Optimizing Your Transition Into a New Role: The 30/60/90-Day Plan

As you start a new job or take on a significant promotion, implementing a 30/60/90-day transition plan will help organize and optimize your first 90 days in the role.

You have likely spent weeks, months or even years seeking out and securing the next step in your career. Once settled, it might be tempting to celebrate, give notice to your current employer, hunker down (or enjoy a brief vacation) and then jump right into the mix. But what if you could create a more deliberate entry point for greater success and to ease your transition?

Through my work as an executive coach, I have witnessed time and again that the final step in a successful job transition is not accepting the offer. Candidates who make the greatest and most lasting impact consistently prepare themselves ahead of time for those critical first few months in their new role.

Herein lies the genius of a well-devised plan.

Recognizing Why You Need A Plan

When I work with coaching clients to develop 30/60/90-day plans, I invariably start by sharing this article by David Gee, which he wrote about his first 90 days as the chief investment officer of Credit Union Australia Limited.

As Gee attested, and as many of us have experienced over our own careers, either we set an agenda and priorities for a new role or our days are quickly overrun by the sheer volume of activity. Gee wrote, “I learnt very quickly that events and meetings would consume me unless I was clear where I wanted to focus my time and energy.”

While you may enter a role with the expectation of a fresh start and ample ramp-up time, work often takes on a life of its own as early as the first day or week on the job. Communicating an actionable 30/60/90-day plan to your team goes a long way in ensuring you are doing the right things among the busyness of business.

Structuring Your Plan

If you are not familiar with 30/60/90-day transition plans, Gee’s article offers an excellent overview. He structured his plan as a chart with “People,” “Process” and “Technology” as headers. Within each, he defined high-level departure points to guide his execution of top priorities, such as:

What does success look like?

What are the CEO’s expectations?

Who are the key players (outlined in a stakeholder analysis and influence map)?

Gee’s chart features both a high-level structure and sufficient detail to keep him on track. As you review it, reflect on the relevant questions and guiding principles for your own plan and how to best structure what you want and need to make your greatest sustainable impact in the first 90 days.

Individualizing Your Plan

One of my C-level clients, let’s call her Jordan, structured her own 30/60/90-day plan as follows:

In successive rows of her header column, Jordan listed her main constituents (board of directors, CEO, other C-suite leaders, regional managers and her team) followed by top anticipated projects and other areas to address. In the remaining columns across her chart, she mapped her goals for each over 30, 60 and 90 days.

While Jordan would have valued time to settle into her role before leaping into action, she was hired by her new CEO on the assumption she would swiftly shore up certain trouble spots in the organization (and be compensated accordingly).

On her plate was to help realign a splintered board of directors, merge diverse geographical regions under a smaller subset of managers and replace two key employees (which she labeled as Projects A, B and C), all while meeting the overarching goals of increasing revenue and raising the organization’s reputation in the marketplace.

People – Impact

30 Days 60 Days 90 Days
Board of Directors
CEO
Team
Project A
Project B
Project C

By breaking up each of Projects A, B and C into achievable goals over manageable periods, Jordan could better predict the steps, time investment and travel schedule she would need to tackle each one. She also could clearly map out how her efforts across these projects would support larger organizational goals.

Tempted to triage and move to execute on each of these projects as soon as possible, Jordan nonetheless recognized that she first needed to set the tone and goals for her own team. She devoted the mornings of her first week at her new office to meeting with team members individually and spent afternoons on conference calls discussing each project in turn. In this way, she gained clarity, demonstrated authority and made initial progress on all key areas, as well as with her team.

Jordan then devised a tight yet manageable travel schedule for the following three weeks. She planned flights to five cities over two trips—making creative use of layovers—with a short break in-between. This put her face to face with individuals (scattered across the country) who were critical to her understanding of long-standing issues and generation of practical, optimal solutions.

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Setting and Achieving Your Priorities

As you reflect on Gee’s and Jordan’s plans and devise your own, you may wish to include some agenda items from Gee’s chart:

  • Building relationships, coalitions and your team.
  • Branding yourself.
  • Setting the time to reflect.
  • Establishing and monitoring key personal metrics.
  • Ensuring accountability.
  • Executing quick wins that can foreshadow more substantial improvements.

Gee took pains to meet as many people in the organization as possible in his early days in the role. Speaking from a position of leadership, he also told his team what he stood for, how he liked to work and what he expected from them. Finally, he made sure that his progress, as measured against his 30/60/90-day plan and more generally, was “very visible” to his manager and team.

