The First 90 Days in a New Role
A framework and learnings for a smarter new start strategy
👋 Ciao, Alex here. Welcome to a new free edition of Not Just Bits, and thank you to all the readers and those who support my work. Every week, my goal is to share lightweight and informative resources for CTOs.
Today, we're exploring the topic of bringing people into new jobs or roles. Monica, our expert in all things engineering, will share some learnings and frameworks she used in the past. Right now, she's the Head of Engineering at Beyond. But before that, she steered the ship at Kaia Health and Freelectis.
She has onboarded many people, and without a doubt, her learnings and past experiences will be helpful stories for all of us.
The First 90 Days
As a manager, at some point in your career, you might have to switch to a new organization. When this happens, you won't be able to bring your network or team with you, and you'll have to start afresh. You'll be unable to leverage the political influence you may have built over the years in your previous company.
To help managers increase their chances of success when joining a new organization, many people suggest reading "The First 90 Days" by Michael D. Watkins.
The book outlines the necessary steps to take on your first day of work, which can be plotted on a timeline: Orientation -> Networking -> Multiplying.
The objective of the framework is to create a positive feedback loop where each action quickens the build-up of influence and impact within the new organization, while also providing you with greater confidence in determining when and where to act. The ultimate goal is to shorten the time for your company to break even on the investment of hiring you.
What does the framework look like?
The three phases should take 30 days each and each one will have a specific theme.
Days 1-30: Orienting
In the first 30 days, your goal is to establish the foundation of your presence in the company. Before doing any action, you need to understand the team and the culture.
Have as many one-on-one meetings and focus on specific questions that can help you assess the situation faster, immerse yourself in team dynamics so as to gain insights into the existing culture.
In this phase it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information and novelty. To act with intention in the next phases, you need to set expectations for yourself and others: define short and long-term goals based on the information you are gathering, to make sure you are making progress.
Just as important: communicate your expectations clearly, to your peers, manager and reports. You are new in the company and very likely only a few people know you. It is therefore extremely important to make sure people understand what you are doing, why you are doing it and how you are doing it.
Days 31-60: Networking
This is the phase where you get to know the people in a more personal way and you need to establish communication strategies to be effective in and out of your team.
Build a rapport with stakeholders that will make you and your team effective and collaborative and start establishing internal team communication to be as effective as you can. This means either reinforcing or building a philosophy of communication that encourages openness, timely and relevant messages on the proper channels, clear expectations for the roles involved, and as much as possible soliciting feedback.
Just as important: get to know the people that will report to you, to assess who makes up your squad, what are their strengths and weaknesses and their aspirations.
This will help you understand what your team can and cannot do and how you can help the people you lead to grow.
Days 61-90: Multiplying
If you have done your homework, at this point you have a fairly good idea of what your objectives are and the problems you’ve been brought in to solve.
Make sure to create an environment where there is space for creativity so that your team and you, together with your peers, can come up with how to solve them. Implement multiple feedback mechanisms to get as soon as possible information as to if you are going in the right direction.
Make sure to also establish a way to resolve conflicts. There will be some, and a conflict (overt or open) will become more and more dangerous as it goes on. Nip it in the bud. If possible, observe the patterns and create a conflict resolution framework to make the next issue go away faster.
For a deeper summary of the framework, you can read the following articles:
The framework is rich in practical advice, tools and mental models that you should use to make sure what you are observing is factual.
If you were to pick the most memorable concept of the book, what would that be?
When I became a manager in my first company, I had prepared a plan but needed a few weeks to complete it while tapping into the company's knowledge. Unfortunately, reality did not cooperate, and I had to put my plan aside to handle the company's business and take care of my team's well-being. Nevertheless, I found that the following mental models and practices that I had extracted from the framework helped me to lead my team successfully, and my transition was as smooth as it could be.
I have to say two concepts were the most valuable to me and I cannot pick one over the other.
Build a stakeholders map: Who are the people who will have an influence on your team, your project, your role? Who are your peers? What do they influence? Who are your customers?
The STARS model: a way to categorize in which phase your company, your division and your team are. Your strategy for each of those entities will have to adapt to where they are in the life cycle described. If you apply a Turnaround strategy to a Start-up phase, you might succeed but at a much higher cost. Each of these phases comes with its set of challenges and opportunities, things you need to correct and things you need to leverage.
In my case it was extremely useful to understand how to manage the team I was leading and navigating the division my team was in. I had a team that needed to be built up from scratch, set against impossible deadlines with high stakes and a high level of uncertainty. That was the exact picture of an organization in the Startup phase. The division we were operating was in a similar phase, maybe a bit in the Turnaround phase because of the deadlines being set and practices for project management not well established. The company saw itself in a Sustaining Success phase, whilst in my opinion it was instead in a Realignment phase: we had a successful business model in the U.S. but we wanted to go heavy on the EU market and for doing that we had to reassess the priorities, the structure of the whole company and even the communication patterns so to have the EU market team would the resources, the help and understanding it needed to start operating properly
In which other situations is the framework useful?
It's worth noting that you don't need to be a people manager to use the framework. While there are a few sections dedicated to managing your team, it is still extremely useful in any case. For instance, if you are a product manager or a marketing manager, there is still a team of people you will be working closely with, and they will work for you even if they don't report to you.
You don’t need to follow the framework to the exact word. As always, in my opinion, it is important to understand the underlying message and lessons and to apply the Pareto principle: you’ll make a great deal of progress with 20% of the effort. If you don’t, revisit your assumptions because something is bringing in friction.
If I were to extract a few principles from it, they would be::
Prepare yourself: take the time to learn about the company's history, objectives, and your motives for joining it. This will help you understand how you can contribute to the company's goals.
Establish a plan with your manager: if they take the lead, that's great. But if not, take the initiative and communicate your plan based on what you learned during your preparation.
Don't rush into proving yourself: without enough knowledge, you may end up making mistakes that could set you back for months. Take your time to learn and understand how things work before taking any action.
Keep your eyes open for easy wins: just because you're not rushing doesn't mean you should be inactive. Look for opportunities with a good tradeoff between risk and improvement.
Don't rely solely on what you know: remember that you're in a different environment now. Be open to learning and adapting to the new environment and its challenges.
Conclusion
Of course, there are some disadvantages to this approach. It can result in an excessive focus on short-term goals, and it assumes that the company is stable enough not to disrupt your plan while you are carefully implementing it. It is dependent on a particular organizational culture, one where innovation, disruption, clear communication and feedback is appreciated. However, I still believe that this framework is valuable because it helps you to prepare for the challenges that you will for sure face. You might not be able to apply all of the lessons, but you for sure will at least walk into situations with open eyes.
Just to highlight a little more about what the framework suggests regarding taking over a new team in connection to what Monica shared.
I personally believe It's crucial to respect the work of those who came before us and understand the reasons behind their decisions, forming a solid foundation. When entering new companies, there's often “curiosity” about why things were done a certain way (why??):
Was it due to time constraints, budget limitations, or a different vision?
Try looking for decision-making documents if available or ask this question during your 1-1. Asking why is key; do not assume.
And do not expect people to tell you where to start: assess, prioritize, make your plan visible and take the risk. Get ready for your first mistakes — that’s fine.
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See you next week! Best, Alex Di Mango
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