Making Your First 90 Days Count
Onboarding into a New Leadership Role — Remotely
Starting a new job and ramping up quickly is never easy, especially during a lockdown. The entire recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding process for many companies is entirely virtual. Throughout the process, you will likely not meet any of your colleagues in person. Neither will you be able to visit the physical offices, see new faces, shake the hands of your new team members and get to know them more. All the interactions are through Zoom, Slack, Teams, and Emails.
A month ago, I walked out of my office working for my previous employer Equinix. The following Monday, I walked into the same office as the VP of Engineering at Procore. I sat in front of the same desk, facing the same set of monitors. The difference was that I logged into a different company computer, switched from Microsoft Teams to Slack, and signed into the Procore Zoom account and G-Suite account. Instead of incubating edge services to delight Equinix customers, I now help Procore define and execute its mobile and growth strategy for better connecting everyone in construction on a global platform. And construction is an entirely new industry to me.
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I used to offer suggestions to others on onboarding into a new role and how to ramp up quickly. Today I am that new hire, and it’s time for me to put my own suggestions into action as I begin a new chapter in my career remotely.
Build trust
Trust is at the heart of every meaningful relationship. It is especially crucial in the workspace. As you onboard into a new leadership role at a different company, you must focus on building and earning trust from Day 1. It is essential to recognize that trust cannot be earned right away. Instead, you earn trust over time through repeated interactions where you demonstrate integrity and consistently live up to your words. Given that everyone is remote, you must learn how to build trust from a distance. You need to invest more time with your teams deliberately, share openly, be vulnerable, show your humanity, assume goodwill, stay close (via zoom calls, slack chats, emails, etc.) to them, support them, and hold each other accountable.
Actively listen
I started my first 30 days with a listening tour and met as many people as possible to understand the culture and business. The listening tour started with Get-to-Know-You (GTKY) sessions, followed up with deeper dive discussions. I asked many of my new colleagues a similar set of questions:
- What do you like about the company and what is working well?
- What is not working? And if you have a magic wand, what would you like to change and improve?
- What would you do if you were in my shoes?
- What should I know more about the team and the company that will help me in my role?
- What is your priority, and what can I do to better support you?
By listening and digesting the inputs from people throughout different departments in the company, I have started to identify opportunities and challenges that revealed themselves in the process. Rightfully, people often feel skeptical of new leaders coming in and trying to fix things before spending enough time understanding the challenges and history. Through active listening, I was able to understand the history that brought the company to this moment. It also helped me form a proper context for framing my thinking of tackling the challenges and fixing things later.
Seek to understand and learn with curiosity
Joining a pre-IPO startup company in a completely new industry vertical with almost two decades of history means that I have a lot to learn in a short time. While there is tremendous value in observing things with fresh eyes, it is important first to understand and avoid the instinct to criticize. It is always easy to pick holes in existing work, but it is much harder to identify the root cause and fix them. Focus on learning with curiosity and keep an open mind when listening to the history and insights shared by colleagues who joined before you. It will allow you to have context on the choices made. This is even more critical when you enter an entirely new industry that is unfamiliar to you.
Practice the “In Service To” mindset
There will be hard decisions and changes that you need to make as a new leader. Practicing the “In Service To” mindset helps you focus on decision-making that serves customers, employees, and stakeholders first and builds the trusting bonds that connect you and those you support through the time of changes. It also emphasizes the needs of those you support and the value that you can bring to them in this new role. It enables you to build a safe environment where your team members will feel valued and empowered.
Align teams
Seeking alignment is one of the most critical responsibilities for a leader. True alignment happens when everyone can disagree and commit and lead as if it were their own idea. Speeding through alignment to get on with “real” work is often a major stumble for teams of all sizes. They often suffer from false alignment where everyone leaves the room with a perception that they agree, yet they have a different interpretation of what has happened and what needs to happen next. This challenge can be further amplified when the new leader and their teams are still figuring out how to work together effectively, especially while they are all remote.
Have a plan
It is crucial to have a plan so that you know what to do and at what timescale. As part of the onboarding process, some companies might provide general guidelines to help you craft a plan. Procore has done an outstanding job putting a package together for its engineering executive onboarding with 30–60–90 day focus areas outlined. However, it is important to customize the plan to your own needs. Have a conversation with your manager to understand his or her expectations for your role clearly. Create a personalized 30–60–90 day plan accordingly with your goals and priorities. Share it with your teams and stakeholders so that they are informed and aligned. Adjust it as new information comes in. This plan will serve as a guide as you transition into the new role.
Onboarding into a leadership role at a new company can be challenging. It is more difficult when you do that remotely. The above six lessons are just a few actions to get you started. Hopefully, they will help you make the most of the time you have initially and build a strong understanding of the team, culture, and business to ensure that you get off to a great start.
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