While a 30/60/90-day plan cannot guarantee success in a new role, outlining high-level goals and priorities with an accompanying action plan will facilitate the right mindset and allow for more seamless execution. Seek feedback from others as appropriate – either prior to your new role or in the first days at the office – and make sure to consider and include enterprise, team and individual goals.

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, resume writer and author of two well-received books on interviewing and career development. She served as a corporate attorney for 15 years before launching her coaching practice. The above article, other than the chart (added here), was originally published as a Forbes Coaches Council post and available here.

Image above: Adobe Stock.

On Forbes: The Emotional Life Cycle of a Major Career Transition

Clients often ask for a roadmap for career transitions, whether they yearn for more meaning at work or have other motivations. While I can ask the right questions to uncover their passions and talents and how these intersect with the marketplace, paths taken vary widely and can be entirely unexpected.

 

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Jake worked for five years as a transactional attorney and then turned to real estate, managing his family’s portfolio of rental properties. From there, he launched a third career as an artist, painting large-scale murals for corporate offices and collectors.

As an executive coach, I have a front row seat to major professional transitions of brave souls such as Jake. Clients often ask for a roadmap to make such a change of their own, whether they yearn for more meaning at work or have other motivations. While I can ask the right questions to uncover their passions and talents and how these intersect with the marketplace, paths taken vary widely and can be entirely unexpected.

Please click on the image of the caterpillar below for the link to the rest of this article, originally published on Forbes.com.

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar On Milkweed

Anne Marie Segal is a career and leadership development coach, author, resume strategist and member of Forbes Coaches Council. She is founder of Segal Coaching, author of Master the Interview: A Guide for Working Professionals (available on Amazon.com) and a frequent public speaker in New York, Connecticut and beyond.

Image credit: Adobe Images.

Top 5 Career Articles for 2016; What Impacted You the Most?

The top five career, leadership and job search articles for 2016 on Anne Marie Segal’s blog. What created the most impact in your life?

As we usher out the last few days 2016 and make space in our lives for the New Year, here are five of the top blog articles published on ANNE MARIE SEGAL: THE BLOG this year. Please leave a comment below if you would like to let us know your favorite article of the year and how it has impacted your professional life.

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8 Core Qualities of Successful General Counsel and How to Achieve Them

I Don’t Want a Coach. I Just Want a Job.

Achieving Gratitude in a Macho Work Environment

Young woman showing her heartfelt gratitude

Successful Career Transition Stage 1: Start With a Creative Mindset

Get It Together: Organizing Your Job Search Leads

Document.

Thanks to all my readers and followers!
I wish you all a prosperous and fulfilling 2017!

You may also like:

Why You Need a Strategy Before Writing Your Resume” on Forbes.com

Breaking Out of a Suffocating Job Search” on LinkedIn Pulse

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Anne Marie Segal is a career & leadership coach, author of Master the Interview and resume strategist/writer. She launched her coaching practice after 15 years as a practicing attorney. For more information about working with Anne Marie, please visit her website.

Images: Shutterstock/Adobe Images.

On Your Resume: Strategy Before Writing, Read More on Forbes.com

“Why You Need a Strategy Before Writing Your Resume”: Check out my first article on Forbes.com.

forbes-coaches-council-logo “Why You Need a Strategy Before Writing Your Resume”

Many business leaders and others struggle to write a compelling resume, even those who make multimillion-dollar decisions on a daily or weekly basis.

It is not an easy task to sum up one’s professional life in a couple of pages, whether you have scores of accomplishments or relatively few.

Read more in my first article on Forbes.com!

Anne Marie Segal, career and leadership development coach, author, resume strategist and member of Forbes Coaches Council. For further articles and press, please click here.

Get It Together: Organizing Your Job Search Leads

Getting organized in your job search means knowing with whom you are connecting, why and other important data points, so that you can recall them when needed. It is easy to keep 3 job targets in your head. Thirty is not so easy.

Are you struggling to keep up with your job search? You probably know that you need to be organized and keep better track of your leads, but how do you achieve that?

How to organize your job search.

Getting organized in your job search means knowing with whom you are connecting, why and other important data points, so that you can recall them when needed. It is easy to keep 3 job targets in your head. Thirty is not so easy. You may think that you will remember information about the company, your value proposition for the role and other factors, but without this information at your fingertips, you are likely to miss something.

Essentially, you need to know and remember the “who, what, where, when, why and how’s” of your job search. If you keep track of this information, not only will it help you feel as though you are making progress on your job search, but it will allow you to keep up with the important contacts that you have made rather than losing out on opportunities because you failed to follow up.

 

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Organize your job search. Image from Adobe Images.

