Starting a new role can be daunting. You are a foreigner in a foreign land. The customs, culture, and environment are both exciting and unsettling. You are learning the ropes while also trying your best to fit in, connect with your coworkers, and avoid making mistakes early on. You want to add value, but you worry about stepping on landmines.
All of this is doubly true when you are entering a position of leadership or influence. There’s responsibility on your shoulders. People are constantly looking at you, sizing you up, and assessing you at every turn. You feel that scrutiny, and as a result, you constantly worry about doing the wrong thing. Every meeting feels like a test of your mettle, of your right to be in your chair.
But what if I told you it doesn’t have to be this way?
Starting a new job poorly can be detrimental to your trajectory, but starting a new job well will set you up for long-term success. This is a topic I’ve written about extensively before, and it’s one that I’m extremely passionate about. This guide is meant to expand on those insights by giving you the tips you need to start off on the right foot—whether you are starting a new role at your current company or a new job at a different company.
What we get wrong about new roles
Over the years, I have interviewed and hired—either directly or indirectly—hundreds of different people. Although no two new hires are exactly the same, I’ve noticed certain patterns (both positive and negative) among those I’ve brought into new roles. Although the negative patterns can often be overcome, there are certain mistakes people tend to make when they’re new to a role or company. These can have a negative impact on relationships with reports, teams, and organizations at large, so it’s also important to be mindful of these common slip-ups.
Lacking an understanding of context and history: When you are new to an organization, it’s easy to commit faux pas or touch on sensitive subjects before you have the full story. Every company has a history, and this history colors everything that you see and hear. For example, if a company has gone through deep or repeated layoffs, then discussions around headcount growth may be sensitive. If the company has cut most of its new initiatives, asking about innovation and risk-taking may require you to handle the subject with care.
Every company has sacred cows, but when you’re first arriving, it can be very hard to know what those are. This doesn’t mean that you should avoid these topics completely. Instead, it’s important to do so with consideration of what came before. Read up on what’s been happening behind the scenes, and talk to people who understand the nuances of relationships, recent events, and other touchy subjects. This can help you avoid landmines and preserve relationships in your early days at a company.
Trying too hard to have an impact: This is a trap that can be especially easy for leaders to fall into. There’s a tendency to want to hit the ground running and “shake things up” straight away. I’ve seen plenty of leaders come in trying too hard to make an impact from day one. The trouble is, if you race to leave a lasting impression from the start, you risk throwing the baby out with the bath water.
This can be a tricky problem to navigate because it’s also important to prove yourself by adding value. That said, doing too much too soon may alienate you from others. That’s why starting with a mindset of learning, curiosity, and informed decision-making may be a more sustainable approach. Whether you’re a leader or an employee, try starting with one thing—something small—that you can land, rather than trying to change too much at once.
Holding back: I know, I just talked about trying not to make too much of an impact at once, but hear me out. Although it’s important to be mindful of sore spots and to take care not to alienate your colleagues, there’s also such a thing as being too careful. In an effort to be deferential to culture, I have also seen leaders holding back too much and shying away from making mistakes. Often, this comes from a good place, but this over-deference to what has come before may make you less effective if you’re not also pushing for change.
When your first three months in a role are up, that’s a great point to check in with yourself. Are you balancing learning and doing? What actions have you taken to make the company or product better? What is different because you are there? Your first few months in a new role are an important time of learning, but learning is only valuable if you’re also doing. Make sure you are having a sustainable impact.
Important tips for landing well
Avoiding the mistakes I outlined in the last section is an important first step for transitioning smoothly, but that’s only one part of starting a new role. If you want to stick the landing, you’ll also want to make sure you’re taking active steps to succeed. By keeping these best practices in mind, you can ensure you’re making the most of your transition period.
Communicate, communicate, communicate: When you’re new to a role, you may feel tempted to look inward. This can be especially common during your first few weeks and months, when you’re hyper-aware of what you don’t know, critical of every slip-up, and eager to prove yourself.
