Your Next Move - Michael Watkins Flashcards by John Jonah Jameson Jr.

“The promotion challenge: Moving to a higher level and understanding what you need to do to be successful there, including issues of focus, delegation, developing leadership competencies, and demonstrating “
The leading-former-peers challenge: An important variant of promotion in which you have been elevated to manage a team including your former peers, with the associated challenges of establishing authority and reengineering existing relationships.

“The realignment challenge: Inheriting an organization that’s in denial about its need for change and creating a sense of urgency before simmering problems force it into a turnaround situation.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“If you are experiencing a personal adaptive challenge, you need to ask: Given my history, mind-set, and capabilities, what are my most important development priorities? What do I need to do differently if I’ve been promoted, or joined a new company, or moved internationally, or some combination of these situations? What do I need to do more of and less of? What new competencies do I need to develop? What adjustments in my leadership style do I need to make? ”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“But the leader-as-helicopter metaphor has even richer possibilities: Helicopters don’t just hover; they move up or down in response to the pilot’s needs. In the context of promotions and transition challenges, it’s helpful to emember that even as you gain managerial altitude and perspective, you must preserve your ability to dive deep into issues when the situation demands it. You can’t afford to always stay at fifty thousand feet. You have to be able to pick an issue of concern and start digging into it, asking questions and pushing for answers until you are confident there is a firm foundation for people’s opinions and judgments. Doing this well means knowing which are the critical “fulcrum issues” that now or will impact the business, which in turn rests on your ability to gain and sustain the integrative view. It also means, as I will discuss shortly, being an effective “problem finder.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Management sage Peter Drucker said it as far back as the early 1950s: the ability to delegate lies at the heart of leadership.3 Regardless of where you land in the organization, the keys to effective delegation emain pretty much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics through which you can monitor “people’s progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through some sort of management-by-objectives process. In other words, the “how” of delegation is a constant.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“The good news about moving up is that you get a broader view of the business and more latitude to shape it. The bad news is that you are farther from the front lines and more likely to receive filtered information as a result. “Now, folks shield me from information that I ordinarily would have received in my old job,” one newly promoted executive told me.
To avoid this, you’ll need to establish alternative communication channels. You might maintain regular, direct contact with customers and select front-line employees, for instance, or create formal protocols so people at lower levels can raise serious legal or ethical concerns—all without undermining the integrity of the chain of command, of course. “Your direct reports may also end up playing a greater role in the spread of critical information—something to emember when you’re evaluating the team members you have inherited and the leadership and communication qualities they possess.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“There also is a hidden dimension to the competency shifts new leaders face as they rise through the ranks that wasn’t explored by Charan and his colleagues. Put simply, it’s the move from managerial science to leadership art. Consider that the skills required of lower-level managers can often be reduced to rules and procedures. The basics of effective supervision, for example, have been well understood for decades and lend themselves brilliantly to conventional classroom training. As one rises through the hierarchy, however, the requiements for promotion can be less cut and dried, involving capabilities such as effective pattern recognition, the ability to make clear and quick judgments, or soft-side skills such as political and emotional intelligence. When examined through this lens, higher-level promotions become less about acquiring specific skills and more about making the right shifts in mind-set—for example, thinking more strategically about business problems and understanding how to shape the competitive and political environments in which the organization operates.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“From analyst to integrator. The primary responsibility of functional leaders is to develop and manage their people to achieve analytical depth in relatively narrow, focused domains. By contrast, business unit leaders manage cross-functional teams with the goal of integrating the collective knowledge and using it to solve important organizational problems. As you might imagine, then, it’s important for new business unit leaders to make the shift to managing integrative decision making and problem solving and, even more important, to learn how to make appropriate trade-offs. Business unit leaders must also manage in the “white spaces”—accepting responsibility for issues that don’t fall neatly into any one function but are still important to the business.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“From problem solver to agenda-setter. Many leaders are promoted on the strength of their problem-solving skills. But when they reach business unit leader status, they must focus less on fixing problems and more on recognizing and preventing what I call predictable surprises from occurring in the first place.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“As discussed in the introduction, there are a handful of things that you can do to accelerate your personal adjustment to any new leadership role: assessing your strengths and weaknesses given the situation, disciplining yourself to do things that don’t come naturally, building a complementary team, and leveraging wise counsel.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“guided through a series of positions, each with a designated purpose, which offered him valuable lessons in four important career-development dimensions:

