Bridgebuilders

Appendix A

A 100-Day Plan for Bridgebuilding in Your New Government Job

  1.   Decide on the five most important things you want to accomplish. It’s tempting to move into a new leadership role with grand ambitions about what to do and what to stop. Sliding into that position, however, always takes time—more time than you might expect—which leaves less time to get things done. There’s always time to expand the portfolio later, and it’s much easier to do so with a foundation of initial successes. Successes come easier when the focus is sharper.

  2.   Recognize that, most of the time, you’ll be running to catch a moving train, because you’ll rarely be able to launch new programs. The organization you’re leading will have an existing mission ...