Strong Start – Your First 60 Days

When it comes to a new job (or a reboot of the one you have), a strong start will boost your chances of having a positive experience and delivering meaningful results.

Twenty years ago, I read an article that I still use and reference to this very day. Fast Company magazine was in its first year of publication and it quickly gained broad recognition as the leading business publication of the new internet age. The article was titled “Fast Start – Your First 60 Days”. Author Cheryl Dahle shared an outline of what to do in your first sixty days of starting a new job to enable a fast and successful start.

After using this outline and its ideas with new team members over these past twenty years, I decided to think about how I would apply my own experiences and rewrite the article based on today’s business environment. So, here’s my modern version of this article. I hope it helps you in your new job or gives you ideas for how to restart the one you currently have.

First 14 days: Get to know fourteen new people.

In the original article, Dahle states that your success in these early days depends on both your work and on your personality, or how well you fit in. Here’s how I’d say it today. Your success depends on your relationships. And successful relationships are created from the trust you build, the results you deliver and your attitude. These are the three requirements—or “what’s needed”—to build healthy working relationships.

A leader I worked for about ten years ago, we’ll call him John Wayne (because that’s his real name), would always reinforce with our team “Faith is given. Trust is earned.” Your new employer already has faith in you. After all, they hired you didn’t they?! You’ve got to turn that faith into trust. You do this by spending time with people, bringing energy to business opportunities (or challenges) and providing encouragement to the team around you. This is “how” you go about building relationships.

Your objective in the first few days is to identify key team members, clients, partners and other stakeholders. Then, get busy engaging with them. Introduce yourself. Ask to sit in meetings. Meet people at Starbucks for coffee. Prioritize “people time” in your schedule. Do this and you’ll begin building trust from your very first day. Every relationship you create and feed is improved by the time, energy and encouragement you invest.

First 30 days: Have an “alignment” meeting with your boss.

Dahle suggests having a “how am I doing meeting” with your boss and points out that you shouldn’t assume your boss knows what you’re working on. This is especially true if you work from a remote office or different location than your boss.

While she’s right about needing to know how you’re doing, at this early stage you need to ensure you’re aligned on the what and the why of your new job. There are two parts to this important first check-in with your boss.

First, gain clarity on your role and how your skills can be leveraged to achieve team and company objectives. Ensure you know what he or she wants you doing. In other words, get their perspective on your purpose and why it matters. Of course they gave you a job description. However, these are rarely perfectly aligned with what the business really needs nor are they good at communicating where you should spend most of your time. By now, you should have some questions and ideas to run by your boss to gain clarity on the what and the why.

Next, ask for feedback on how you’re doing…and listen intently. Marshall Goldsmith, in his bestselling book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There wrote, “Treat every piece of advice [or feedback] as a gift or a compliment and simply say, “Thank you.” No one expects you to act on every piece of advice. If you learn to listen—and act on the advice that makes sense—the people around you may be thrilled.”

Ask yourself these questions before your meeting:

• Have I identified the biggest growth opportunities or challenges in the business and in my functional area?
• How can I use my unique skills, interests and experience to impact these opportunities?
• What can I do that only I can do (based on what I’ve learned about my teammates and their skills)?
• What one key win can I have within my first 60 days?

Discussing these topics will help your boss see that you understand both the short-term need to deliver results, as well as the long-term perspective. And don’t resist tough feedback which we too often only hear as criticism—not 30 days in, nor 30 years into your career. Listen and act on the right feedback. This is how we get better and excel.

First 45 days: Get organized.

You’ll be learning a lot in your first few months and you’ll need to capture much of it to review and recall what’s relevant and useful. Plus, the number of emails, meeting invitations, texts and phone calls you’ll get in the days ahead will increase exponentially from what you’ll see in your first few weeks. So, now is the time to define your system for staying organized. If you already have a system that works, put it in place. If not, here are a few suggestions (look for a future post on my personal organization system in much greater detail).

1. Choose a note taking app such as Evernote or OneNote (pick one that syncs across all of your devices). Organize your notebooks and tags so you can store and find things quickly.
2. Create a note for each key stakeholder you identified in your first fourteen days. Use this note to capture important conversations and future discussion topics so that you’re prepared the minute you get time with that person.
3. Create a single Action Items note so you have one place where you keep the promises you make and the things you must deliver.
4. Setup folders on your computer or in the cloud, wherever you’ll be storing files, that relate to your business and your role.
5. Setup folders within your email application (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) for emails you’ll want to save and reference. Ideally, name and structure these folders the same as those on your computer. It will make it easier to find things when you’re in a rush.
6. Schedule recurring time on your calendar to engage key stakeholders and communicate updates.

Check your Action Items note and other key notes at the end of each day and you’ll build a habit which will keep you well organized. This isn’t rocket science. However, most people don’t take the time to do this at the beginning and they pay the price later.

First 60 days: Get something done.

Regardless of the industry you’re in or the role you serve, you were hired to get stuff done. Period. I’d suggest not just getting something done in sixty days time, but deliver a key win that you know will make an impact, get broad recognition and align with company objectives and growth. You want the key win to make you, the team, and your boss look good.

Next 60 days: Raise your lid.

John Maxwell, in his bestselling book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, titled his first chapter “The Law of the Lid.” He describes the concept of the lid as your leadership effectiveness. More broadly, the idea is that each of us puts a lid on ourselves…on our abilities, our capacity…everything about us really. This lid controls us. It controls our thinking. And, it limits us. Said another way is that we’ll never achieve greatness if we don’t believe we can. We only achieve…or earn or influence or grow or become physically fit or parent or love…up to the level and view we have within our mind (i.e. the lid).

Let me break something to you if you haven’t already figured this out. YOUR LID IS NOT YOUR LID! You are capable of so much more than you think. Ask anyone who’s run a marathon or built a business or raised kids or taken a huge leap of faith. Most will tell you they worked through struggles and pushed themselves farther than they ever thought possible. First, they had to start. Then they had to reimagine their lid, strive for better and press through challenges.

Now that you’ve begun to build key relationships, gained clarity on your role, received some feedback, gotten organized and delivered an initial key win, it’s time to raise your lid! By now you should have a pretty clear picture of where you can make a difference. Raise your lid and be a difference maker!

The original article referenced appeared in the June/July 1998 issue of Fast Company magazine.
You can read the original article at https://www.fastcompany.com/34366/fast-start-your-first-60-days.