Development in his core function and exposure to other functions.
Understanding of the company’s range of businesses.
Home country and international assignments.
Business unit and corporate assignments.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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Promotion Checklist

“What does it mean to “promote yourself” into your new role? What must you do more of, even if you don’t enjoy or feel fully competent doing it? What do you need to do less of or let go?
Which of the common promotion challenges—balancing breadth and depth, delegating more deeply, influencing differently, communicating more formally, and adjusting to greater visibility—do you most need to focus on?”
“Which level-specific competencies do you need to develop to be successful at the new level?
What can your organization do to help you accelerate your development?
What do you need to do to meet the personal adaptive challenge? Do you need to enhance your self-awareness and, if so, in what ways? Do you need to exert discipline to do things that don’t come comfortably? Do you need to identify or recruit natural complements in your team? Do you need to alter your advice network or use it differently?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“being promoted to lead people who were formerly your peers is among the toughest transitions you can make, precisely because of the complex web of organizational relationships you’ve created over the years and must now redefine—with your boss, former peers, and new peers. You think you know everyone, and everyone thinks they know you. But those relationships were shaped, in part, by the roles you previously played. The protocols, perceptions, and interactions must all be different now.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Specifically, you should try to adhere to the following basic principles”

“Accept that relationships have to change.
Focus early on rites of passage.
Reenlist your (good) former peers.
Establish your authority deftly.
Focus on what’s good for the business.
Approach team building with caution”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Julia should carefully draft a short script around a few central messages: that she is looking forward to working with the team to move the organization forward, that she values all team members’ contributions, and that she is looking forward to meeting with each of them individually. (Ideally, she would have already begun setting up those meetings.)”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“You also should think hard about whether and how best to engage with disappointed direct reports more directly about what they are experiencing. Should you talk with them right away or after they’ve had more time to process the change? Should you address their concerns directly or obliquely? Should you be empathetic or matter-of-fact in your communications? It really depends on the person and your relationship with them. If they are disappointed but not resentful, comfortable talking about such things, and you have a good relationship with them, then it can be effective to directly address the issue. If, as was the case with Julia and Andy, they harbor some bad feeling or are uncomfortable openly discussing such things, then it’s probably best to leave the ball in their court, while at the same time signaling that they are valued members of the team.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“The sooner your new direct reports see that you’ll be “hard on issues and soft on people,” the better.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“There are six important reasons for convening the group off site:

To gain a shared understanding of the business (diagnostic focus)
To create a strategy and define the vision (strategy focus)
To change the way the team works together (team-process focus)
To build or alter relationships in the group (relationship focus)
To develop a plan and commit to achieving it (planning focus)
To address significant conflicts (conflict-resolution focus)”

“Before you reflexively schedule an off-site meeting, you need to step back and answer two interrelated questions: What am I trying to accomplish? And is an off-site the best way to achieve my goals? There are a number of reasons why you’d answer no to the second query—a chief one being the risk that you’ll fuel the rise of opposing coalitions. If some people are likely to resist the changes you want to make, then an early off-site may only serve to galvanize that group of dissenters, no matter how latent their objections, to the changes the organization is making. Better to start at the micro level—building support one by one and in smaller group meetings before convening an off-site”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Leading-Former-Peers Checklist

How is the network of relationships that you need to succeed in your new role different? Who are the key new people with whom you must build relationships? How must relationships change with your former peers, new peers, and boss?
What are the key rites of passage that signify you have been promoted and how should you prepare for them? What additional things might you or your boss do to signal that a significant shift is taking place?
What should you do to help speed up the process of adjustment for your former peers now that you will be leading them? How should you approach reenlisting the talented people in your organization?
How should you approach establishing your authority? How will you achieve the right balance between being in charge and empowering your team?
What formal team-building work will you do, if any? What is the right timing and focus for early team interactions?
How will you approach building relationships with your new peers? At what point will you shift from more of an early observational mode to becoming an active member of that team?
If you have the same boss, how will that relationship need to change given the new roles you both are playing? How will you approach surfacing and discussing the needed shifts?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Becoming an Effective Diplomat
What does it mean to be an effective corporate diplomat? Great diplomats proceed from the assumption that supportive alliances must be built in order to get anything serious done in organizations. They understand that opposition to change is likely, so they anticipate and develop strategies for surmounting it. They don’t expect to win over everyone; instead they focus on creating a critical mass of support. Most important, they devote as much energy to figuring out how to do things as they do to understanding what should be done. The starting point is to understand the importance of laying the foundation for alliances and defining key influence objectives.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“alliances are explicit or implicit agreements between two or more parties to jointly pursue specific agendas. By contrast, relationships comprise a broader class of social interactions, including personal friendships, which may or may not involve agreements to pursue specific goals.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Your insights about how others’ agendas do (and do not) align with your own can be an essential poi”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Conversely, it also pays to think hard about potential blocking alliances—those who seek to preserve the status quo and have the influence to do it. (After all, any significant change is likely to create winners and losers.) Which influencers might band together to try to block progress, and why? Are there particular influential individuals on each side who are likely to be opposed? How might they organize and seek to impede the process? If you have a good sense of where opposing groups might spring up, you can blunt their strategies—or even prevent them from coalescing in the first place.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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Mapping influence networks

