What transition issues most interest you today?

After The First 90 Days was published, I began to focus on the organizational implications of transition acceleration. What would it be worth to an organization if they could accelerate every transition by just 10-15%. The answer turns out to be a lot. Typically 25% of the management ranks in large companies take new jobs each year. At the critical Director and VP levels, the rate of change can be much higher, with leaders taking new positions every two to three years. This translates into a third to a half of leaders at those levels taking new jobs each year. And every leader in transition impacts many others.

Then there are the very high rates for failure in executive on-boarding. Several studies have shown rates of failure of about 40% when senior executives are hired from the outside. The costs of such failures are very high; direct costs are estimated to be more than 10x base salary and the opportunity costs can be far higher. So my focus these days is on helping companies reduce derailment and to accelerate everyone by putting in transition systems built around The First 90 Days model. A First 90 Days transition system has relevant resources delivered just-in-time through a cost-effective mix of coaching, programs, and e-learning.