Review: The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins

Did not finish.

Got about one-fourth of the way through, realized I was bored out of my mind and not learning anything, and gave up. It was one platitude after another, completely obvious advice, checklists that were neither complete nor useful, advice that only applied to massive, old school corporations, and generic business jargon.

Here’s an example of “the essential transition tasks” from early in the book:

• Prepare yourself.
• Accelerate your learning.
• Match your strategy to the situation.
• Secure early wins.
• Negotiate success.
• Achieve alignment.
• Build your team.
• Create coalitions.
• Keep your balance.
• Accelerate everyone.

Wow, such insights! Who could’ve ever known that you need to prepare and have a strategy that matches the situation? Here I am, trying to negotiate failure, whereas this whole time I should’ve been trying to negotiate success!

I don’t know if the book gets better later on, but what I saw was the kind of useless business drivel that gives us the stereotype that all “business books” and “self help books” are bad.

Rating: 1 stars