The First 90 Days in Government


Book Description

The authors address the crucial differences between the private and public sectors. This concise, practical book provides a roadmap to help new government leaders at all levels accelerate their transitions.




The First 90 Days in Government


Book Description

More than 250,000 public sector managers in the United States take on new positions each year and many more aspire to leadership. Each will confront special challenges—from higher public profiles to a greater number of stakeholders to volatile political environments—that will make their transitions even more challenging than in the business world. Now Michael Watkins, author of the bestselling book The First 90 Days, applies his proven leadership transition framework to the public sector. Watkins and coauthor Peter Daly address the crucial differences between the private and public sectors that go to the heart of how success and failure are defined, measured, and rewarded or penalized. This concise, practical book provides a roadmap that will help new government leaders at all levels accelerate their transitions by overcoming nine transition challenges, ranging from clarifying expectations to defining goals to building a team to managing personal stress. The authors also offer detailed strategies for avoiding major “transition traps.” Zeroing in on the challenges faced by new government leaders, The First 90 Days in Government is the indispensable guide for anyone seeking to lead and succeed in the public sector.




The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded


Book Description

The world’s most trusted guide for leaders in transition Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success. In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions—no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today’s increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs. By walking you through every aspect of the transition scenario, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides the tools and strategies you need to avoid them. You’ll learn how to secure critical early wins, an important first step in establishing yourself in your new role. Each chapter also includes checklists, practical tools, and self-assessments to help you assimilate key lessons and apply them to your own situation. Whether you’re starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this book as your trusted guide.




Engaging Government Employees


Book Description

With over three decades of experience in public sector HR, Bob Lavigna gives managers the tools they need to leverage the talents of government's most important resource: its people. You know firsthand that your government workers are not underworked, overpaid, or mindless clones just carrying out the morally compromised work that politicians forced through the pipeline. Besides having to daily overcome the persona of being a government employee, your hard-working employees face enormous pressures and challenges every day and are asked to solve some of our country’s toughest problems, including unemployment, security, poverty, and education. To be able to return to their desks daily with the passion and commitment required to accomplish these overwhelming duties will require a manager who knows how to leverage talent, improve performance, and inspire passion within these true servants. In Engaging Government Employees, you will learn: Why a highly engaged staff is 20 percent more productive How to get employees to deliver “discretionary effort” How to assess the level of engagement Why free pizza and Coke every Friday is not a viable strategy Engaging Government Employees rejects the typical one-size-fits-all approach to motivation. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence, this indispensable resource shows how America’s largest employer can apply the science of engagement to get team members passionate about the agency’s mission and committed to its success.




Master Your Next Move, with a New Introduction


Book Description

Your next professional move can make or break your career. Are you ready? In business, especially today, you are only as successful as your next career transition. Do well, and you'll be on the fast track to even more challenging roles. Fail, and you could irreparably harm your career--and your organization. In his international bestseller The First 90 Days, transition guru Michael D. Watkins outlined a set of basic principles for getting up to speed quickly in new professional roles. Since that book was published Watkins has worked with thousands of leaders, helping them to accelerate their transitions. These leaders posed challenging questions on how to apply the basic principles in real-life situations. The truth that emerged: the First 90 Days framework can be applied in every transition, but the way you apply it is entirely different when you have been promoted to a higher level than it is when you are joining a new organization or taking a role in a different country. Master Your Next Move answers a distinct need, focusing on the most common types of transitions leaders face and the unique challenges posed by each. Based on years of research, and now with a new introduction, this indispensable book explores eight crucial transitions virtually everyone encounters during their career, including promotion, leading former peers, onboarding into a new company, making an international move, and turning around a business in crisis. With real-world examples and many practical models and tools, Master Your Next Move is your guide to surviving and thriving as you make your next move . . . and every one after that.




Managing Government Employees


Book Description

Even the most dedicated, competent government managers can feel overwhelmed when it comes to motivating and managing their employees. And while they strive for excellence in themselves and in their team, many feel that stringent and convoluted regulations mean their hands are tied when it comes to developing their people. but the truth is that with the right strategies and skills, you can inspire superior performance from your employees - both consistently and effectively. Managing Government Employees offers dozens of techniques for meeting the challenges and stressful situations supervisors face on a daily basis. With the same award-winning tactics that he has learned and applied during his years as a manager in various government agencies, Stewart Liff provides the perfect antidote for managers frustrated by government bureaucracy.




Shaping the Game


Book Description

Michael D. Watkins' best-selling book The First 90 Days has become the business bible for accelerating leadership transitions. Now, Watkins zeroes in on the most critical skill leaders must master to secure new roles and accelerate their transitions: negotiation. In Shaping the Game: The New Leader's Guide to Effective Negotiating, Watkins draws from extensive research and practical consulting work to reveal four fundamental objectives that should guide new leaders' actions in every negotiation they undertake: create the most possible value, capture that value for yourself and your company, carefully tend to key relationships, and preserve your reputation. Watkins lays out hands-on strategies for becoming a world-class negotiator, including how to match your negotiation strategy to the situation, influence the perspectives of key counterparts, shape negotiation outcomes in your favor, and create the learning discipline necessary to become a world-class negotiator. Navigating the myriad complex, high-stakes negotiating challenges that confront new leaders, this book provides all the tools readers need to make the right moves up the career ladder—and succeed in those roles once they get there.




