Michael D. Watkins is a professor of practice in organizational behavior at INSEAD, Fontainebleau. He is also founding partner of Genesis Advisers, a leadership strategy consultancy.
Drawing on the perfect combination of research and hand-on experience, Michael Watkins has spent the last two decades working with leaders — both corporate and public — as they transition to new roles, negotiate the future of their organizations, and craft their legacy as leaders.
Dr. Watkins is the author of the international bestseller The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at all Levels, which The Economist called "the on-boarding bible." With more than 400,000 copies sold in English, and translations in 27 languages, The First 90 Days has become the standard reference for leaders in transition. Recently The First 90 Days was named one of the best 100 business books of all time.
Dr. Watkins also has applied his First-90-Days framework to guiding transitions within government agencies and to the critical negotiation challenges facing new leaders with his latest books The First 90 Days in Government: Critical Success Strategies for New Public Managers at All Levels and Shaping the Game: The New Leader’s Guide to Effective Negotiating.
Dr. Watkins is the Chairman of Genesis Advisers, an executive on-boarding and transition acceleration company. Previously he was a professor at The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Harvard Business School, INSEAD in France, and IMD in Switzerland. He has designed award-winning programs in accelerating transitions, Future Enterprise Leader™ development, negotiation, and corporate diplomacy.
He is also the author of, among others, Breakthrough Business Negotiation: A Toolbox for Managers (winner of the CPR Institute prize for best negotiation book in 2002) and coauthor of Case Studies in US Trade Negotiation (2006), Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming and How to Prevent Them (a Strategy + Business 2004 best business book), Breakthrough International Negotiation: How Great Negotiators Transformed the World's Toughest Post-cold War Conflicts (2001), Winning the Influence Game: What Every Business Leader Should Know About Government (2001), and Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role (1999).
Between 1991 and 1996, he was a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. From 1996 to 2003, he was a professor at the Harvard Business School and also taught negotiation in the Senior Executive Program at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
Master Your Next Move: The Essential Companion to The First 90 Days
The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels