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You're in Charge--Now What?: The 8 Point Plan
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Sales rank 101,517
Customers rating (based on 19 reviews)
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Getting a new job or a big promotion is like building a house: You need to get the foundation right for both. With a job, the quick-drying cement is how well you do in your first hundred days, since they establish the foundation for long-term momentum and great performance.Tom Neff and Jim Citrin are two of the world’s leading experts on leadership and career success. As key figures at Spencer Stuart (hailed by the Wall Street Journal as the number one brand name in executive search), they must understand the criteria for success when they recruit top executives for new leadership positions. Through compelling, first-hand stories you will hear from people such as Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, on how his career has been a series of successive first hundred days. Larry Summers, president of Harvard University, talks candidly about what he could have done differently in his early days to avoid dissipating goodwill among the diverse constituencies important for his future success. Gary Kusin of Kinko’s shares the specifics of the hundred-day action plan he crafted for himself before he started his new job. Paul Pressler of Gap Inc. shows how he developed a general strategic agenda that established fundamental principles and goals, waiting to prepare a more detailed strategic plan until later in his tenure.Tom Neff and Jim Citrin’s actionable eight-point plan will be the foundation for your success—whether you are moving to a new organization or being promoted—showing how to:• Prepare yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally from the time you accept until the time you begin• Manage others’ expectations of you—bosses, colleagues, and subordinates • Shape and build the team that will work with you• Learn the lay of the land and find out how things “really work around here”• Communicate your story effectively to people inside and outside the organization • Avoid the top ten traps that confront every new leader, such as disrespecting your predecessor, misreading the true sources of power in the organization, or succumbing to the “savior syndrome”When you start a new job you are in what AOL’s Jon Miller calls a “temporary state of incompetence,” faced with having to do the most when you know the least. But with the eight-point plan of You’re in Charge—Now What? you’ll understand and be able to take action on the patterns that will build your success.Also available as an eBook
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| Publisher | Crown Business | | Release date | 01/2005 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
| | List price | $25 | | Our price | $16.5 (you save 34.00%) | | Used price | from $1.7 |
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Get a leg up on the competition
An executive how-to kit for the first 100 days suitable for both small and large businesses - a hard nut to crack. Thomas Neff and James Citrin offer a seven-step action plan for any new executive: do your homework, align expectations, build a management team, develop a strategy, explore and define the culture, find the source of power and set a vision for the company. Few other reviewers have claimed these to be `self-evident' and motherhood and pie, but the examples provided by the authors are well worth the time on their own. The book may not revolutionize your thinking, but it has certainly helped me identify a few underwater stones - experience is cheapest second hand, do not overlook this book.
 Czarnecki's "You're In Charge..What Now?" Better for non-CEOs
When I saw the "Recommended for You" email, I thought Gerald Czarnecki had come out with a sequel. Instead, I find a not as elegant knock-off.
Czarnecki offers a much better, more digestible plan for those who are newly appointed in positions of management. His "Seven Essential Steps for Work Leader Success" are useful and proven techniques for those who need it the most: the everyday people in an organization who get the job done, not the Stanford-grad CEOs who have already spent years in management and academia learning the ropes. I have recommended his book to friends in just about every industry, from IT to the military. I, myself, found Czarnecki's book extremely useful as a new senior non-commissioned officer in dealing with people who became my subordinates overnight. Unfortunately, this book did not address that sort of issue.
This book isn't a terrible book by any means, and perhaps for a CEO or high-level manager it is something good. As I am neither, I didn't find it appealing. It's essentially the same information you can find elsewhere, and as a previous reviewer pointed out, the tips and techniques are more for those already in the boardroom. Go back to Czarnecki's original if you are a new manager, especially one who was promoted from within, or looking for a gift for the grad or newly promoted.
You're In Charge...What Now?
 Very Helpful in Starting Off on the Right Foot
My executive coach recommended this book and she was right. It is very well organized with lots of examples on how to get started as the new leader in a large organization. Suitable for small but oriented towards large business of all types. Did not provide Government examples but was still very helpful. I read the book cover to cover and made lots of notes. Try to read at least 3 weeks before reporting. I am three weeks into a Government IT job with a staff of 650 and $100M in budget and all the signs are there that this book was helpful for accelerating my early take-off.
 Good Guide
I bought You're in Charge... on Amazon.com. I am interested in the leadership process, how to approach new roles, some of the pitfalls, etc and thought this was a good book on the subject. I do believe that the best place to get leadership ideas and tips is from Michael Watkins' The First 90 days, but I think Thomas Neff and James Citrin provide aspiring leaders with a worthwhile book.
The best feature, although sometimes over done are the real life examples of CEO's who took the reigns, and what they did. Whether it was a turnaround situation, or continuing a legacy of success, there are some standard approaches that each of these leaders used. The premise of the book is that there are 8 steps to the new leadership process -
1. Prepare yourself before taking over
2. Align expectations (internally, externally)
3. Build a management team you can rely on
4. Build a strategy (Which includes just refining the old one)
5. Transform the culture to aling it with your expectations
6. Manage up and where influence lies (Board, boss, whoever has more power... and also manage those who have institutional influence.)
7. Communicate your vision, your steps in the process, strategy
8. Avoid common pitfalls.
Nothing really earth shattering here, but certainly good advice. The focus of the book are the steps every leader should take within the first 100 days of your tenure.
One of the more interesting parts of the book goes back to the CEO's and what they did. Since this was published in 2005, some of the CEO's haven't turned out to be the captains fo industry that they are potrayed to be (At least from a market perception perspective.). You read about Paul Pressler and Bob Nardelli and what they did in their first 100 days. Needless to say, as time passed, their reputations are somewhat tarnished now. There are others referenced as well that haven't been treated very kindly by the marketplace.
Anyhow, there is no harm in picking this up, although like I referenced before, I think there are other leadership books out there that I more worthwhile. You're in Charge tends to get a bit over done, but if you can overlook that, there are some worthwhile tips to pick up.
 Written only for CEOs
If you are a brand new CEO and need to know how to run your organization, buy this book. If you are at any lower level, this book is not meant for you.
The authors state directly from the beginning that they focus more on CEOs than most other positions but the lessons learned are applicable to anyone. This is not true. The author focus too much on the role of a CEO. The examples and suggestions are unique to that role. In one section the book describes how to find your management blind spots such as research and development, marketing, etc. If you are a software development manager in a large firm, your knowledge of marketing or R&D will most likely do little for your career. Yet this book highlights that as areas you should improve.
Another example on how the book focuses too much on CEO is displayed in the how-to-work-with-your-boss chapter. They entire chapter discusses how you should interact with the board of directors! This is a complely different relationship than what 99.9% of workers engage in. The relationship you have with your boss is possibly the most important relationship in your career. To focus this chapter on working with the board makes it absolutely useless to anyone who is not an officer or anyone that does not work for a private firm.
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