Your First 60 Days as a Leader

Chapter 7. Launching Your Agenda: Enlightening and Aligning Interests for Sustainable High Performance in Days 31–60

The enlarged interests phase in days 11–30 has shown you where you aligned and misaligned with each of your key stakeholders. You have greater clarity on what’s working and what’s not. You’ve likely had a surprise or two along the way.

In your second month, you can formulate the plan for how to leverage the good, correct the bad, and, one hopes, avoid the ugly. Your careful, intentional steps in the first month have set you up to avoid missteps and accelerate your impact.

You now step into the enlightened interests phase of negotiation. This is where you and those you work with can get creative and imaginative. As a leader, one of your superpowers is to give permission to experiment and aspire. Doing so lowers the risk of offering new ideas and trying novel ways of doing things.

Your goal is to build on the goodwill of agreement to close gaps, overcome disagreement, and realize potential.

Remember the “keep, stop, start” exercise? The patterns you found there are a great place to start. If there was general dislike of the Monday morning staff meeting, brainstorm alternatives that are more palatable while still achieving the goals of the meeting. It may be as simple as changing the time or format, or perhaps there are alternatives that eliminate the need for a synchronous meeting at all.

Or perhaps you address something more challenging. The marketplace is changing ...