Your First 100 Days

Episode transcript

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Show Opening

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You're listening to How Work Really Works with Steve. Practical advice to help you communicate better, lead with confidence, and advance your career.

Your First 100 Days

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There is a phrase people love to use when someone starts a new job. Your first 100 days. It sounds reassuringly generous, does it not? 100 whole days to settle in, learn the ropes, understand the business, and work out why the printer on the third floor needs a blood sacrifice before it will produce a single sheet of paper. Except that is not really how it works. You may have 100 days to establish yourself, but people will start forming opinions about you in the first 100 minutes. Are you prepared? Do you listen? Do you ask sensible questions? Are you confident? Are you one of those people who says, at my last company, we did it this way? Before anyone has even shown you where the bathroom is? Fair or not, those early impressions begin to harden quite quickly. Your new colleagues are trying to work out whether you will make their lives easier, harder, or simply add another weekly meeting to their calendars. This episode is about how to use those first 100 days well, whether you are starting your first professional job, moving into a new team, taking on a senior role, or becoming a manager for the first time. The job may be different, but the challenge is remarkably similar. You need to learn how the place really works, build trust, understand what is expected, and begin producing useful results without behaving as though your arrival was the missing event in the company's history. There are three broad stages. The first 30 days are about learning. The next 30 are about choosing where to focus. The final 40 are about delivering, setting a rhythm and making your value visible. That does not mean you sit quietly for a month, create a beautifully colour-coded plan in month two, and suddenly become productive on day 61. The stages overlap. You will be learning, deciding, and delivering throughout. But the sequence matters. If you act before you understand, you may solve the wrong problem. If you keep learning forever, you become the person who has attended 27 introductory meetings and still has no discernible purpose. And if you deliver good work without explaining what it changes, you may discover that everyone is very pleased with you, although nobody can quite remember why. Your goal is not to impress everyone. That is impossible, exhausting, and usually a little suspicious. Your goal is to become credible. Credibility comes from understanding the work, treating people well, making sensible commitments, and doing what you said you would do. Simple, not easy, but simple. I'm Steve, and this is how work really works.

The First 30 Days

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Let us begin with the first 30 days. Your most important job is to understand the environment before you start trying to improve it. Every organization has two versions of itself. There is the official version. That is the organization chart, the strategy presentation, the documented processes, and the reassuring sentence that says decisions are made at the appropriate level. Then there is the version that actually exists, that version tells you who people call when they need something done, which process everyone quietly works around, and why a decision that appears to belong to one team is really controlled by someone three boxes away on the organization chart. You need to understand both versions. Start with your boss. Do not assume the job description tells you what your boss really wants. Job descriptions are often historical documents, written by several people, copied from somewhere else, and carefully edited until they offend nobody and explain very little. Ask direct questions. What are the most important outcomes you need from me in the next three months? What problems are creating the most frustration? What would make you say, after 100 days, that hiring me was the right decision? What should I understand before I start changing anything? And perhaps most importantly, how do you prefer to communicate? That last question can save an extraordinary amount of trouble. Some managers want a short written update, some want a weekly conversation, some want to know immediately when something goes wrong. Others would prefer you arrive with the problem. Three options and a recommended answer. You're not trying to flatter your boss or become a professional mind reader. You're trying to remove unnecessary friction. Next, meet the people around the work. That includes the obvious people, your immediate team, customers, partners, and colleagues, and connected functions. It also includes the people who understand how things get done, because they have been there long enough to watch three different transformation programs arrive with matching slide templates. Ask people what works well, ask what gets in the way, ask what they wish someone in your role understood, then listen. Really listen? Do not spend the conversation waiting for a pause so you can explain how much you already know. People can tell when you are collecting information and when you are merely collecting opportunities to speak. Look for patterns, rather than reacting to the loudest complaint. One person's urgent crisis may be a genuine emergency. It may also be Tuesday. If several people independently describe the same obstacle, pay attention. If the same issue appears in customer feedback, team meetings, and performance reports, you probably have something worth investigating. During this period, keep a simple learning log. Nothing elaborate. Capture the people you have met, the outcomes that matter, repeated problems, unanswered questions and commitments you have made. The commitments matter because your reputation begins with small promises. If you say you will send something by Friday, send it by Friday. If you cannot, say so before Friday. A new role comes with a temporary grace period for not knowing everything. It does not come with a grace period for being unreliable. You should also look for one or two small wins. A useful small win solves a real problem, matters to someone, and does not require you to declare victory on social media. Perhaps you clarify an unclear process, remove a pointless approval, fix a report nobody trusted, resolve a customer issue that has been bouncing between teams. Small wins show that listening leads to action. Just do not confuse a quick win with a dramatic gesture. Cancelling every meeting, replacing the team's tools, or announcing a reorganization in week two may feel decisive. It can also create months of chaos. While everyone quietly wonders whether your security badge can be remotely deactivated. For managers, the first 30 days have an extra requirement. You're learning the people as well as the work. Meet each person individually. Ask what they own, what they are proud of, where they are stuck, and what support they need from you. Find out how they prefer to receive feedback and how much direction helps them perform well. Do not use the first meeting to deliver your entire management philosophy. Nobody has ever left a 60-minute lecture about leadership values thinking, excellent, this is exactly what I needed. Instead, make a few things clear. Tell people what they can expect from you. Explain how you will make decisions. Let them know how you want problems raised, and be honest about what you still need to learn. Confidence does not require pretending you already have every answer. In a new role, that performance usually has a very short shelf life. By around

