Your first ninety days in a bigger job

The first ninety days of a bigger remit are not for proving yourself. They are for finding out what is actually true, before everyone learns which answers you like.

Overview

New leaders arrive with a mandate to change things and spend it in the first fortnight. The mandate is worth more later.

Weeks one to four: listen on the record

Twenty conversations, the same four questions, written notes. Patterns show up by the twelfth conversation and you will not trust them unless you wrote the first eleven down.

Weeks five to eight: fix one visible thing

Pick something small, annoying and well known. Fix it properly. It buys you the benefit of the doubt for the bigger change later.

Weeks nine to twelve: make the structural call

By now you know which part of the structure is doing the damage. Make that decision while you are still allowed to be the new person who asks why.