Field notes · 5 min read
Ninety days is the wrong clock
Day 91. The plan has been written and shared. The welcome lunches are done, the stakeholder interviews are filed, and the new executive has said the right things in the right meetings. Officially, onboarding is over.
In our experience, this is often when the harder part starts. The 90-day plan is a useful way to begin. It is a poor finish line.
Senior moves are common, and many do not land
Senior leaders are moving more often. Russell Reynolds Associates, which tracks chief executives at companies on 13 major stock indices, counted 234 CEO departures in 2025, the highest in the eight years it has run its index (Russell Reynolds Associates).
Not every move goes well. McKinsey, drawing on several industry studies, estimates that between 27 and 46 percent of executive transitions are seen as failures or disappointments two years in (McKinsey, 2018). That range comes from consultancy research rather than peer-reviewed studies, and "disappointment" depends on who is judging. Even so, the low end is more than one in four.
It takes longer than 90 days
The same McKinsey report found that 92 percent of external hires and 72 percent of internal hires took more than 90 days to reach full productivity. Sixty-two percent of external hires and 25 percent of internal hires said it took at least six months to have real impact (McKinsey, 2018).
What gets in the way is mostly not the job itself. McKinsey reported that 68 percent of transitions run into trouble over politics, culture and people. Seventy-nine percent of external hires and 69 percent of internal hires said changing the culture was difficult. Moving up from inside does not make the culture easy.
What newcomers need, in general
There is less peer-reviewed research on executives specifically, so it is worth being clear about what the academic evidence covers. Most of it is about newcomers in general, at every level. With that caveat, it is consistent.
A meta-analysis of 70 samples of newcomers found three things carried the benefit of good socialisation through to the results organisations care about: knowing what the role is (role clarity), confidence in doing it (self-efficacy), and being accepted by the people around you (social acceptance). Those in turn linked to job satisfaction, commitment, performance and staying (Bauer and colleagues, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2007). An updated review of 183 studies again pointed to social acceptance, and added a sense of fit and wellbeing to the list (Bauer and colleagues, Journal of Management, 2024).
Programmes make a difference. Across 83 field experiments, newcomers who took part in a socialisation programme had 1.46 times the odds of staying. The effect was larger when the programme helped people learn what good work looks like, encouraged them to take the initiative, and built social connection, and when it was delivered in person and spread over time rather than packed into the first weeks (Liu and colleagues, Psychological Bulletin, 2024).
Acceptance is the slow one
Of the three things newcomers need, role clarity can be written down and confidence can be built through early work. Acceptance has to be given by other people. For an executive, those people are a team that was there first, peers who may have wanted the role, and a boss or board with their own picture of what the hire is for.
That is why we use the word integration rather than onboarding. Onboarding is something done for the new leader. Integration happens between the leader and the people already there, and it runs on their timetable as well as the leader's.
What we suggest instead
Plan for a year, review at 90 days.
Keep the 90-day plan, but treat it as the first checkpoint in a longer integration, with planned reviews at six and twelve months.
Work with the team, not only the leader.
Ask the existing team what they hope for, what worries them and what the new leader needs to know. Share it, without names, and work through it together.
Test the brief early.
The role described during hiring and the role as it really is often differ. Check the leader's picture against peers, direct reports and the boss in the first weeks, before big commitments are made.
Spread support over time.
The evidence on programmes favours in-person and staggered support. Don't put it all into the first month.
Watch for the quiet signals.
Meetings that go round in circles, decisions that get reopened, people who stop speaking up. These tend to show up before the formal measures do.
Agree what success looks like, and when.
Write down what the organisation expects at six, twelve and 24 months, so "disappointment" is not decided after the fact.
The short version
The first 90 days often get most of the attention. The evidence suggests the real work, particularly acceptance by the team, takes much longer, and that organisations can do a lot to help. A new leader is joining a group as well as starting a job.
So, for your next senior hire: who is planning month four?
Sources and further reading
- Keller, S. (2018). Successfully transitioning to new leadership roles. McKinsey.
- Russell Reynolds Associates. Global CEO Turnover Index.
- Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M. and Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization. Journal of Applied Psychology.
- Bauer, T. N. and colleagues (2024). New horizons for newcomer organizational socialization. Journal of Management.
- Liu, S. and colleagues (2024). Unpacking the effects of socialization programs on newcomer retention. Psychological Bulletin.
Sources are cited from published research and industry reporting. Copies are held on file and available on request.