But hold your horses. Before you order your new business cards, slow down and take a look at The First 90 Days in Government. Peter H. Daly and Michael Watkins guide the reader through the most common management minefields that await new government managers.

Specifically, a chapter is devoted to each of the “nine key challenges”: clarify expectations, match strategy to situation, accelerate your learning, secure early wins, build the team, create alliances, achieve alignment, avoid predictable surprises and manage yourself.

Much of the advice is broken down into small action steps. For example, for the first of the nine challenges, “clarify expectations,” the authors suggest that new public managers hold five conversations with their new boss, about situation, expectations, style, resources and personal development.

Each chapter is built around an example of the particular challenge and how it could be overcome. None of the ideas in the book are revolutionary; some of the authors’ suggestions have the ring of common sense. “Don’t trash the past,” “don’t try to change your boss,” and “watch for verbal and nonverbal clues” are not radical suggestions, but everybody—not just new government managers—would benefit from applying them.

The book focuses on what makes managing government staff so different from managing staff in other realms. For instance, government managers run into trouble when they try to use “push tools”—such as financial incentives—to motivate employees. In the public sector, managers have to make much use of “pull tools”—such as defining a compelling shared vision for the organization.

The First 90 Days offers helpful tips not only for any new government boss, but also for anybody who has a new government boss, so they can better understand some of the boss’ motivations, fears and dreams.