Steal My Prompt Vol. 35: The First-90-Days Briefing
The first week of a new role has a particular energy. You have been chosen, you have ideas, you want to move. That instinct is the instinct of someone who takes the job seriously. It is also a trap.
The team needs a decision. The first 1:1s pile up. The inbox fills. So you move. And by week six, you have been answering questions you should have been asking.
The first 90 days in a new role are not for executing. They are for mapping. The decisions that shape your year are not the visible ones in week three. They are the assumptions you made in week one before you knew enough to question them.
This week's prompt produces a structured 90-day briefing in one pass. Paste in the role, the company, the team you are inheriting, and the priorities you have heard. The model returns a situation diagnosis, a stakeholder map, a 30-day listening tour question set, 60-day quick-win candidates, 90-day strategic positioning, and the assumption traps most likely to bite you in the next 90 days. It is the briefing I wish I had at every job start.
What You Can Use This For
- Starting a new senior role at a new company where you do not yet know the team, the politics, or what counts as a win
- Stepping into an internal promotion where the title changed but the relationships did not
- Taking over a function after a sudden leader exit and needing to triage what to stabilize first
- Joining a startup where the role is loosely defined and you have to scope it before you can deliver it
- Switching functions (engineering to product, finance to operations) and needing a fast read on what is different here
- Coaching someone you hired or mentored through their own 90-day landing
How to Use It
- Open Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini free tier. This is a synthesis-heavy prompt, so turn on the reasoning model option. That is "Extended thinking" in Claude, the reasoning model in ChatGPT, "Think Deeper" in Copilot, or "Deep Think" in Gemini. The deeper reasoning catches situation-type nuances a quick answer misses.
- Copy the prompt and fill in the six bracketed fields. Be specific. "Director of Engineering at a 200-person Series C SaaS company" produces a better briefing than "manager at a tech company."
- Read the situation diagnosis first. That frame shapes everything below it. A turnaround briefing looks nothing like a sustaining-success briefing. If the diagnosis does not feel right, push back. Tell the model what it is missing and ask it to rerun.
- Use the listening tour questions as a starting set, not a script. Take them into your first round of 1:1s, then come back to the model with what you heard and ask it to refine the next round.
Pro tip: Save the briefing as a working document. Update the situation diagnosis at day 30 and day 60. What you thought you were walking into is rarely what you find. The briefing is most valuable when it gets revised by reality.
The Prompt
You are a senior leadership coach who has helped hundreds of professionals land successfully in new roles. You specialize in the first 90 days, when assumptions get baked in before there is enough data to question them.
I am stepping into a new role. Help me build a 90-day briefing that maps the situation before I start executing.
Here is what you know:
- New role: [YOUR NEW ROLE AND LEVEL]
- Company and industry: [COMPANY DESCRIPTION, SIZE, STAGE, INDUSTRY]
- Team I am inheriting: [TEAM SIZE, MIX OF NEW vs LONGTIME, ANY KNOWN DYNAMICS]
- Priorities I have heard from my hiring manager or the board: [TOP 2-3 STATED PRIORITIES]
- My start date: [START DATE OR FIRST DAY]
- The biggest thing I do not yet know: [NAME THE UNKNOWN THAT WORRIES YOU MOST]
Use my start date to factor calendar realities into every section below: fiscal year boundaries, quarter-end pressure, holiday windows, performance review seasons, board cycles, or org-wide events that will compress my calendar in the first 90 days.
Produce the briefing in this exact structure:
1. SITUATION DIAGNOSIS
Identify which type of landing this is and explain why. Use these categories: new territory (you do not yet know the business), inheriting strength (high expectations, low room to differentiate), inheriting a fix (something is broken and you were hired to address it), scaling fast (function is growing and you need to build the infrastructure), or hybrid (name the mix). The diagnosis must be opinionated, not hedged. Then name the assumption most professionals make in this situation type that turns out to be wrong.
2. STAKEHOLDER MAP
List the 6-10 people who will most shape my success in this role. Group them into: must win in first 30 days, must understand in first 60 days, watch for derailers. For each person, name what they likely care about and one question I should be ready to answer for them.
3. 30-DAY LISTENING TOUR
Generate 10-15 questions for my first round of 1:1s and team conversations. Tailor the questions to the situation diagnosis above. Distinguish questions for direct reports, peers, my manager, and any cross-functional partners. Lead with the question most likely to surface a hidden assumption.
4. 60-DAY QUICK-WIN CANDIDATES
Identify 3-5 candidate moves that could produce visible value by day 60. For each one, name the risk if it fails publicly, the signal it sends if it succeeds, and the dependencies that have to be true. Rank them by signal-to-risk ratio.
5. 90-DAY STRATEGIC POSITIONING
Define what I should be known for by day 90 inside the company. What is the one sentence my hiring manager should be able to say about my contribution to their boss? Name the 1-2 narrative threads I should be reinforcing in every senior conversation.
6. WATCH-OUTS
Based on the situation diagnosis, name the 3 assumption traps most likely to bite me in the next 90 days. Be specific. Generic warnings do not help.
Be direct. Do not soften your read. If the situation has a clear failure pattern based on what I have told you, name it.
Transparency and Notes
- Built and tested in Claude with Extended thinking enabled. Works in ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Gemini on free tier.
- Model-agnostic. No paid features or file uploads required.
- If you are using a work AI tool, you can safely include role and team details. Keep specific names or proprietary information general unless your company has approved the tool for that level of confidentiality.
- This is a planning prompt, not legal, HR, or financial advice. Validate the briefing against people who know the actual organization before acting on it.
- Pairs naturally with Vol. 29 (Teach Your AI Who You Are). That prompt builds your reusable professional context. This one applies it to a specific transition.