Days 31 Through 100

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day 30, you should know enough to start choosing where to focus. This is where many people make one of two mistakes. The first is trying to fix everything. The second is continuing to study the organization, as though a final examination might be announced at any moment. You need priorities. Choose two or three outcomes that matter, that fit your role, and that you can influence. Not twelve. Twelve priorities are not priorities. They are a cry for help, formatted as a spreadsheet. For each priority, be clear about four things. What problem are we solving? What result would be useful? Who needs to be involved? What can reasonably happen within the first 100 days? That last question matters because enthusiasm encourages overpromising. When you are new, there is a temptation to say yes to everything. You want to be helpful, you want to demonstrate energy. You may also believe you can succeed where everyone else has failed, because you have not yet discovered the fifteen hidden dependencies and the budgeting process designed during the reign of Queen Victoria. Make commitments carefully. A credible plan is more valuable than an exciting promise nobody believes. Now begin communicating what you have learned and what you intend to do. This does not require a 40-page strategy document. In most roles, a one-page plan is enough. State what you understand the role to be. List your immediate priorities. Explain the outcomes you are aiming for, identify the help or decisions you need. Then review it with your boss and the people affected by the work. This is not about seeking permission for every move. It is about making sure you and everyone else are solving the same problem. Between days 30 and 60, you should also start establishing your working rhythm. How will you track commitments? How often will you update your boss? Which meetings are actually necessary? How will people raise risks or ask for decisions? A good working rhythm makes progress easier to see and problems harder to hide. For managers, this is the point where the team needs more than reassurance. They need clarity. Clarify what the team is responsible for, what matters most and how success will be measured. Make sure each person knows what they own. If two people believe they own the same decision, you will get conflict. If neither believes they own it, you will get a meeting. You should also start giving useful feedback. New managers sometimes postpone feedback because they want to build relationships first. That sounds considerate. But silence is not always kindness. If someone is doing strong work, tell them specifically what is working. If something needs to change, address it early, calmly, and with examples. Do not store up six weeks of frustration and then deliver it as a surprise performance review. That is not coaching. That is an ambush with a calendar invitation. By day 60, people should have a reasonable idea of how you operate. They should know whether you follow through, whether you keep them informed, and whether you stay calm when something goes wrong. This is why your behavior under pressure matters so much in a new role. Anyone can appear thoughtful when the meeting is going well and the dashboard is green. Your colleagues learn more when the deadline slips. A customer complains, or a senior leader asks a question nobody prepared for. You do not need to have an instant answer. You do need to avoid blame, panic, and theatrical displays of urgency. Say what you know, say what you do not know, explain what happens next, then follow through. From day 60 to day 100, the emphasis shifts toward delivery. Complete the small wins you started. Move at least one important priority forward in a visible way. Resolve decisions that have been sitting open. Show that the conversations from your first month produced something useful. You should also begin making your value visible without turning yourself into your own public relations department. Send concise updates. Connect the work to an outcome. Instead of saying I attended 14 stakeholder meetings, explain what those meetings clarified or changed. Activity is not impact. A full calendar proves only that your calendar is full. At the end of the 100 days, review your progress with your boss. What did you learn? What has improved? What remains unclear? Which priorities should continue? What needs to change in the next phase? Ask for feedback directly. What am I doing that is helping? What should I do differently? Where do you need more from me? Then resist the urge to explain every piece of feedback away. You asked for information. Try receiving it before cross-examining the witness. The end of your first one hundred days is not a graduation ceremony. Nobody presents you with a small certificate and confirms that you now understand the company. It is simply the point where being new stops explaining very much. By then, people should know what you stand for, how you work, and whether they can rely on you. So let

Put It to Work

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us put this to work. If you are entering a new role, create a one-page plan with three sections. First, what you need to learn. Write down the people you need to meet, the outcomes you need to understand and the questions you need answered. Include the unofficial questions, such as who really influences decisions and where work regularly gets stuck. Second, what you need to deliver. Choose two or three useful outcomes for the first 100 days. Include one small win and one larger priority that shows where you can add value. Third, how you want to work. Decide how you will communicate, track commitments, ask for feedback, and keep your boss informed. If you are a manager, add what your team can expect from you and what you expect from them. Then have three conversations. Talk with your boss about what success looks like. Talk with the people closest to the work about what helps and what gets in the way. Talk with yourself about what you are tempted to change before you fully understand it. That third conversation can be especially useful. Your first 100 days should leave people thinking three things. You understand the work. You can be trusted, and when you say something will happen, it usually does. That is a much stronger foundation than arriving with all the answers. Because the truth is, nobody expects you to know everything on day one. They do expect you to learn, use good judgment, and avoid making their lives unnecessarily difficult. A surprisingly high bar in some workplaces, but an achievable one.

Closing Thoughts

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So that is your first 100 days. Listen before you change things. Understand what success looks like. Choose a small number of priorities, make sensible commitments, and then do what you said you would do. You do not need to arrive with all the answers. In fact, arriving with all the answers is often an excellent way to demonstrate that you have not yet understood the questions. What people want to see is good judgment, steady progress, and someone they can trust. If you are managing a team, remember that your first 100 days are not only about establishing yourself, they are also about helping your people understand what they can expect from you. Be clear, be consistent, deal with problems early, and try not to reorganize the department before you have learned everyone's name. I'm Steve, and thanks for listening to How Work Really Works. If you found this episode useful, follow the show and share it with someone starting a new role. It may save them from announcing a major transformation during their first team meeting. Until next time, listen carefully, make sensible promises, and do what you said you would do.