Days 1–30: clarify before you commit.
Start by aligning with the person who owns your mandate. Ask what needs to be different at the end of 90 days, which commitments already exist, and where you have authority to make decisions.
Then compare that view with what your team, peers, and key partners see. Listen for differences in expectations. An apparent execution problem may begin with two people working toward different definitions of success.
- Write the mandate in one sentence: “By day 90, my responsibility is to…”
- List the decisions you own, those you recommend, and those that require agreement.
- Identify the relationships you need to understand before changing the plan.
- Record the baseline for each priority using information the business already trusts.
Days 31–60: choose and test.
Translate the mandate into a small set of priorities. Give each one an owner, a next decision, and a review date. Make the tradeoffs explicit: taking on a new priority should prompt a discussion about what will stop or receive less attention.
For a commercial team, “improve execution” is too broad to manage. A more useful working example is to agree which customer commitments matter this month, assign an owner to each, and review completion and obstacles every week. This is an illustrative planning example, not a client result.
- Priority: What outcome matters, and why now?
- Owner: Who is accountable for the next action?
- Evidence: What would show that the work is moving?
- Obstacle: Which decision, resource, or dependency is preventing progress?
- Tradeoff: What will receive less time so this can get done?
Days 61–90: review what holds up.
Look at the difference between the plan and actual behavior. Which decisions still return to you unnecessarily? Where does a handoff fail? Which meetings produce action, and which repeat the same discussion?
Keep the routines that help the team make decisions and complete work. Adjust the ones that create reporting without useful follow-through. Finish the period with an honest account of progress, unresolved issues, and the next set of decisions.
A weekly review you can use
Put the answers on one page. The value comes from using the review consistently and following up on the decisions it produces.
- What did I commit to last week, and what actually happened?
- What evidence changed my view of the situation?
- Which conversation or decision am I avoiding?
- What can someone else own with clearer expectations?
- What are the few commitments that matter most next week?
Bring your plan into the conversation.
If you are navigating a bigger role or a demanding transition, the Next Level Engagement provides 90 days of private advisory with Matthew Holthaus. Bring your mandate, the decision you are delaying, and your first draft of priorities to an introductory call.