Why you should listen more than talk in your new job

In this series, professionals share how they rocked — or didn’t! — the all-important first 90 days on the job. Follow the stories here and write your own (please include the hashtag #First90 in the body of your post).

It has been the subject of newspaper articles about CEOs, heads of state and religious leaders; and has spawned a range of popular management books, but just how important is the issue of the first three months in a new job? When you consider that more a third of new FTSE executives have considered walking away from their organisation within the first three months, it is clear that this period sets the individual’s expectations of their future at the company. But more importantly, it sets the tone for the long-term tenure of anyone who is new to a role.

The challenges of this period can be daunting — be it from a historical perspective, relating to your predecessor’s legacy — or the perspective of being a new joiner, and having to build a new set of relationships with stakeholders and the wider community. From my own experience, I believe that when you get into new role you have to be modest. Clearly you are qualified for the role, which is why you have it, but you don’t know everything about how the role operates and how you fit in the organisation.

If you start by telling everyone how they should be doing their job, this heightens the risk of making early mistakes. You will eventually discover that this approach prevents people from people speaking up because you haven’t built a relationship with them and they will simply follow what you say, even when their experiences suggests it might be detrimental to what you are trying to achieve. You have to seek to understand, form your views but listen more than you talk.

A big part of the first 90 days in any new role has to relate to the people, and assessing them is important. You have to know who is doing what role, who is performing well, what is their attitude and how is their part of the business performing. But I would not recommend drastically changing the team in the three months. You may need to take immediate action if there is an existing issue that you are quick to identify but it helps if you give people the opportunity to get to know each other and you, so you are best placed to make any organisational changes, once you have established a complete understanding of the business.

The claim by some that you need to move quickly to make radical change when you start a new role, in my view, is one of a number of myths about what needs to be achieved. Ideas like notching up quick wins to stamp your leadership on the business and a few others are discussed in depth here. Bu in simple terms, as you enter a new role, the balance that you need to find is between seeking to understand and taking actions. The first 90 days are about seeking to understand the position you find yourself in and then coming up with the actions that can be taken in the short term and the actions that need to be taken in the medium term. As Niamh O’Keeffe, author of the FT Pearson series Your First 100 Days and Founder of First100 says: “The importance of your first 100 days is the difference between success and failure in a new role – and that has consequences for your whole career.”

You need to have a structured “to-do” list for the first 90 days, outlining what you want to have established. This will force you to focus on the things that you want to get done. A common issue for many in a new role is that they get overwhelmed. They are “grabbed” by all sorts of people who want to talk to them, give them a view of the business or make their case and try to impress the new boss. As result they get sucked into a situation where they are no longer in control — particularly of their calendar. This is why you need a structured approach to the first 90 days and you say to yourself “this is what I want to get done to give focus.” As important as making decisions is, you need to work out what you can say no to and the people who can wait six months for “that quick chat.”
This is also a time when you can consider an external coach. When you get into a new job, you get the brief about the role, objectives and the landscape. There are benefits of using a coach as you develop your view and try to establish your short-term objectives, particularly when you are asked to take a big step up. They can help add structure to your plans, suggest milestones and also give an external view or sounding board as the role develops.

You may inherit a role where the previous incumbent was working in a particular way to deliver great results. But you shouldn’t be shy about changing some things, just tell the team you aren’t making radical changes, but rather you are changing small elements to improve the larger operations. It is easier to make some changes earlier on in the process, but don’t change for change’s sake. As Michael Watkins argues in HBR: “New Presidents — and all new leaders — have to live in the world they inherit. And it’s a world in which, for better, or worse, what new leaders do in their early days has a disproportionate impact on all that follows.”

This article is published in collaboration with LinkedIn. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Sander van ‘t Noordende is the Group Chief Executive of the Products Operating Group at Accenture.

Image: A share trader checks share prices at the German stock exchange in Frankfurt, December 18, 2008.  REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach.