I have changed job; now what?

Last month I talked about the considerations on whether or not to change your job. This time the focus is “what now” after taking the plunge.

I can speak from experience on all the emotions you will now encounter...

“did I make the right decision”

“what if I don’t like it”

“what if the team don’t like me”

Fear not, when you made the decision to move on, or take that promotion you made it for all the right reasons; trust yourself!

So you have now arrived for your first day. After beating the IT problems (we all get them I am sure when we start a new job), understand what the “dodahs” are that are sitting neatly on your desk and have hopefully been introduced to your new team and colleagues what now? 

What now?

Never go into a new place like a bulldozer, watch and learn. Depending of course on the position, but let’s assume it is a management role, you will want to have 1-1s with everyone. Show your team you care and encourage them to engage with you; this is the only way you will really see the big picture. You will of course get some negativity but hopefully also some sound ideas for improvement. After all we didn’t change jobs to just carry on with the way things are, did we! 

You might want to hold a staff meeting and if there are not any currently, introduce them. Share with your team information about yourself. This will help build trust and confidence. Remember your predecessor might have been the bees knees to the team, or perhaps really horrible and they don’t want the same again. You might have people who applied for your job and are disappointed they didn’t get it (a piece of feedback they are unlikely to have shared with you at your 1-1!) so demonstrate your experience and the skills you can bring to the role.

Every human being wants to know how something will benefit them; so tell them! You may want to set the ground rules, if you have any e.g. you might have a mobile phone and tablet, but that doesn’t mean they can call you at 2am to tell you they are unwell and won’t be in the next day! 

After introducing and selling yourself to the team, it is now time to do the same with all your other colleagues. Payroll is often thought of as the poor relation and to be fair payroll people tend not to excel at making sure they are not. When I joined Armstrong Watson I spent time in the first couple of months visiting each and every one of the fifteen offices. I didn’t just tell them about me, but I sold payroll to them. Some new how fantastic the payroll team are, but others needed reminding!

Now you have introduced yourself to your team and your colleagues, if you have clients/employees, why not contact them too. But enough of introductions, it is now time to get down to business. Gathering data is obviously useful, but more importantly is it what you do with it. Identify the key issues and consult with the team on solutions available; don’t be a know it all, because you never will!

Why not create some Rocks (comes from a fantastic book called Traction). Look at all the issues, categorise them and then decide what you could tackle in the next 90 days. Then look to plan how you will tackle each one and assign someone to be accountable for it; and no don’t assign them all to yourself!

Each week, hold a pulse meeting to see how people are getting on and set actions for individuals, but only actions they can achieve in the week to come. It is all about bitesize chunks so you and your team can still see the wood for the trees. I often find myself using the analogy

“I want to get my ducks in a row, but just as I set some off swimming, I look round and there are more eggs in the nest! Although don’t kid yourself, if you have gone to a new job, I am sure, like me you have been looking for more eggs to hatch anyway; we don’t do boredom do we?

Until next time, where I will share some tips on how you go about strategizing those eggs!