W07 - The First 90 Days

I recently read The First 90 Days and want to share several points that resonated with me.

It all comes down to adaptability.The author's research shows that, on average, every professional manager experiences a transition about once every 1.3 years. Each transition can be categorized into five situations called STARS. Failures in role transitions often stem from either misreading the fundamental demands of the situation or lacking the skills and flexibility to adapt. Most people have a “problem preference”: they like solving problems they are good at and avoid their weaknesses. But if you try to replicate success in a new role solely by relying on past successes, you are refusing to change. All the principles and strategies in the book ultimately aim to improve adaptability.

Structured, multidimensional learning.The fundamental purpose of learning here is to gain "insights that can be translated into action." Insight means seeing the new environment clearly enough to judge easily what you should and should not do, enabling you to make better decisions sooner and quickly reach a breakeven point. Every transition involves adjusting a learning structure; focusing on the wrong type of learning accelerates transition failure. For example, if you only concentrate on technical aspects of the business without developing the cultural insight, relationships, and information channels necessary to understand the current situation.

The necessity of politics and culture.What is culture? Culture = basic cognition + behavioral patterns. It is a set of consistent patterns of communication, thought, and action that people follow, based on shared assumptions and values. What is politics? As Sun Yat-sen said, “politics is the handling of public affairs.” The biggest insight I took from this book is to recognize the objective inevitability of political environments and cultural patterns; they are essential subjects for training adaptability.

Finally, some reviewers say the book's structure is poor because it never provides an exact 90-day plan. I believe that for VUCA-type challenges you can have a methodology, but you cannot have an SOP. If you expect someone to spoon-feed you a plan, in the end you might only get told, “Big brother, it’s time to take your medicine!”