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This online guide is based on the September 2002 article, "Sudden Impact" But why stop at 18? Don't forget to share your own experiences and advice using our Sound Off! feature below.

1. Begin your transition before you start the job. Use the interview process to get an early jump on learning about the organization. Ask critical questions: How are decisions made? What are the key challenges? Which functions are strong, and which ones need to be overhauled? Use that information to build some initial hypotheses about how you would change things for the better.

Take your cue from Steve Bennett who took over the CEO spot at Intuit Corp. "The interview process is where you start," he says. "That's where you ask all of the questions about what it takes to be successful." Continue

2. Travel widely within your organization, listen carefully, and look for patterns in everything you see and hear. Bruce Patton, co-author of "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" and a partner with Vantage Partners, a Boston-based relationship management consulting firm, advises new leaders to spend a lot of time listening and asking questions. Talk to employees up and down the hierarchy. "Soon you'll start to see a pattern about what's going on," he says.

Within his first month on the job, Steve Bennett hit the road and tested the hypotheses that he had formed during his interviews. In 30 days, he visited dozens of locations and talked to hundreds of people, gathering feedback and insight on what was right - and wrong - with the firm's operations. Continue

3. As you ask questions, look for the rising stars whom you want as part of your team. Your listening tour may help you identify the key players whose skills you need as part of your management team. "If you're engaging in high quality inquiry, you'll want to keep people who had good answers," Patton says.

Asking tough questions is a critical skill, but not necessarily a pleasant experience. Patton offers other strategies and scripts for handling tough conversations: Continue

4. Identify the kind of people who will flourish in the environment you want to establish. Even before interviewing people to assemble your team, take the time to identify the challenges ahead -- and the kind of people who are motivated by those situations.

When Scott Lutz was tapped to lead 8th Continent, a soy-milk company borne of a 50-50 joint venture between two corporate giants, DuPont and General Mills, he knew he needed to assemble a team of renegades - people with "the right mix of passion and courage," Lutz describes. "They had to be willing to do things that hadn't been done before." Continue

5. After you've identified the ideal individual, identify the ideal group. Don't stop at finding the type of person you need. Envision how this person will interact with others to get the goals accomplished. Assemble the ideal team. In some cases, literally.