Get ready for a new role (Week 3-4)
Your focus area for weeks 3 and 4 is your expertise for your new role. People regularly tell us the importance of ‘getting up to speed’ in a new role and how this is related to feeling like you know your stuff.
Spend 30-40 minutes creating your plan now, then follow it for the next 2 weeks.
Simple.
Becoming an expert
What to do
You’re going to build a plan for gaining the knowledge you need to perform in your new role. This plan will help you gain some of the initial knowledge and it’ll also help you keep these good habits going in the future.
Why do it
Being confident that you’re an expert in all of the relevant stuff that’s going on in your performance environment is key for success. Having a clear plan for how you’ll get essential knowledge and then keep it up to date will help you:
- Maximise your confidence and support your decision making
- Build strong relationships with key people and make use of their knowledge and experience
- Keep a balanced view on the value of your existing and new knowledge and experience
How to do it
There are 3 steps to take with this. Read these through, look at the example and then create your own plan.
1) Know what you need to know
Are you in a new role in a new business? Are you in a familiar role in a new company? Are you in a new role in familiar surroundings? The nature of your change will help you work out the stuff that might be causing you some worry. So, make two lists. First, what you need to know about the role and second, what you need to know about the environment.
2) Use your network
Who is in your network who will be helpful in getting you the knowledge you need? How and when you connect with them is going to be really useful in building your knowledge, so take aim and write out your key contacts, what knowledge you need from them, when you’re going to speak with them and how often you’re going to carry on speaking/meeting.
3) Do your homework
Consistently fuelling your confidence by reading the right things and attending the right events is going to be an important part of becoming an expert in your new role. Get thinking about resources to read regularly, meetings to attend, training events to arrange etc. Once you’ve got your list, spend some time getting access set up and dates put into your diary. This preparation is part of your performance, so don’t let anything else take precedence!
Example plan
You’re nearly ready to ‘become and expert’. To help you along the way, we’ve completed an example of a Project Manager starting a new, senior leadership position. Read through it, get some ideas from it and then create your own plan.
1. Know what you need to know
| Knowledge I need to help me deliver in my role | Knowledge I need about my environment |
|---|---|
| Leading virtual teams | Strategic Plan |
| Detailed financial planning | Growth plans |
| Leading teams and high performing teams | Cultural differences between sites |
| Key systems and processes | Competition profiles and business position |
| HR and recruitment process |
2) Use my network
| Who am I going to connect with? | What knowledge am I after from them? | When will I speak with them? | How regularly do I need to speak to them? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jerome/Sanjay | Virtual team leadership, essential skills and tactics.
Cultural differences between sites. |
Get discussions booked for next week. | Monthly call for the first 6 months in role. |
| Ian | Financial reporting and planning requirements. Strategy/Growth plans too. | Speak as soon as possible. This week ideally. | Monthly planning calls need building in to my business as usual prep. |
| Jenny | L&D input for leading teams. | Speak within the next 4 weeks. | Get a programme in place to run for next 12 months |
| Marsha, James | Detailed systems and process insight and how we can exploit the existing platform.
Competitor profiles. |
Priority one, this week. | Every 2 weeks we need to meet, review and plan. |
| Andy | HR Recruitment | By the end of the month. | As needed. |
Conversations scheduled and starting tomorrow.
3. Do your homework
Online resources to read regularly
- Harvard Business Review Blog.
- Reconnect with my core 5 PM sites I have used in the past.
Network meetings to attend regularly
- Regional PM Network Meetings.
- Leadership events available through my MBA alumni.
Training events to attend
- Leading high performing teams.
- Working with virtual teams.
Other stuff to read/engage with
- Create a high performance reading club in the team and start sharing articles/book summaries that benefit our work together.
- Ask Ian for advice on financial reading materials that will help.
Coaching tips
Once you start gaining momentum with gathering your new knowledge, start putting yourself forward to present information to people you’re working with. Having a compelling event to share what you’ve learned will be a good way of making sure you keep investing the effort to grow what you know and how well you can use it.