Your First 60 Daysby Tess Cope

Your First 60 Days

The Missing Piece of your Onboarding.A Systemic Approach for Senior Leaders.

Out now. Every copy comes with the Companion: a private, week by week workspace for your own first 60 days.

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Paperback and hardcover · 244 pages · Amazon UK

Why the first 60 days

Between 30 and 50% of senior leaders fail within their first 18 months, and it’s rarely for lack of skill or experience - the very things that won them the role.

More often, it’s that they never fully understood the system they were stepping into.

Every organisation has its own history, its own unspoken dynamics, and its own way of deciding whether a new leader truly belongs.

Your First 60 Days makes the case for treating onboarding as something deeper than an induction or a fast start. Drawing on research with 25 organisations and over a decade of systemic coaching, it shows how to read the system you’re entering and integrate in a way that sets you up for success.

Many senior leaders unexpectedly suffer ‘organ rejection’ from their company, at great personal cost. Those who take a systemic approach to their role are more likely to be successful.

Free with the book

Even the best book won’t be enough on its own...

Companion - taking the stimulus to the next level AND journeys with you throughout your First 60 Days...

Your First 60 Days Companion on a laptop, with the dashboard on day 34, the stakeholder map, the team map, a week's prompts and the history wall around it

The hard part starts the moment you close this book and walk in.

Most leaders don’t fail because they don’t know what to do. They fail because knowing it theoretically and doing it are two different things.

I’m very aware that once you close this book - momentum could be lost so I’ve built you a companion guide to close that gap: a pragmatic journal paired with how to guides, that take you further and deeper than what you’ve just read, with space to think on the page while the insights are emerging.

Nothing you record here can be seen by your employer, The Transformation Agency, or anyone else. It’s 100% private to you.

What is inside

The 60 Days: Week by week prompts through the four lenses, with Tess's own guidance opening above your notes.
Stakeholder map: Influence against engagement, knowledge keepers marked, moved as your understanding deepens.
Team map: Performance against engagement, with direct and dotted line reports and high potential shown.
History wall: The story of the business, conversation by conversation, drawn as a timeline you can present.
Journal: Everything you have written, gathered in one place, with a halfway check-in and a final review.
Dictation: Speak instead of typing on every long-form box, for the thinking you do on the move.
Take it with you: At day 60, the whole thing exports as one document, straight into your 90 day plan.

How you get in

Three steps, and the first one is the book

Buy the book Request Companion access

1
Buy the book
Paperback or hardcover, on Amazon UK.
2
Request access
At start.yourfirst60days.com. The form asks for your name, work email, organisation and the date your new role starts.
3
Tess approves, your sign-in link arrives
No passwords, and nothing to pay. What you write there stays yours alone.

Three questions, and a part of the book for each

The book is built around three questions worth sitting with before you move. To work through them, you’ll find Tess’s H.R.S.S. framework, real client stories you’ll recognise, reflective prompts at each stage, and a week by week companion guide to take into your own first 60 days.

1
Is your leadership seat truly available?
- The importance of Healthy Endings
- Is your new role burdened?
- What is the real brief?
2
Can you take your place?
- It starts with you
- Are you ready for the System?
- What kind of leadership is required?
3
How can you bring the business with you?
- What is the system ready for?
- How many systems are you navigating?
- Engaging & Igniting the Team
4
Bringing it all together
- What do you need to do, differently?
- Resources to accompany your First 60 Days

Each of the first three parts closes with Percolations: a page of questions to pause on before the next chapter begins.

“We cannot give a wholehearted hello, until we’ve said a full goodbye.”
Chapter 2, The importance of Healthy Endings

The H.R.S.S. framework

Your First 60 Days playbook

The H.R.S.S. framework is your First 60 Days playbook for a smoother landing. It doesn’t replace the need to have your strategic plan at the 90 day milestone; it strengthens it.

Utilise your first 60 days to immerse yourself in the human, relational and the systemic.

Human

It starts with YOU

Endings when well attended to, create the inner capacity to make the most of new beginnings.

Relational

Establishing trust & contracting

Building trusting, mutually beneficial relationships isn't optional and it isn't something that you can de-prioritise behind getting the job done.

Systemic

Is the system ready?

Before you activate your strategy, ensure you have clarity on what you're inheriting and ensure that the system is ready.

Strategic

Galvanise a plan that the system can integrate

When you've given due respect and time to the first three dimensions, you have set yourself up for a more positive reception and smoother integration of your strategic plan.

Two copies of Your First 60 Days by Tess Cope, one laid across the other

Real client stories you’ll recognise

Within these pages, you will find real client examples that I’m sure you will absolutely relate to, thought provoking philosophies, and a framework that is both expansive and user friendly.

As you turn the pages, I invite you to pause, take notes and reflect on how these examples, provocations and frameworks can be incorporated into your approach and applied to your team, and to your organisation.

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Tess Cope

About the author

Tess Cope is a bestselling author, award-winning leader, accredited leadership coach, systemic facilitator, and founder of The Transformation Agency. With over 25 years of experience in leadership development and cultural transformation, she has supported leaders and executive teams across the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the US, navigating the moments that define careers and shape organisational futures.

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