Surviving and thriving in the first 90 days - the poka-yoke of hiring leaders
Of all the topics covered in this blog series, this one sits closest to the human core of everything else. Supply chains, procurement, cash flow, organisational design - all of it ultimately depends on the quality of the leaders running it. And yet the process of getting new leaders into a position where they can actually perform is, in most companies, remarkably poor.
Today's reality
There are two things most new hires quietly learn to be true in their first weeks.
The first: your new boss has to have your back. This seems obvious - you would not be there if they had not selected you. But there are situations where the person who hired you is not the person you report to, or where you were imposed on a boss who would have chosen differently. Unless you have a clear signal from above that this arrangement is temporary and the boss will move on, trust your instincts. The same applies if the personal dynamic simply does not work. Do not fight it unless the situation involves bullying, in which case, involve HR. Otherwise, resign or transfer. Life is too short for a working relationship built on mutual tolerance rather than mutual respect.
The second: you will largely have to figure out how the job works on your own. This is the problem this post addresses, because it does not have to be this way.
Using the Chief Procurement Officer as our example - though the same applies equally to new leaders in sales, marketing, manufacturing, HR, and service - let us look at what actually happens and what should happen instead.
Why the CPO role is particularly demanding
In most manufacturing companies, externally purchased materials and services represent the largest single block of Cost of Sales, larger than personnel cost. The CPO therefore sits at the intersection of the most significant cost lever in the business, the most complex external relationship network, and a function that interfaces with virtually every other part of the organisation.
A new CPO needs to understand quickly: the company and its decision-makers at every level; their own organisation, including the formal procurement team and the shadow buyers scattered across other functions; and finally, the supply base - hundreds of suppliers across potentially hundreds of distinct market categories. While absorbing all of this, they are simultaneously expected to drive performance improvement in year one.
External hires tend to default to what worked in their previous role, even when the current situation doesn't call for it. Without guidance and context, the hammer tends to find nails regardless of whether nails are what the problem requires. Internal promotions have an advantage in terms of institutional knowledge, but their blind spots are precisely in the areas they have not previously seen - the wider responsibilities, the leadership dynamic shift from peer to leader, and the strategic perspective that a narrower role did not require.
Mission impossible
Most new CPOs are handed a mission that is effectively impossible in the timeframe the organisation expects. Many deliver eventually - but rarely in the first two years, and when early performance does appear, it is often a straw fire that burns brightly and dies quickly. By year three or four, when the performance dips, both parties move on and the cycle restarts.
It does not have to work this way. The difference between new leaders who take root quickly and those who never quite find their footing is rarely talent. It is almost always a process - or the absence of one.
The poka-yoke of hiring
Poka-yoke is a concept from Lean methodology, developed by Shigeo Shingo as part of the Toyota Production System. "Poka" means careless error; "yoke" means prevention. Shingo's insight was simple: if you know what causes errors, you can design a process that prevents them from happening in the first place. He put it this way: "Quality is not checked, it is produced."
The same principle applies to leadership hiring. Rather than hoping a new hire figures out the job quickly and then intervening when they do not, design a process that consistently produces fast, effective onboarding.
What the company should do: three poka-yoke actions
The first is a structured 90-day onboarding plan tailored to the position. Not a general company induction. A tailored plan covering which people to meet, in which sequence, and which systems, processes, and methods to get to grips with - developed in advance with input from the incoming leader's peers, boss, and direct reports. Michael Watkins' book The First 90 Days is a useful reference, but handing someone the book is not a programme. The plan needs checklists, scheduled meetings, and accountability. When the onboarding is complete, update the plan with the new leader's own improvement suggestions and file it against the position profile for the next hire.
The second is a personal internal culture mentor - a peer who takes the new leader under their wing for the first 90 days, helps them read the landscape accurately, and flags rookie mistakes before they land badly. For internal promotions, where the landscape is already known but the perspective needs stretching, an external functional coach serves the equivalent purpose.