While it may seem like extra work to keep track of where you are applying, if it seems like too much effort to keep track of what you are doing, you are probably “doing too much” on the search front (i.e., sending out applications blindly without slowing down to think about whether the jobs to which you are applying are actually good fits for your talents, interests and skills). It is much more productive to slow down and be thoughtful about your applications than try to blanket the market with your resume.

Imagine you receive a call from the HR department of one of your target employers. She says, “Hi, it’s Sherrie at Set Your Sights High,” and you say, “Ummm….”

If you were being completely honest, you may answer:

“Hi Sherrie, can you hold on…? I think I remember you but not your company. Actually, can I call you back when I figure out where you are calling from and why I sent you an application?”

I am sure you’ll agree that’s not your best look. 

I often suggest to my clients that they arrange their job search and interview information in a chart form, such as Microsoft Excel, with the headings of each column as follows. Here are examples of how to arrange it, with the bolded information sorted by columns and the data in rows.

Spreadsheet #1 – Target Roles (examples)

  • Contact at Target – Jorge Rodriguez
  • Target Company Name – Blankman & Co.
  • Nature of Relationship – our kids play soccer together
  • What I Offer this Target – my blend of technology and people skills plus large and small company expertise; they are growing quickly; looking for new COO; want someone decisive; my leadership roles and recruiting are a plus; they like that I have some sales background and can relate to sales team
  • Date/Stage of Last Contact – email on 6/1
  • Next Steps – follow up with phone call if haven’t heard by 6/15
  • Notes – also knows my good friend Ralph and probably Sara, need to bring this up somehow

Spreadsheet #2 – Connectors (examples)

  • Name – Lana Kinderman
  • Company Name – Kinderman & Associates
  • Nature of Relationship – known since graduate school
  • Reason for Connection – will refer me to an UN jobs or others where she has contacts; said I may need to first apply, then she will forward resume to right people
  • Date/Point of Last Contact – lunch on 5/10
  • Next Steps – invite her to September networking event; finalize resume to send her
  • Notes – remind Lana I speak fluent Spanish next time I see her

For the second spreadsheet, “Connectors” are people who are well poised to connect you to possible targets, and the “Reason for Connection” relates to the type of roles with which or individuals with whom they can connect you. For example, the Reason for Connection may be that the individual knows a number of private company CEOs or has other contacts in a certain field and is willing and able to help you connect with them (i.e., has a strong network and wants to support your job search by helping you make connections). Recruiters can also go on the Connectors chart, or a separate chart, since they also have the potential to connect you with a number of roles.

If you are applying to very different sets of roles (e.g., non-profit administration roles and corporate social responsibility (CSR) positions), I would suggest using additional sets of spreadsheets, or different workbooks within Excel if you find that easier, for each leg of your job search, naming them appropriately. The more structured you can make your approach, without complicating it, the better. (And if you find Excel intimidating, tables in Word also work. The point is to use this information to serve your job search, not to be tied to a certain format.)

Some of my clients prefer to include contact information for individuals in this same chart, although I generally keep that separate, so that the spreadsheet is still printable and readable on an 8 ½ x 11 page without heavy formatting.

Click here for a sample spreadsheet.

Alternatively, you can record your job leads and next steps online, rather than through a spreadsheet. This is entirely in the best interest of the job seeker rather than an issue of best practice. I like to see everything on a few pages, neatly organized, and do not want to have to sign in and remember passwords to access my information. Others may appreciate the support of a system. Jibberjobber.com works well for many candidates, for example, and it is free (at the time of this post) for a basic account.

Once you have an interview with a target company, I suggest creating more detailed pages outlining your research and talking points, which I will discuss in more detail in a future post.

Anne Marie Segal is a career and leadership coach, writer and resume writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. The above is an excerpt from her forthcoming book on job interviews. For more information about Anne Marie’s coaching practice, please visit www.segalcoaching.com.

© 2016 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.

Must Read: Kathy Caprino, Forbes, on Getting More Meaning from Your Career

Stack of books and binders in front of a businesswoman at desk
Derive More Meaning from an Unfulfilling Career (Adobe Images)

Looking for more meaning in your career?

Kathy Caprino Has Some Answers

Kathy Caprino, a coach and contributor to Women@Forbes, is one of my favorite career writers, as I have said in the past

Recently, Kathy wrote another great article called “4 Ways to Get More Meaning and Value From Your Career Starting Today,” which is also posted on LinkedIn.

