Starting a New Job? Here's a 90-Day Plan from Harvard
About this video
Jeff Su summarizes ideas from Dr. Michael Watkins, former Harvard Business School professor and author of The First 90 Days. The goal for new hires is to reach the break-even point as quickly as possible — when you have produced as much value as you have received from the team. Common traps are sticking with what you know, trying to do too much too fast, and setting unrealistic expectations, which can create a cycle of bad decisions and lost trust. Four actionable strategies follow. First, understand your own blind spots with a short exercise scoring your interest from one to ten across business areas, then summing scores by function and by technical, political, and cultural problem types to see where you may struggle, and use an onboarding checklist including questions about hidden cultural norms. Second, accelerate learning systematically with a learning agenda of questions about the past, present, and future, forming and testing hypotheses with your manager — his example moving from sales to marketing at Google involved prioritizing among budget forecasting, event management, and creative review processes. Third, negotiate success with your boss by agreeing a 30-60-90 day plan with quantifiable metrics and revisiting it weekly. Fourth, secure early wins that build momentum and credibility, noting Watkins’ point that impressions form within the first 30 days around values, energy, and performance standards.
Key takeaways
- Aim for the break-even point: producing as much value as you have received from the organization
- Identify blind spots by scoring interest across functions and technical, political, and cultural problems
- Use a learning agenda with past, present, and future questions to prioritize what to learn
- Negotiate success: agree a 30-60-90 plan with quantifiable metrics and review it weekly with your boss
- Secure early wins to build momentum; impressions form in the first 30 days
Episode details: published July 4, 2023 · 8:03 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Jeff Su’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.
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