“There are several techniques new leaders can use to quickly gain more insight into these political dynamics. The first approach is to make some reasonable guesses about who the important players will be given the business issues you’re confronting; arrange some meetings; and then listen—actively and attentively. Ask lots of questions, phrased in ways that won’t trigger defensiveness. If you aren’t satisfied with an answer, ask the question two or three different ways during the discussion. Propose what-if scenarios as a way to elicit thoughtful advice from the people with whom you’re speaking.

“The second strategy is to constantly scan for subtle signs of status and influence during meetings, hallway chats, and other interactions. Who speaks to whom about what? Who sits and stands where? Who defers to whom when certain topics are being discussed? When an issue is raised, where do people’s eyes track?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Corporate Diplomacy Checklist

What are the critical alliances you need to build—both within your organization and externally—to advance your agenda?
What agendas are other key players in the organization pursuing? Where might they align with yours and where might they come into conflict?
What relationships could form the basis for long-term, broad-based alliances? Where might you be able to leverage shorter-term agreements to pursue specific objectives?
How does influence operate in the organization? Who defers to whom on key issues of concern?
Who is likely to support your agenda? Who is likely to oppose you? Who is persuadable? What are their interests and alternatives?

“What are the elements of an effective influence strategy? How should you frame your arguments? Might dynamic influence tools such as incementalism and sequencing help?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“If you need to replace people on your team, the first place to look is one level below. The second best option is to hire people from the outside—just not from your old organization(s). Once you’ve built up some credibility and trust in the new organization, it’s often all right to call previous colleagues—but beware of moving too quickly when hiring for critical positions.
Creating the impression that “there is no good here.” This is a related syndrome that can take hold during the early days of your transition, as you’re looking at the data and learning more about your new company. There is a natural tendency to focus on the problems—identifying them, prioritizing them, and drafting plans to fix them. But you “can’t talk only about the problems you’ve observed and not about the organization’s strengths and accomplishments. It’s not enough that you recognize the positives; you have to demonstrate to others in the organization that you truly value these attributes. If you create the impression that you believe “there is no good here,” the organizational immune system will certainly kick in.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“The Stakeholder Checklist
As you transition into a new business unit or company, you’ll need to identify those people inside and outside the organization who can help you push your agenda forward. Here’s a list of the potential candidates you might reach out to.
In Your Organization

Boss(es). What are their key expectations? What can you do to help them get some wins? If you have more than one boss, where do their interests line up, and where are they potentially in conflict?
Peers. Who most and least needs your help to realize their goals? Who most and least affects your ability to realize your goals? Where will you most need to expend political capital to gain support for your proposed initiatives?
Direct reports. Which of your new direct reports has historically wielded the most influence on important decisions (it may vary from issue to issue), and why? Who is likely to support, oppose, or be indifferent to your proposed initiatives? How are existing alliances within the team arranged?
Other employees. Who wields the most informal influence in your organization, and why? Which of these shadow influencers is likely to support, oppose, or be indifferent to your proposed initiatives?

In the Larger Company

Corporate. If you are operating in a unit that is part of a larger corporate structure, who most influences your ability to get things done by providing financial approvals and access to talent and other resources, and by defining the legal and regulatory boundaries?
Internal customers. Which internal customers most influence the performance of your unit? What do they care most about? How can you help them solve problems that are important to them?
Internal suppliers. Which internal suppliers most influence the performance of your unit? What do they care most about? How can you help them solve problems that are important to them?