Among other things, I love Kathy’s practical approach on career transitions and suggestion (that I often make myself) that you do not need to wait until you have the “ideal career” to start making your career more ideal today. As she says:

“Most professionals believe that they have to chuck their entire careers and start over, in order to find more meaning in their work. They often fantasize about doing something creative or altruistic (like start a non-profit, join the Peace Corps, work on a communal farm, write a book, start a bed and breakfast, or move to another country entirely) to bring more meaning into their work.  But they are often mistaken. You don’t have to uproot your entire life and career to create more meaning and value. You can do it literally starting today, wherever you are.”

-Kathy Caprino

To read more, include Kathy’s excellent roadmap on how to “dimensionalize” your own personal version of meaning in your career – since meaning is different to each of us based on each of our individual experiences – please click here. With her thoughts in mind, if you are contemplating a career transition, you may also wish to (re)read my prior posts on Career Exploration and Vetting that discuss how to take yourself through the process.

Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and résumé writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. She helps clients with career exploration and other stages of the job search process, as well as presentation skills through interview preparation, resume writing and LinkedIn. For more information, please visit her website at www.segalcoaching.com.

© 2016 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.

Successful Career Transition, Stage 1: Start With a Creative Mindset

Marilyn hates her job. She has many ideas about where her next move and needs help sorting them out. Rob is stuck in a rut but he can hardly imagine doing anything else. Marilyn and Rob are in Stage 1 of the Career Transition Process and need to put some structure around their exploratory work.

 

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Marilyn hates her job. She has many ideas about where she would like to land next and needs help sorting them out.

Rob is stuck in a rut. He has spent so long at the same role that he can hardly imagine doing anything else. He wants to identify new possibilities and opportunities.

Jamie likes what she is doing and would like to stay in the same field, but she wants to find a way to advance within her company or, if necessary, outside of it. She is also open to changing to a new job altogether, if it does not require starting over.

Each of these career-transition questions inhabit Stage 1 of the Career Transition Process.

The Marilyns, Robs and Jamies of the world crave structure around their exploratory work. Otherwise, they live in their own heads, and they fail to make much real progress that will help them out of their current situations and into a better place. I know, because I was there myself once. I also know because I see it every day in my coaching practice.

  • Stage 1: Explore: Are you open to and ready for change at this time? What options are available? How and where can you explore further? Who can help?

A successful career transition begins with creative brainstorming, targeted research and empirical exploration.

Creative Mindset and Brainstorming

Having a creative mindset allows you to generate ideas and be open to a range of possibilities. Brainstorming isn’t about vetting, that comes later.

Stage 1 is the “what if” stage.

  • What if you changed industries, practice areas or careers?
  • What if you stayed in your current role? How could you improve it?
  • What if you decided to go for CEO, another C-level role or partnership?
  • What if you gave up one of those roles to pursue something new?
  • What if you took a risk and …?

Research

While keeping an open mind, research facilitates brainstorming. I often suggest that clients search job descriptions (not to apply, as background material), and read through what they describe as the basic components of the job. Along with job descriptions, they can often pull up resumes of individuals who are already working in similar jobs from a simple internet search. These resumes can give key insights into what actually goes into a particular job, which may be much different than the job seeker had imagined before such research was conducted.

In addition, job seekers in the First Stage of their job search can research:

(1) industries, fields and companies,

(2) what skills they would need to acquire to achieve certain roles, and what that skill acquisition would entail,

(3) compensation in the desired field, and

(4) information about analogous roles that would help them widen their net of possible roles that could be a fit for their talents, skills and interests.

Remember: If you have gone through job descriptions in the past with a feeling of dread, kick that feeling to the curb. These words on a page have no hold over you. You are simply brainstorming to help yourself get on the right path.

Exploration

In addition to analytical research, the third means to open your mind to the possibilities in your job search is to meet and spend time with individuals in your target fields.

“Hi Pam, it’s Marilyn. Confidentially, I am considering a career move that would put me in a role similar to yours. Would you have some time to meet me for coffee near your office sometime next week? I would like to ask you a few questions so I can better understand what your day-to-day workload is like before I make the leap.”

Take time to network and conduct what are called informational interviews (as opposed to job interviews – you are asking for information, not a job) as you continue to generate ideas and ask people what they know, and who else they may know, to help you explore possibilities.

It is worth noting that you should choose your networking contacts carefully at this fragile Stage 1 of your job search. The proverbial Debbie Downer (who sees everything negatively) will not be helpful for you as you are trying to keep an open mind. Keep Debbie for the vetting process, which is Stage 2 and will be covered in my next post.


Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and résumé writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. She helps clients with career exploration and other stages of the job search process. For more information, please visit her website at www.segalcoaching.com.

© 2016 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.

Image above: Shutterstock.

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