This book is a partial rewrite of the earlier “90 Days” book that applies to commercial ventures. While the initial scenario on page 1 and 2 are right on the mark, the rest of the book basically says: define the role and mission, gather the support and resources, and then go off and achieve. Or, as the initial scenario suggests, you may find yourself marginalized and drifting. That’s a good theory, but I never saw it work in 7 years on the inside as a senior Federal manager, nor in over 20 years as a management consultant working with hundreds of managers in dozens of agencies. If you’re in an agency that isn’t aligned to this book (and few of them are), its advice is more likely to hurt you than help you, and you will in fact end up marginalized and drifting if you move out too quickly on what you think (or are told) the mission is. In such agencies you will never get the candid conversations and extended discussions of values and priorities that the book depends on, and such words as you do hear may be misleading because those aren’t really the priorities after all.

To be really useful, this book ought to be entitled “The 90 Days Before Getting Into a Public Sector Job”. Find out as much as you can about the agency, its mission, its organizational politics and its pain points, during the job interview period. You may never get as much face time or candor again, even if you do get hired.

See a much longer version of the review, which was somewhat controversial, on Amazon.