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Missing unspoken expectations. Some people simply are better communicators than others; this applies to bosses as much as it does to spouses, customers, business partners, or any other counterpart. The CEO of Energix wasn’t articulate enough, it seems. He left out some important elements that impacted David’s mandate—for example, that the real first priority was to successfully launch the next-generation turbine. It’s therefore essential for the onboarding leader to tease out all of the new boss’s aspirations and goals for the unit or company. Triangulation can be a useful technique for doing this: ask your boss the same question in three somewhat different ways, and see whether the answers vary. Testing comprehension can be another good tactic: during important conversations about expectations, summarize and share your understanding of critical takeaways from the discussion. You can do this verbally, as the session draws to a close, or in writing, in a follow-up e-mail.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“The Five Conversations
Below is a list of five conversations transitioning leaders should have with their bosses along with guiding questions that can help both sides come to some agreement about the organizational-change challenge the new leader has been brought in to tackle.

The style conversation

– How can we best work together?
– How do you prefer me to communicate with you?
– What level of detail do you want concerning my organization or unit and the issues I’m confronting?
– How do you prefer to make decisions?

The situation conversation

– How do you see the STARS situation in my organization as a whole? In important subcomponents?
– On what do you base these assessments?
– What’s your level of certainty?

The expectations conversation

– What am I expected to accomplish, and in what time frame?
– What would constitute “early wins” for you?
– What outcomes do I most need to avoid?

The resources conversation

– What financial and other resources are available to me?

“– What scope do I have to make changes in my team?
– To what extent will you visibly support me in making the case for change?

The course-adjustment conversation (this typically should begin not later than the ninety-day mark)

– How are things going so far?
– What am I doing well?
– Do you have areas of concern?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Onboarding Checklist

How can you accelerate your learning about the history and culture of your new organization? Are there cultural interpreters who can help you understand the nuances?
What do you need to do to strike the right balance between adapting to the culture versus trying to alter it? How can you avoid triggering a dangerous immune system attack?
Who are the stakeholders—within your new organization and externally—who will have significant influence over whether you can move your agenda forward? What do they care about and why?
What can you do to speed up your ability to build the right political “wiring” in the organization? Are there “resources available to help you do this?
How can you assure that expectations are in alignment with your boss? Your peers? Your direct reports? Other importance constituencies? Could the five-conversations framework help you do this?
Are there other processes or resources in your new organization that could help speed up the onboarding process?”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“To avoid this trap, you should start by asking questions, not making statements—even if you’re pretty sure you know what the central issues are. Let the members of the organization validate (or disprove) your theories. Don’t worry about setting up your office; go to the front lines right away, wherever they are. Talk to salespeople and others in the field, and really listen. If you start doing this on day one, the word will quickly spread across the organization. People want to believe in their leaders, and seeing them up close makes a material difference. A memo will never take the place of a conversation.”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“What can you do to identify potential compliance problems as early as possible? Are there potential trusted advisors you can identify before you move?
How will you approach the process of assessing the team and the business? Can you use a shared diagnostic process to accelerate your team assessment?”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Is the operating framework adequate to align actions and decisions? Are incentives aligned with the business model and key goals? Is there a compelling vision of a desirable future?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the existing architecture? What changes need to be made in the leadership team? In key skill sets? In the structure? In core processes?”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“the typical approach to change in turnarounds involves retooling the organization’s architecture, focusing first on strategy and structure and then on processes and skills; then creating a new, high-performance culture; and, finally, shifting employees’ attitudes from despair to hope.”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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In a Realignment Scenario, “The focus here has to be on, first, progressively raising awareness of problems; and, second, changing the attitudes and behaviors of a critical mass of people in the organization.”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“Stefan didn’t punish people for not having all the answers to his questions; instead, he firmly required that they go out and do some research to support or disprove their statements. His mantra was not “bring me answers, not problems”—a dangerous philosophy that can give team members a handy excuse for not raising tough issues. Rather, Stefan preached informed intervention: “Bring up issues early, and come prepared to talk about how you’ll diagnose root causes and begin to deal with them.”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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Aattitudes will change over time. The following principles can help.
Engage people in shared diagnosis. If you gather people to work on a problem, they go in with certain assumptions—namely, that there is a problem. If you gather people to generally explore or diagnose a business situation, they don’t feel forced to reach conclusions about possible solutions, or about the depth of transformation needed, until they are prepared to so do. I call this an “entanglement strategy.”2 You move people from point A to point B in a set of digestible steps rather than in a single leap.
Change the metrics. People evaluate their performance according to a company’s or unit’s established metrics—for instance, number of products sold, amount of revenues earned, or number of satisfied customers. If you change those measures, you’ll inevitably change “people’s behaviors (hence influencing their attitudes). The important point to note here, however, is that any change in metrics “must be viewed by the team as necessary and legitimate.

