Generic onboarding templates, assessments, and best practices are very helpful.  They are certainly better than not having any kind of structure, and they can give you a real leg up.

But tailoring your transition approach to the situation you are walking into will give you the extra edge that top performers constantly seek.

Before you enter, ask yourself this: What footprints did your predecessor leave? It's a stone-simple question, but the answer will affect on how you approach your First Hundred Days.

Imagine how different your starting point would be if you were following an icon (as Tim Cook did when he replaced Steve Jobs at Apple) vs. coming into a situation that's a train wreck, where your predecessor was fired.

These situations differ still from a third possible scenario where your predecessor did a decent job and is still around, but people "want more from the engines."

What footprints did your predecessor leave? It's a stone-simple question, but the answer will have a big affect on how you approach your First Hundred Days.

Transition best practices will be useful in all cases, but optimizing for the scenario you find yourself in requires a nuanced approach.

Generically, the primary objective is still the same: to build trust for you and momentum around your change agenda as it forms.  But your emphasis would change depending on the situation you are walking into.

For example, if your predecessor was an icon, you might want to spend even more time than you normally would with stakeholders.  You want to give them the chance to tell you why they loved her/him and make sure they feel heard.  This alone along with other things you do in these meetings are your "relationship deposits" so they start forming a relationship with you. 

Also, when following an icon changes might need to come more slowly with more effort put into getting broad-based buy-in from stakeholders.  Making too many changes too quickly to what the person they loved built is likely not to go well.

When the situation you are walking into is a train wreck, it is not that stakeholder input and buy-in is unimportant, but people are likely to be so desperate for change, that they will give you more leeway for moving aggressively to stop the bleeding.

If the org needs "more from the engines," you will need to get everyone to agree on what "more from the engines" looks like and what the costs will be to get there. Hard to find a situation where more from the engines wouldn't be good, but do people know the cost and are they willing to pay the price to get there?

Finally, it is also possible you are not following any footsteps.  You might be hired for a role that has not existed in this company before.  In this scenario, many of the key stakeholders have no idea what to expect, not only from you, but from the role you are being asked to play.

If the position you are stepping into has never existed before, focusing on a vision would likely be, sorry, short-sighted.  Instead a focus on near term priorities and improvements and experiments in the form of "launch & learns" would probably serve you better.

Bottom-line:  Making sure your FHD playbook is tailored to the situation you are walking into will give you a better chance of being successful.

Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is the President of Adsum Insights and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond, a consulting service for leaders in transition who need to get off to the best possible start in their new jobs.