When you accept a new senior role, you are stepping into a transition that fails more often than most executives realize. This is a working framework, grounded in research, to help you arrive at month four as a net contributor rather than a derailment statistic.
The stakes
McKinsey reports that 27 to 46 percent of executive transitions are regarded as failures or disappointments two years in. (1) Heidrick and Struggles' then-CEO Kevin Kelly told the Financial Times that the firm's internal study of 20,000 searches found 40 percent of executives hired at the senior level are pushed out, fail, or quit within 18 months. (2)
The figures vary because the definition of failure varies. The direction does not: a substantial share of executive transitions go badly. The cost to the executive personally, in career trajectory, market reputation, and a lost year, is harder to quantify and usually worse than the cost to the company.
Why they fail
The most consistent finding across the research is that executives do not fail because they lack the capability the role requires. McKinsey found that 68 percent of transitions founder on politics, culture, and people rather than on functional or technical competence. (1) A study of 588 senior executives by Egon Zehnder and Genesis Advisers, published in Harvard Business Review, reached the same conclusion: new leaders rarely stumble over skill gaps. Nearly 70 percent pointed to not understanding the organization's culture and norms. (3)
The same McKinsey research found that roughly three-quarters of new executives felt unprepared for their role, largely because of poor onboarding. (1)
Skill gets you the title. The relationships you build and how well you read the culture decide what you achieve in it.
The 90-day arc
Michael Watkins' 2003 work The First 90 Days (Harvard Business Review Press) remains the canonical framework. (4) Watkins identified five common transition contexts (start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, sustaining success), arguing that the work of the first 90 days varies by which one you are walking into.
A note on the timeline: the first 90 days set the trajectory. They do not complete the transition. McKinsey's survey of 1,195 C-level executives treats the transition as a period that can last up to 18 months. (5) If you are not feeling fully settled at day 90, that is expected. The framework is named for what you control in the first quarter, not for when the work is done.
Four working principles for executives stepping into a new senior role:
Diagnose the situation before you prescribe. Within the first two weeks, you should be able to articulate which of the Watkins situations you are in. A start-up requires a different operating posture than a turnaround. A turnaround requires a different posture than a realignment of a successful function. Most executives default to the situation they came from rather than the one they arrived in. That is a primary failure mode.
Listen before you act. Plan your first 30 days as an internal due diligence exercise. Meet your direct reports, your peers, your boss, and a representative slice of the organization beyond your immediate scope. Ask more questions than you answer. The executives who skip this step usually inherit a team without assessing it, ship the strategy they brought from their last role, and arrive at month six explaining why the organization is resistant to change.
Secure early wins, but the right ones. A win that was impressive in your former context but irrelevant in the new one shows you have not yet read the room. Identify two or three early wins that demonstrate your understanding of what this organization actually values, and deliver them in the first 60 to 90 days.
Manage upward deliberately. Inside the first two weeks, establish with your boss how, when, and on what topics you will communicate. Most executive transitions are damaged by misaligned expectations with the boss, not by performance failures. Misalignment is preventable. Performance recovery from misalignment is not.
What 24 Hour Search does during this period
We stay engaged through your transition. Most search firms close the file when the offer is signed. We do not, because our client is not satisfied until you are established in the role, and our reputation rests on the placements that succeed at month 12, not just the ones that close.
We are not running an executive coaching engagement with you, but we are the third party who knows both you and the client well enough to surface friction before it becomes failure.
If you are reading this before you have started, the most useful thing you can do is treat the period between offer and start date as part of the transition. The work begins the day you accept, not the day you walk in.
The First 90 Days planning template walks through the situation diagnosis, listening tour, early win targeting, and upward communication plan.
Sources
(1) Keller, S., and Meaney, M. (2018). Successfully transitioning to new leadership roles. McKinsey and Company. mckinsey.com
(2) Masters, B. (2009, March 30). Rise of a headhunter. Financial Times. Interview with L. Kevin Kelly, then CEO of Heidrick and Struggles.
(3) Byford, M., Watkins, M.D., and Triantogiannis, L. (2017). Onboarding isn't enough. Harvard Business Review, May–June 2017. hbr.org
(4) Watkins, M.D. (2003, updated 2013). The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. Harvard Business Review Press.
(5) Chandran, R., de la Boutetière, H., and Dewar, C. (2015). Ascending to the C-suite. McKinsey and Company. Survey of 1,195 C-level executives. mckinsey.com