “Visit everyone in the congregation as soon as you can”. That was sound wisdom for my first appointment and got me started well – I met everyone, showed them they were important to me, and began to listen and learn about their personal and church challenges.

Michael Watkins offers more detailed advice on how to start well, and how to do it differently for different sorts of groups. He’s a business writer, so he writes with business examples and executives in mind. But his principles are also relevant to pastors and churches. His premise is that the first ninety days transitioning into any leadership role are critical for establishing credibility and setting foundations for success.

One of his most helpful principles is that different strategies are needed for different organisations – whether start-up, turnaround, realignment or sustaining-success situations. Strategy needs to be matched to the situation:

• A sustaining-success situation needs more listening time and building on current strengths to preserve its vitality and lead it to the next level. The team needs a leader who can steer them away from complacency and towards new direction for growth. The best early win is gaining understanding of organisational strengths.
• A re-alignment is drifting towards trouble and needs to be revitalised. The team needs a leader who will learn its culture and politics, and bring processes that will work towards an early win of gaining acceptance of the need for change and instilling urgency.
• A turnaround is in trouble and needs new ways of doing things quicker. The team needs hope and ideas more than time to talk towards consensus. An early win is the right team in place and focusing on defendable core business.
• A start-up is getting something new off the ground. The team needs a leader who can channel available energy, largely in deciding what not to do. The early win is getting right team in place and achieving strategic focus.

Turnarounds and start-ups need a decisive and aggressive leadership style (and more doing); realignments and sustaining-successes need more subtle influence skills (and more learning). Start-ups and realignments need more energy for cultivating new markets and products (more offence); turnarounds and sustaining-successes need more making the most of existing positions (more defence). It is not enough to do what has worked in other contexts. I learned that in a later church, where visiting and listening to everyone was not as effective. That context needed turnaround leadership, more pro-active action rather than getting people together to listen to each other talk. Now I think I am in a realignment setting – I need to listen and learn lots, but also help people see our need for change and proactively put energy into developing new ministries.

Another helpful framework is a learning plan and a focused set of questions to ask a range of people. Watkins gives pages of sample questions about the past, present, and future to draw on, but five critical questions to ask everyone are:

1. What are the biggest challenges the organisation is facing or will face?
2. What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth?
3. What would need to happen for the organisation to exploit the potential of thee opportunities?
4. How could we improve the way the team works together?
5. If you were me, what would you focus attention on? (pp.45-46, 166-167)

He suggests asking these questions one-on-one, analysing responses, and then feeding back initial impressions to the whole team for further comment. Focus groups of clients and analysis of processes and decision-making can also be an important part of the first 30 days of learning.

The First 90 Days offers a range of advice for starting off in new roles, including:

• mentally preparing yourself for transition (a clear break is helpful)
• identifying your weak areas and not ignoring those tasks
• positioning yourself, including letting the team and clients know who you are and what you value through conversations, group gatherings, emails and even videos
• accelerating learning about the organisation (to reduce vulnerability to poor decisions), especially in the first 30 days to generate a diagnosis and list of key priorities
• securing early wins to build credibility and energize the team, especially in the next 60 days
• setting up project teams for specific performance-improvement initiatives
• negotiating with your supervisor what success looks like and what you need to get it, and then focus relentlessly on getting results
• watching out for predictable surprises and time-bombs
• meeting early tests of your authority with firmness and fairness
• aligning organisational structure and strategy
• team building (and deciding what restructuring is needed and who needs moving by the end of 90 days)
• using different decision-making styles for different decisions (e.g. consult-and-decide is better for an inexperienced team or decisive issue, but building-consensus is important for strong established teams)
• fostering supportive coalitions with colleagues and other stakeholders (and ask your boss for suggestions on who to talk to)
• keeping perspective and staying balanced (and not running off in all directions without boundaries or getting isolated from the team)
• set aside time for important work needing focus and for reflecting on how you are going
• identify and connect with an advice-and-counsel network of friends and mentors in and outside the organisation (and set this up before your transition)
• helping others to transition well (see also www.harvardbusinessonline.com).

My church tribe, the Baptist Union of Victoria, probably has 100 pastors starting new positions each year, as well as numbers of staff and volunteer ministry leaders. It is worthwhile thinking about how they can be best supported to make the most of their first 90 days. And it is worthwhile helping them adjust their style of starting for different contexts.

We need aggressive leaders who can turnaround declining churches and pioneer new ministries, as well as leaders who can come alongside existing successes (or groups who think they are) and collaboratively lead them on to their next growth stage.

It is also a helpful paradigm for working with a new boss to help them succeed, and for recalibrating focus for the things we might have missed in our first 90 days.

Rev Dr Darren Cronshaw is the BUV’s Coordinator of Leadership Training, co-pastor of Auburn Baptist Church, and an Honorary Research Associate with Melbourne College of Divinity (Whitley College). Feedback is welcomed at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it