New Team, New Company, New Role. Here's Your Survival Guide
What nobody tells you about your first 90 days as a manager
The customer support agent who turned an angry customer into a fan in minutes was still fresh on my mind. I was in a building in Seattle in early Autumn when my new manager picked me from the new hire orientation session.
"Let's take a walk and talk, then I'll introduce you to the team," he said.
That customer story? Gone out of my mind in a minute. I thought I would have more time to prepare. The ramp-up schedule said I still had some time before meeting the people that I would manage. Turns out I had to jump straight into the water.
Ramping up in a new company as a manager is a special kind of challenge. I've done it several times myself, created ramp-up plans for others, and helped managers as a coach.
I learned that 90-day plans are far too long. I've seen managers spend far too long passively following someone else's plan only to find that leadership expected more from them. The official document doesn't matter. Contributing quickly and meaningfully matters.
I also learned that 90-day plans are far too short. I have worked with some of the most brilliant leaders in the world. No one can ramp-up in 90 days. Manager ramp ups take much longer than that.
Finally, I learned that you should be careful about structured 30-60-90 day plans that you can find online. Manager onboarding plans have to be customized and tailored across multiple dimensions. The only person that can truly create such a customize pland is you, the new manager. And the key challenge is you don't (and can't) know enough to customize it.
So here is my promise to you. In this post you will learn:
The one thing that you absolutely have to do to ramp up successfully.
The two pronged framework to building your ramp up plan
The three focus areas that every plan must include
Let's get started.
Write Your Own Plan
It's your first day as a manager in a rapidly growing startup. Your manager shoots you an email saying she'll catch up with you later and that you should get started. Everything is moving fast, the team and the tech are scaling past their breaking point, and you should just get started right away.
Or you joined Big Tech. You get a buddy to help you ramp up. Your manager sends a detailed ramp-up plan with weekly guidance and expectations. The Learning and Development (L&D) department schedules structured training for your first few months.
Either way, the most important piece of advice that I can share with you is this.
You own your ramp up plan.
If it doesn't exist, then you should write it.
If it does exist, then you should re-write it.
It's all about ownership. It's about your mindset.
When someone else writes the plan for you, you're just following their path. You need the freedom to make changes, to adapt, to make your own choices. You are the one walking down this path, no one else is.
And if there is no plan, then you need a plan. Yes, the plan will change. The more you learn the better suited you will be to make corrections to the plan. You just have to raise your head from the fire hose of information that's pouring all over you to see where you're going.
"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You can use a 30-60-90 structure if you want, so long as you make drastic changes to the plan as needed. Know yourself. If you will find it hard to throw large parts of the plan to the trash, stick to a week-by-week plan.
To help you build this plan, start with the two pronged framework.
The Two Pronged Framework
When I teach the Management Operating System with
, I like to hide meta lessons in each module. When students learn about the Manager Compass and the Manager Influence Map, they're also learning about the First Rule of Leadership.Later, when we dissect the unique Management Challenges and the tactics to overcome them, there's a meta-lesson about the Second Rule of Leadership.
These two rules of leadership apply to building your ramp up plan.
The First Rule of Leadership is to start with a picture of success. The first question that you should ask yourself is, what does an excellent ramp-up look like?
The First Rule of Leadership: Start with a Picture of Success
The secret is not to stop at this question. It's to dig deeper with follow up questions. What does an amazing ramp-up look like for my team? For my manager? For my peers?
At this point, you should get feedback on your understanding of success. You are new here. There are likely subtle differences in how you view your role versus your manager or your new company. Every company and organization has their own culture and processes.
Once you have an initial calibrated view of what success looks like, work backwards to the present moment. Keep asking more questions. What needs to be true today in order for this picture of success to materialize?
You now have a plan that works towards a clear objective. As you ramp up, you will build a more complete and accurate view of success. Update your plan as you develop this more cohesive picture.
The Second Rule of Leadership is to also start with a picture of failure. In the context of your ramp up plan, start with a thought exercise. Jump forward in time and assume that you are not ready to be an independent leader in your new company. What happened? What caused you to fail?
The Second Rule of Leadership: Start with a Picture of Failure
Gather information from more tenured leaders on the common failure patterns they've seen in new managers at this company. Each company is unique and presents uncommon challenges.
You know yourself1. You will have your own challenges and blind spots. Some things that may be a challenge for others will be easy for you. And the trivial parts that your manager took for granted may be a real hurdle for you.
As you learn more about these challenges, make corrections to your ramp up plan. Don't rewrite or drastically change it. Just make the adjustments that will protect you from the most likely failures.
The first and second rules of leadership provide a two-pronged approach to building your plan. Together, they are the *strategy* behind your plan. Right now, this is too abstract. So let's dive into the tactical details.
The Three Focus Areas
Your plan should be comprehensive yet focused.
The three focus areas will make sure that you consider the critical parts of your job in your plan. The two Rules of Leadership will help you prioritize where to spend your time and energy. This is the key to customization. Every manager's plan will be different.
The three focus areas are What, Who, and How.
The list of focus areas is not prioritized. You will have to prioritize it for yourself based on your unique situation. And then you will have to reprioritize it as you learn more.
What
Your team exists for a purpose. To uncover this purpose you should learn about three separate areas:
Business: how does the business work? How does your team's work contribute to what senior leadership cares about? Learn *why* your team even exists.
Domain: learn about the domain in which your company works. If ads is a core part, learn all about how ad auctions work. If it's about helping small merchants, learn about what problem you are solving for them.
Technology: you're a technical leader. What is the overall architecture? What are the biggest scaling challenges? What are the unique skills needed to be successful in the team?
Who
Management is about people. You need to map out the people that you need to build relationships with.
The people in your team are the obvious place to start. You have to build working relationships with them, understand what they want to accomplish, what their strengths are, even what their quirks are. Less obvious are your own manager and your cross functional partners.
Finally, you have to chart out the organizational map. Not the formal org chart, but the real mapping of who does what. Who is the "go to person" for each module or specific domain.
How
Learn how this group of humans work. It's not just Scrum versus Kanban and whether you have daily standups or not. Start with how the company measures success. Not with the mottos, slogans, and values, but with the nitty-gritty details behind the processes. How do they measure individual contributor performance? What about your own rating? Or your own manager's? And your cross functional partners?
The details behind how performance ratings and promotions decisions are made will give you a tactical understanding of how to succeed in your job. The better the people on your team do, and the better that your manager does, the more likely you are to do well.
Bonus
Don't discount AI and large language models. It can do more than write code and emails.
Use AI to stress test your ramp-up plan. Ask it to research alternative plans, compare them to your plan, and find the holes and unknown unknowns.
Just make sure not to listen blindly to it. The generic advice on the internet will never be a perfect match for your unique circumstances.
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Not really. You don't really know yourself. But that's for a different post.