Your Next Move


Book Description

"Whether you're going for that promotion, looking to jump ship, or change careers entirely, Michael Watkins' Your Next Move is a book you'll want to read." So starts the positive review of Your Next Move on the influential 800 CEO Read website. It's true that all leaders--no matter how seasoned--need guidance through the professional changes that define a career. In fact, transitions into new roles are the crucibles in which leaders get their toughest tests, and they're the defining factor in professional careers today. Yet far too often, leaders fail to transition effectively into new roles. The resulting costs are high, for individual careers and for organizations. In Your Next Move, leadership-transition guru Watkins shows how you can survive and thrive in all the major transitions you will face during your career-including promotions, leading former peers, on-boarding into a new organization, making an international move, or turning around or realigning an organization. With real-life examples and case studies, Watkins illustrates the defining hurdles associated with each type of transition. He then provides the insights, strategies, and tools you'll need to accelerate through these crucial turning points and continue moving up in your career. The necessary complement to the author's bestselling guide The First 90 Days, which has been translated in more than 20 languages worldwide, Your Next Move offers the keen observations, tried-and-true management wisdom, and practical good sense Watkins is renowned for. It's a vital resource for any manager or executive seeking to maintain career momentum. To quote the reviewer from above: "It's not just about "moving" but about what happens when those actions are taken. Success or failure are the two options, and which option you emerge with will determine what happens going forward. Watkins' book definitely has the research and insight to equip you for the better of the two paths."




JumpStart Your Priorities


Book Description

In this 90-day growth guide, #1 New York Times bestselling author John C. Maxwell helps you prioritize your life to make each day count toward fulfilling your goals. Based on his Businessweek bestseller Today Matters, John Maxwell offers his roadmap for success by helping you seize the present. The way you prioritize and spend your time each day impacts your ability to reach your goals. Whether you are a new leader or looking to expand on your success, this book will help you focus by exploring how to maximize the potential of the most important day of your life -- today. Offering inspiring quotes and lessons, thought-provoking questions, and space for reflective notes, over the course of three short months this book will help learn to master the moment and set you on the path toward fulfilling your aspirations.




Plan to Turn Your Company Around in 90 Days


Book Description

More than half of all businesses in the U.S. don’t make it to their fifth birthday, and nearly 70 percent are gone by year ten. How do businesses get into trouble? A hundred different ways. Poor cash flow, undercapitalization, lax financial controls, poor worker productivity, boneheaded mistakes, inefficient processes, failure to adapt, loss of enthusiasm . . . the list goes on and on. The fact is, many businesses that face life-threatening challenges, or are just stuck in the doldrums, can turn their fortunes around. And Jonathan Lack is the expert who can show you how. Lack is a turnaround specialist—the guy called in to reinvigorate a stalled company or revamp the poor practices that reduce sales and decimate profits. Once he’s done, the company is again on the road to growth and profitability. Plan to Turn Your Company Around in 90 Days is a pragmatic, step-by-step guide to helping your company not only survive but begin to grow again. Among other things, this book will teach you how to improve your company’s cash flow, how to better manage your payroll and employee productivity, and how to get better results from your marketing and sales efforts. Turn Your Company Around in 90 Days will help you develop a framework to create a strategic plan that will move your company in the right direction and breathe new life into tired or worn-out operations and products. Plan to Turn Your Company Around in 90 Days will immediately help your firm in the following areas: How to get to “cash flow positive” and then grow How to manage technology better How to manage your payroll and employee productivity How to improve marketing and increase sales How to restore profitability How to manage your board of directors and investors If you’re at all fearful that your company may not last the next couple of years, this book is for you. What you’ll learn How to manage and preserve cash How to reduce your expenses How to increase your margins How to increase employee productivity and improve operations How to assess the strength of your products and services How to increase sales and marketing efficiency How to create a strategic plan to turn your company around How to restore enthusiasm and become a desirable employer again Who this book is for This book is written for CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and CMOs of large companies, midcaps, and small businesses. It’s also for angel investors, board directors, private equity firms, and venture capitalists. It is intended to give readers the confidence that, by developing a basic plan, they can turn their company around and give it new life. Table of Contents How to Manage Cash Flow Better How to Manage Accounts Payable Better How to Manage Accounts Receivable Better How to Manage Employee Productivity Better How to Manage Technology, Facilities, and Manufacturing Better How to Manage Process Flows Better How to Better Understand Your Customers, Competitors, and Key Trends How to Develop a More Effective Marketing Strategy How to Develop a More Effective Sales Strategy How to Manage Investors and the Board of Directors Better How to Hire and Manage Your Turnaround Consultant How to Manage Yourself and Your Staff Better Sample Consulting Proposal