The New Job

Use when — reality starts diverging from the job ad and the interview pitch — usually week one.

The advertised job is a marketing artifact; the real one is the situation you walked into. A “growth” pitch often hides a rescue. Classify reality — then plan.

1. Ask your manager and two peers separately: “What was happening here in the six months before I joined?”
2. Classify the answers: building, rescuing, scaling, fixing drift, or protecting success.
3. Note every place the diagnosis conflicts with the job ad.
4. Let the diagnosis, not the job ad, set your first-month priorities.

✓Done when — You can name your situation in one sentence — and your manager nods when you say it back.

Michael Watkins, “The First 90 Days” (HBR Press, 2003/2013) — the STARS situational model.

Use when — your first real 1:1 with your manager — ideally inside the first five working days.

Extract three things: what good looks like at day 90, what would worry them, and which priority wins in a collision. Then write it down and send it back — memory is the enemy of accountability.

✓Done when — The written summary is in their inbox — and they’ve replied confirming or correcting it.

Michael Watkins, “The First 90 Days” (2003/2013) — the five conversations: expectations.

Use when — you’re stuck and tempted to struggle silently to “look competent”.

People who ask for advice are judged more competent — strongest when the problem is hard and you ask the right expert directly. The craft is in the asking: show your work, then ask.

1. Timebox the solo attempt: 30–60 minutes depending on stakes.
2. Write the question with context: goal, what you tried, exact failure point.
3. Ask the most relevant expert directly — not a vague broadcast.
4. Log every answer. The same question never gets asked twice.

✓Done when — You asked a well-formed question a day in weeks 1–2, and nobody has had to answer you twice.

Brooks, Gino & Schweitzer, “Smart People Ask for (My) Advice”, Management Science 61(6), 2015; Amy Edmondson, “The Fearless Organization” (2018).

Use when — you spot something you could do for a colleague in five minutes or less.

As a newcomer you have time and fresh eyes — spend them on small, unprompted acts without keeping score: a quick intro, the link they’re hunting for, a second pair of eyes, a heads-up about a meeting. Be an otherish giver: generous but protective of your focus, not a doormat.

✓Done when — You can point to several unsolicited small favours from your first month, and colleagues have started reciprocating without being asked.

Adam Grant, “Give and Take” — the five-minute favour and the “otherish” giver.

Use when — the job turned out harder than the interview made it look, and the voice says “I can’t do this.”

Catch that sentence and add one word: “…yet.” Then convert the dread into a single named gap — not “I’m out of my depth” but “I don’t yet know how the deployment pipeline works.” A named gap is a learning task you can attack this week; a formless “I’m not good enough” is anxiety with nowhere to go.

✓Done when — Your “I’m drowning” feeling is written down as 2–4 specific named gaps, each with a first step, not a single verdict on your ability.

Carol Dweck, “Mindset” — the power of “not yet”; reframing failure as a point on a learning curve.

Use when — acronyms and codenames are flying, everyone else is nodding, and you’ve lost the thread.

Spend your in-meeting question budget on the one term blocking the main thread; recover the rest after with one peer and the ledger. Asking early is the high-status move.

✓Done when — The glossary grew today — and tomorrow the same meeting reads at 70%, not 30%.

Practitioner consensus; structured-learning framing per Watkins, “The First 90 Days”.