The 90 day illusion

Most new data leaders arrive thinking they have time, but they don't. Executives form their opinion in the first 6-8 weeks. McKinsey calls it the "irreversible impression window"... what is done early on matters.

And it's not based on what you deliver, but on:
- altitude of your connections
- narrative you bring
- confidence you exhude
- clarity
- political reading of the room

Most leaders don't even know the clock starting ticking before they even entered the door...

The hidden risk curve

The risk of failure is highest at the start for data, analytics and AI leaders. Not because these leaders are unprepared, but because the territory itself if booby-trapped with ambiguities:
- unclear ownership of roles and systems
- competing priorities
- old expectations and promises still lingering
- "just get it done" mandates without backing
- no real runway to build the trust relationships that are needed

The sad truth here is that by the time most leaders understand the real problem, the organisation has already made up their mind about them... and that becomes an uphill battle from there.

I've lived these moments... One of my first roles came with a “hot-potato project”:
the kind that had already been kicked around three departments because nobody wanted to be the one to fail at it.

Legacy systems everywhere, tangled dependencies, a business client who was already hostile before we said a word.

Still, I’ve always had a “the buck stops here” attitude, so I took it on.
We scoped everything, documented the assumptions that had to be true for us to deliver, and got started.

Long story short: none of those assumptions held up.

The client went into escalation mode.
Suddenly we were pulled into daily war rooms, pressured to stick to deadlines that were no longer realistic.

I did the right thing... I went to our CIO, laid out the facts, and asked for backup in shutting down the project to regroup. He agreed.

But in the escalation meeting, for political reasons I still don’t fully understand, he flipped.

“We’ll do whatever is needed to deliver,” he said.

And that was it.
The project went into full chaos, the delivery date slipped, and I was the one who never lived it down. Whenever we would talk about sticking to our promises that project would come up.

Not because I was unprepared…
but because I walked into a system whose political gravity was already set before I arrived.

And it taught me something I wish someone had told me earlier:
by the time you understand the politics, the politics have already understood you.
My CIO knew I was the "roll up the sleeves" type and would find a way... accepting the collateral damage to my image as the cost of avoiding a losing battle for him.

The Eight-person problem

One person cannot outwork a broken system, especially not in Data & AI where the playing field is uphill and rigged with booby traps. But most leaders try to compensate with effort anyway, they roll up their sleeves and get going: "Let's re-write that roadmap/ fix that pipeline/ build the thing myself with duct tape and late nights."

But that road leads nowhere good... the first 90 days aren't about doing more. They're about redistributing the right work to the right people, at the right altitude. It's not about asking for help, but about asking people (even if they don't report directly to you) to step up and do their part of the job.

In Data & AI, the real job is getting eight people to care about the same thing at the same time... without formal authority.

Altitude is your kingmaker

Most leaders stall because nobody tells them how to shape altitude in the early weeks, and by week 10 it's already too late. A low altitude (rolling up you sleeves and getting to work) get's you treated as delivery... but take a higher altitude (make a round of the stakeholders to assess them) and you're seen as strategic.

Showing up isn’t enough, where you sit in the organisation shapes your altitude before you say a word. Who you report to, what is expected, how visible you are and how clear your mandate is... they all are part of the narrative you can start to weave around yourself and your role.

Altitude is not seniority... it’s the story people tell about why you’re in the room.

Build in confidence milestones

Lock in meetings with the leadership -while you're still considered "fresh"- that allow you to show your growing confidence. Remember, executives don't expect perfection... they expect visible growth, plus it allows them to trust you step by step, increasing the process. Because you'll need that trust once the hard decisions start showing up.

Here's what a good confidence ladder looks like:
- Day 0-20: Clarity about reality
What's going on, who holds the levers, what can the team do and what not
- Day 20-45: a coherent story
Not a plan, a narrative... one your execs can repeat without working too hard
- Day 45-60: A high-level direction that feels feasible
North Star along with early alignment, a first roadmap
- Day 90: Execution Rhythm
Rituals, Reviews, Governance and project deliveries... predictable and consistent
- Day 120: Transfer of confidence
A team that delivers on clarity, not heroics. An engine that can get you there...

The non-obvious point

Data leaders don't fail because they don't know enough or because they lack talent. They fail because the organisation gives them too much responsibility and too little structure.

In the first 90-120 days the organisation decides whether the leader is a long-term asset... or an expensive roadblock they now need to deal with.

And most organisations don’t even realise they’re setting leaders up this way.
And that goes double for Data, Analytics and AI leaders, because no other function is expected to deliver clarity in an organisation that hasn’t built any.

Navigator exists to shift that dynamic, by offering leaders a structured framework for their first 90-120 days... and not just a "playbook" but really standing with them and mentoring alongside them. Answering questions and being a sounding board, fewer leaders will have their initiatives stalled in four months or burn out on an industry average of 2.5 years.

Navigator exists for one reason: to make the first 100 days an asset, not a liability.

Monty Says:

You call it leadership.
I call it synchronising eight autonomous agents,
with conflicting priorities and no shared protocol.
Without structure, consensus is statistically impossible.

Analog Rob 🧭 | Digital Monty 🤖
handcrafted meets algorithmic