The First 90 Days
What the best new CEOs do before they touch the strategy — a field guide to the highest-leverage three months in any executive's tenure.
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The first quarter of a CEO's tenure sets a ceiling on the rest of it. Move too fast and you legislate on bad information. Move too slow and the organization concludes you have no plan. The executives who navigate it well tend to share a pattern.
Listen before you legislate
The temptation is to arrive with answers. The better move is to arrive with questions — and a schedule that forces you to hear from the layers of the company that rarely reach the corner office.
Find the real power map
Every org chart hides a second, informal one: who actually gets things done, whose sign-off is load-bearing, which relationships are quietly broken. Mapping it early prevents you from spending political capital in the wrong places.
Bank one early, visible win
Credibility compounds. A single, unambiguous win in the first 90 days — something the whole company can see — buys you the room to make the harder, slower calls later.
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