The third is biweekly check-ins between the new hire and their direct boss for the first 90 days, with the explicit purpose of accelerating the onboarding - not reviewing performance, not setting objectives, but watering the newly planted tree so it grows roots quickly. These conversations need to be protected time, not cancelled when the calendar fills up.
What the new hire should do: three poka-yoke actions
The most common mistake new leaders make in their first 90 days is talking too much and listening too little. They arrive with a track record they are proud of, a set of convictions about what good looks like, and an understandable desire to establish credibility quickly. All of this is understandable. Most of it is counterproductive.
The first priority is internal customers. Procurement is an interface function. It translates the business's needs into requirements that the supply base can meet. That translation only works if the function is trusted internally. The question to ask in every early meeting is not "let me tell you what I have done before" but "how can I best support you, and what are your biggest pain points right now?"
The second priority is the procurement organisation itself. Meet everyone, from leadership to individual contributors, ideally one-to-one. Ask the same two questions: what is working well, and what would be even better if it were different? The answers will tell you more about the current state of the function than any briefing document.
The third priority is suppliers. Get out of the office and go to them. Do not sit in meeting rooms - walk the production floor, the warehouse, the shipping dock. Management by walking around, a practice David Packard institutionalised at HP in the 1940s, works because people show you things in their environment that they would never think to mention in a formal meeting. Most suppliers are proud to show what they do. The ones who are not are worth noting.
One more tip for the new hire with roots beginning to grow: do not limit your listening to the HIPPO - the Highest Individually Paid Personal Opinion. The most senior person in the room has perspective and authority, but not necessarily the most accurate picture of operational reality. Seek out the people who work daily with the systems, processes, and staff in operations, finance, sales, R&D, legal, and sustainability. And seek out academics who research your field. They analyse data across hundreds of companies and offer a level of analytical neutrality that is rare inside any single organisation. Peer-reviewed articles on supply chain management, procurement strategy, and organisational design can compound your contextual knowledge faster than any internal briefing cycle.
Eleven questions to assess how well your company does this
Does the company have a clear onboarding plan by leadership position, detailing people to meet and places to visit?
Was the organisation genuinely satisfied with the former job holder's performance, and are there objective metrics to support that view?
Does leadership know what best-in-class performance looks like for this function in this industry?
Is the function being hired for a respected, integral part of the company - and if not, does leadership understand why and agree with that assessment?
Are candidates selected primarily on the basis of deep functional expertise in the relevant domain?
Do multiple members of the management board participate in the final interview?
Do new hires receive an internal mentor assigned to help them assimilate, or an external functional coach for internal promotions?
Is there genuine openness to hiring functional leaders from outside the company's own industry?
Is the new functional head a direct report to the management board or a member of the management board?
Is the function's design aligned with the rest of the organisational setup?
Did the last hire in this role stay for at least five years before moving on?
A clear yes to most of those means that leadership hiring is well managed. If most are no or unclear, the cost of that gap is borne in performance that does not materialise and in successive cycles that repeat every two to three years.
The size of the prize
Consider what a great CPO actually commands, expressed not in cost reduction percentages but in the architecture of the extended enterprise. Your supply base employs ten to a hundred times more people than your own organisation - all working to produce components and services for you. A CPO who builds a genuine partnership with that supply base transforms it from a transactional counterparty into an innovation community actively invested in your success. Your suppliers' collective R&D spend dwarfs your own budget. A trusted CPO who channels supplier innovation towards your product roadmap has access to external development capacity that internal R&D budgets cannot replicate. And suppliers who regard you as a preferred customer price accordingly - not from charity, but because long-term preferred customer relationships are commercially valuable to them.
The difference between a CPO who builds that relationship and one who does not is not primarily a question of talent. It is a question of whether the first 90 days were managed well enough for the person to take root before the pressure to perform began.
Water your trees.
Stay safe. Be bold.
Daniel
The views expressed in this post are my personal professional opinions, based on research and publicly available information. They reflect analysis of industry trends and practices, not assertions of fact about specific companies or individuals. Nothing in this post constitutes legal, financial, or investment advice.
