Crucial in the Launch stage is to rigorously scrutinize whether any playbooks you may have found effective in the past should be applied in making first moves or cast aside. Joe Hogan advised, “Throw out the playbook filled with actions and instead bring one full of questions.” Leaning hard on past experiences may be setting yourself up for failure.

CEOs often get swept up in a powerful “honeymoon” tailwind of optimism during this phase. Not only is the board of directors flush with confidence in their choice, but so are the markets. New leaders also commonly inherit an array of low-hanging-fruit problems to solve that their predecessor, no matter how successful, neglected dealing with or expressly put off; the market generally anticipates these quick solutions and their existence can drive up the share price. Yet the intensity of the daily demands and the huge learning curve tend to make new CEOs doubt that they’re getting this vote of confidence.

There are going to be surprises no matter how well you know a company. Learning about them early is challenging because employees, even at the highest levels, are reluctant to share troubling information. Learning what you need to know requires rigorous questioning while conveying in a compelling way that you absolutely want people to speak openly.

A CEO coming in from the outside needs to emphasize getting a good fix on the full range of business operations, the strengths and weaknesses of the leadership team, and the nature of the culture.

By establishing a set of ongoing listening practices in your first year, you build trust that you’re not just putting on a show of wanting input. Over time, as people see you acting on their input, you will encourage leading by listening throughout the organization.

3. Calibration

Recall that our CEO Life Cycle analysis found that three out of four (73 percent) CEOs with a successful start that beat the market in year one did worse in year two. On average, the dip in TSR was a whopping 21 percent, underscoring that a slump should be taken very seriously. That said, it’s also important to keep a clear head about why share price is being battered. Often, the slide— as with the honeymoon spike— is a market overreaction. Analysts and investors often overshoot in punishing shares, mainly due to sentiment rather than the facts of performance and company initiatives being undertaken.

We’ve found that appraising boards of our findings about the common honeymoon-to-slump pattern has also been helpful. In one instance, we were advising the board of a Fortune 50 company. The freshman-year CEO was enjoying a huge spike in share value. The board had selected her because of her long experience in executive roles in the company’s industry, and the market agreed with the board’s enthusiasm. The board was over the moon about the response. But having seen the high likelihood of a honeymoon-to-slump pattern in our modeling for this firm, we advised the board that they should expect a correction. When, sure enough, the share price dropped precipitously starting early in her year two, the board credited it to the predicted swing back from a honeymoon lift and didn’t turn up the heat on her as they might have. She’s gone on to thrive for five more years in the role, and counting.