“Align incentives. If you reward people (through recognition, status, and advancement) for fighting fires, you shouldn’t be surprised if you end up with an organization of pyromaniacs. To get people more interested in preventing predictable surprises, Stefan had to get them moving in the same direction—providing positive incentives for avoiding fires and less-positive incentives for fighting them. This basic principle also extends to dealing with conflicts between units in your organization. You could easily attribute these tensions to mutual mistrust between groups or differences in personality. Most of these conflicts, however, are the result of differing incentives. ”

“Build bridges from the past to the future. In realignment situations, where things haven’t completely broken down yet, it makes sense to build on the organization’s strengths in order to fix its weaknesses. This means building bridges (from where people are to where they need to be) rather than just jettisoning people and ideas.”

“Secure and celebrate early wins. When you’re trying to change behaviors and attitudes in a realignment situation, it’s critical to achieve momentum—generating movement in promising directions and leveraging small gains to accomplish still more. So the instant you achieve some significant, measurable progress, you should declare (interim) victory and celebrate. This provides both visible acknowledgment that early efforts are beginning to bear fruit and an opportunity to recognize specific individual and team efforts that exemplify “right thinking”

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Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
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“The STARS (start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success) framework discussed in the introduction should be a standard component in any company’s change-management portfolio. By distinguishing among types of business situations, STARS helps leaders identify the kinds of change that are required and “figure out how best to initiate the transformation process as they transition into new roles.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“Realignment Checklist

Why has the organization begun to slip from sustaining success to realignment? Are key people in denial about the gathering storm? If so, why is this happening?
Are the root causes of the problem about inadequate strategy or structure or, more likely, are they about the systems, skill sets, and culture of the organization?
What aspects of the work culture support high performance and which undermine it? How have the negative aspects taken root and why have they been “permitted to persist?
What can you do to raise awareness of the need for change? Is there key data that can help make the case? Would a shift in metrics help? Are there influential voices outside the organization, such as customers, to whom people might listen? Would some shared diagnosis help?
What kind of leader are you reflexively? A hero or a steward? What does the situation demand, more heroism or more stewardship?
Given the needed mix of heroism and stewardship, how might you build a complementary team that will help you realign the organization?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“permitted to persist?
What can you do to raise awareness of the need for change? Is there key data that can help make the case? Would a shift in metrics help? Are there influential voices outside the organization, such as customers, to whom people might listen? Would some shared diagnosis help?
What kind of leader are you reflexively? A hero or a steward? What does the situation demand, more heroism or more stewardship?
Given the needed mix of heroism and stewardship, how might you build a complementary team that will help you realign the organization?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“early wins should help you create change in the short term; but they should also help you lay the foundation for achieving longer-term goals. Second, it always pays to find out what your boss considers “early wins.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“A good way to uncover these patterns is to ask the members of the team you inherited to list the top ten things they spend time doing in a typical week and the rough percentage of effort allocated to each.”

Separately get a copy of their JDs and compare this to their time spent

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“Sometimes putting a thoughtful skeptic in charge of an early-win project can be a powerful way to win over an important ally.
”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“STARS Portfolio Checklist

What is the mix of STARS situations that you have inherited? What are your priorities across the portfolio?
What are your STARS preferences, and how much experience do you have in the various categories? Is there a risk that you will focus too much attention on the STARS categories that you most prefer?
Given the portfolio you have inherited, what are the “implications for where and how you will seek early wins in the various parts of the business?
What are the most promising centers of gravity? Are there ways you can drive improvement across the entire business? Leverage resources in one area to get wins in another?
Given your early-win objectives, how will you marshal the resources to go after them? What do you need to stop doing?
How will you build and manage the execution engines you need to get your early wins?”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

“Transitions evolve through a series of predictable stages. New leaders begin their transitions with intensive diagnostic work. As they learn more and gain increasing clarity about the situation, they shift to defining strategic direction (mission, goals, strategy, and vision) for their organizations. As the intended direction becomes clearer, they are better able to make decisions about key organizational issues—structure, processes, talent, and team. In tandem with this, they can identify opportunities to secure early wins and begin to drive the process of change in their organizations.”

Excerpt From
Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction
Michael D. Watkins
https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=0
This material may be protected by copyright.

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Your Next Move - Michael Watkins Flashcards

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