Leadership Transitions: The Watkins Collection (4 Items)

244 THE FIRST 90 DAYS

Identify Set-Up-to-Fail Dynamics

As discussed in the introduction, there are common traps new

leaders fall into. Examples include staying in your comfort zone

or trying to do too much too fast. These can largely be avoided

through implementation of acceleration systems based on the

principles discussed in this book.

However, there also are systematic mistakes that organiza-

tions make when putting leaders into new roles that need to be

addressed in the design of acceleration systems.

3

Respondents

to the HBR/IMD study highlighted classic ways that companies

set up their leaders to fail. Reasons for unnecessary derailment or

underperformance are summarized in table 10-1.

There is not much point in putting in place acceleration ...