Formula for success in a new role
= Focus on delivering + Find your rhythm + Identify your tribe
👋 Hi, it’s Mic. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on creating leadership practices that will accelerate your impact, ensure consistent high performance from your teams and ultimately foster cultures that enable you and your people to thrive!.
🧑🌾 If you’re looking to transform your impact and build a set of leadership practices for life read on.
Read time: 6 minutes
How do I set myself up for success - this was her topic for coaching. I offered a short check list - a full proof, tried and true formula - to hit the ground running and for anyone to set themselves up for success over the first 3 months.
Over the first 3 months of any “new-to-you” job your manager will want your fresh perspective and to see you build credibility quickly. To do that, here is a check list over that 90 days:
Focus to get to delivering quickly and building credibility. Get or discuss these things:
What is the role? Get more context, depth and specifics eg KPIs, timelines, broader organizational goals and context within specific time frames, etc. Feel free to use this form to get clarity and inform a discussion with your new manager or team lead
Deepen your understanding of the value the role should offer - why this role, why now, how does it fit in broader organizational goals
What are the KPIs? how do they get reported on? To whom and in what forum? and on what timeline. What are the key milestones expected and in what timeframe?
Find your rhythm - this is a “new-to-you” place or team, and every organization (and team) has their ‘way’ of working. Familiarizing yourself with their flow of meetings - individual, team, organization wide - is key. Then:
Carve out time for working ‘on the business’ time to think strategically and holistically about them and you.
Find your rhythm within theirs. What is their cadence - the rhythm they use e , notice how they do project reviews, share progress in teams and across the broader organization, celebrate success, discuss (if at all) failures and,
Rituals they follow and the rules explicit and implicit eg people come to meetings having read the reports in advance and reports are shipped 1 day before or nobody reads anything and you talk through it live etc.
Find your people…who will be your tribe?
Leverage some trust building exercise in both casual and formal settings. A formal setting like your 1:1 with your direct manager, skip levels or stakeholders
Trust building like - - sharing a ReadMe ; or sharing a beer, coffee, tea some casual way of getting to know one another
What are their rituals for communications, decision making and organizing to get work done
Communications: Figure out what they don’t say but reward; Decision making: who, where and how do they make decisions about key projects or resources? Is it opaque or transparent?
what is the political landscape
Who are in the power positions in meetings?
What and who do they reward? How do they do that eg key positions, public praise, career or financial progression?
Leverage what they actually say using typical internal sources: your manager, their slack or wiki, team meetings, investor reports, board decks, financial reports, team progress reports
Understand their culture
Cultural assessment - use frameworks for analysis (co-create work has decent ones available on their website)
People systems — what does their performance management look like; hopefully they have a robust onboarding process in which you can ask all these questions
Data systems — what KPIs do they use internally to measure progress, where do they report on them
Meeting structures — how do they run their meetings
Core processes — how to they ship code, what are their code freezes like, what do they do for reviews,
Problem solving — how do they identify and solve problems.
This will ensure a good start.
This has been the what of the formula - underpinning this consider your mindset and approach - the how of it.
Mindset — adopt a growth mindset. Expect to fail at something - a task, a relationship a nuance. I’m not saying don’t shoot for perfection and take risk. Definitely do these things - it when you fail that you want to be self observant and self reflective. What can you learn about that particular situation or ‘play’ that can create a better outcome the next time.
I’ve been enjoying the new season of Quaterback on Netflix and in Episode 2 (Season 2) Cousins makes a mistake in the game. His first reaction post the game is to reach out to his coaches with his reflection and an ask of help and support. ‘I know I can do better - what am I missing’ he asks.
At the beginning of a new role you will be finding your tribe - those you trust for feedback and ideally deepening your working relationship with your manager. You want to know where you can improve and take the courageous move to acknowledge where you think you can do better.
Go beyond the tactics of any one deliverable and think to your craft. Where can you up your game and who can you learn from. These are some of the tenants of a growth mindset
Approach — listen more than you may be comfortable. We want to jump in, accomplish the tasks and accelerate the performance of our team — we’ll be more effective if we listen more than we speak.
Focus on asking powerful questions. Most definitely follow your curiosity and instinct and do that with questions. When you ask, shut up and listen. Seek to understand before you interject. What are you noticing about them, the team, the organization in their response. What is assumed? what appears like a belief or assumption - clarify with more questions.
My favourite book of great questions is Michael Bungay Stayner’s “The coaching habit: Say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever”. Ask How, What or when questions? Be playful with your curiosity and always in the context of the goals of your role or that of the team.
Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you in one week on Thursday at 8am ET.
Mic
PS I work with tech leaders on: getting to the next level, creating the conditions for consistent high performance for themselves and their teams. If you’re interested in how I can support you or your team, learn more about my coaching or book a free coffee here.