At HBR Live: Master Your Next Move, held in London, UK in October 2019, Michael Watkins spoke to an audience of senior executives and talent management professionals about the eight common transition challenges that most leaders encounter in their professional lifetime. According to Watkins, “leaders go through a lot of transitions… So transitioning is a core […]
How To Ace Your Job in The First 90 Days
In this Forbes article, Michael Watkins offers his advice for successfully navigating the first crucial days in a new role and underscores the importance of making a good first impression. The article is based on an interview he originally gave with LearnVest. LearnVest: Why are the first 90 days on the job so important? Michael D. Watkins: Lots […]
How Transition Coaches Accelerate Executive Onboarding
Many companies think they are doing a good job of onboarding newly-hired executives when they actually aren’t… In “Onboarding Isn’t Enough,” a recent Harvard Business Review article co-authored with Mark Byford and Lena Triantogiannis from Egon Zehnder, we showed that many companies think they are doing a good job of onboarding newly-hired executives when they actually aren’t. […]
Onboarding New Leaders Remotely
In his co-authored article “Onboarding a New Leader Remotely,”published on HBR.org (May 2020), Michael Watkins invites us to imagine a scenario in which a new executive hire is faced with joining an organization remotely and in which she will be inheriting a remotely-based team in the process. What does transition support look like in the […]
The Essential Role of Effective Communication During CEO Transitions
Even in the best of circumstances, CEO transitions are challenging times. The transfer of power in large organizations long has been recognized as a time of potential uncertainty and even instability. In fact, the term ‘interregnum’ was coined by the Romans explicitly to refer to this critical period – the time between the reigns of kings […]
Genesis Visits UNDP on Tour of Denmark Hosted by HBR Press
As part of a series of events organized by Tatarklubben, the Harvard Business Review Press affiliate in Denmark, Genesis co-founder Michael Watkins was invited to give a presentation about leadership transitions, based on his globally recognized First 90 Days framework for onboarding and the common leadership transition challenges outlined in the updated and expanded version […]