However, instead of putting the focus on yourself, try focusing your communication outward. When in doubt, over-communicate. Early on, as people’s impressions of you are solidifying, it’s important that you make yourself heard and understood. Help others see what you’re doing and understand where your head is at. This gives them the opportunity to suggest course corrections, provide new perspectives, or point out other things that you need to see or do.
Build relationships and connections: When you’re new to a job, it can be easy to stay in a safe bubble with the people you know best. However, this can do you more harm than good in the long run. Not only are you sacrificing potential future relationships, but you’re also risking getting into a rut that becomes harder to break the longer you’re in your role.
Instead, focus on building relationships across and beyond your comfort zone. Stretch your limits. This may mean getting to know people you don’t have an immediate connection to, but whom you want to learn from. Think of this as a chance to build trust, and maybe even open doors further down the line. Remember, everyone was new to their role at one point. People want to help, especially when you are new. Leverage that in order to introduce yourself and lay the foundation of successful relationships.
Learn through doing, not just observing: When you’re new to a role, it can be easy to get into the habit of observing from the sidelines, as if you are documenting a community of people who are distant from you. This can lead you to overthink things, rather than diving straight in.
The truth is, there’s only so much you can learn through observation, and nothing can take the place of rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty. Remember, you don’t have to tackle everything at once. Instead, start slow. Pick something small that you’re fairly sure you can have an impact on, then do it. Then move on to the next thing, and then the next thing. By learning the mechanics of how things are done, you learn so much more about processes and culture than you do just by hearing about them.
More resources for starting a new role
This guide is meant to be a starting point for approaching a new job with curiosity, an attitude toward positive change, and an awareness of common pitfalls. However, these tips are just scratching the surface of all there is to know about transitioning into a new role. If you’re interested in learning more, check out the articles I wrote when I started a new role including more lessons, advice, and best practices:
A Guide to Onboarding into a New Role: Knowing what to focus on when you start a new job can be challenging, especially when you’re still learning the ropes and getting familiar with your coworkers. In this guide, I use my experience starting as the CEO of Ancestry to explore the most important practices for ensuring a smooth transition.
Making the First 90 Days Count: Your first 90 days in a new job are a prime opportunity to learn, communicate, and explore without the pressures that set in later… but you can’t take full advantage of this period if you don’t have a plan. In this article, I show you how to make a 30-60-90-day plan for your new job that will set you up for success.
From Listening Tour to State of the Union: When I first started at Ancestry, I began by doing a listening tour, where I spoke to as many people as I could so I could get a sense of what they liked, disliked, and hoped for. I then created a “state of the union” to tie it all together and follow up on what I had learned. You can learn more about this practice, and how it can help you in a new role, in this article.
Getting to Yes: Achieving Alignment: Once you’ve settled into a new leadership role, it becomes critical to make sure everyone is on the same page. You may have to confront misaligned expectations, conflicting goals, or hanging questions. In this guide, I outline my best tips for getting to alignment early on.
The End of the Beginning: Eventually, those first 90 days in a new job come to a close, but your responsibilities don’t end there. What comes next is a period when you’re no longer a newbie, but you’re still not a complete expert, either. Surviving this next transition brings its own set of challenges, as well as a new set of opportunities. I explore both of these in this article.
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Taking on a New Role: The mistakes I outlined in today’s article are some of the most common ones I’ve seen in both leaders and employees, but they are far from the only ones. In this article, I do a deep dive into other big mistakes I made when I started my new role as well as my tips for avoiding them.
Your first days in a new role can be a unique challenge, but they can also be a unique opportunity. That’s why it’s important to take the time to plan before your first day and pay close attention to what is going well and what is going badly.
This transition period is your chance to be a sponge—to soak up the information around you while applying your skills in a way that’s impactful but not heavy-handed. By listening, learning, and executing the right way, you can not only survive that intimidating entry period, but you may even find that you can be an instrument of positive change.
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