In a management role, how to perform quickly in a new team
In June, I changed jobs for the third time in my life. With each new job, I feel that the expectations I had at the start are getting bigger and bigger. However, the only way for me to meet those expectations is to produce results in my actual work. And since I am expected to be an immediate contributor, I need to show my performance as soon as possible.
On the other hand, in order to perform well in a management role, whether you are a team manager or a product manager, you need a lot of information to make decisions one by one. And even if you do make a decision, it is essential to have a trusting relationship with the team in order to implement it. A lot of ingenuity is required to quickly and reliably lay the foundation for fulfilling these roles. This is even more so in a remote environment.
In this post, I will write about the things I am particularly conscious of doing based on my experience of participating in a managerial capacity when changing jobs or starting a new project or team.
Verbalize your vision before you join the team
When you join a team or launch a project as a manager, you are not only expected to manage well. Rather, you are expected to understand the company’s vision, plan new products, make significant improvements to existing products, and bring a new culture to the team, all of which will lead to significant results.
In order to prepare for this, I believe it is very important to verbalize your own work philosophy and what you want to accomplish with the team before you join the company if you are changing jobs, or before you start a new project.
If you are participating in a project that is already in progress, you may think that it won’t align with the current direction unless you hear about the current situation, but this is not a problem at all. Because if you don’t know the inner workings of the project, it is natural to be out of sync, and you won’t be blamed for the gap. In fact, if you don’t verbalize your vision, you won’t even know the gap, and that is a bigger problem.
By verbalizing your vision, you will be able to correctly convey your thoughts on why you joined the team, what perspective you are looking at things from, what your strengths are, and conversely, what your weaknesses are.
Since I had little time to spare for this career change, I verbalized it in great detail, including my interests. It was too long and I regret it, but it had a big impact on my onboarding after joining the company.
This prep is very important, and this preparation can shorten the time to the performance by a fraction. On the other hand, if you are unable to verbalize your vision, the following actions will be almost meaningless. That is how important this preparation is.
Communicate your vision to as many people as possible
Immediately after joining, I hold as many 1-on-1 meetings as possible with the people on the team. It is important to ask about the current situation, but I think it is more important to share my vision as mentioned in the previous section. This is because sharing your vision is the most direct and efficient way of self-disclosure in management.
After telling them about your vision, ask them about their current situation and challenges, and you will be able to clearly see the gap. Once the gap is clearly identified, it will be easier to determine whether the vision should be adjusted to the current situation or whether the issues that prevent realizing the vision at the moment should be solved.
And by sharing your vision as your own self-disclosure, you can often get the other person to tell you about their vision. When you know the other person’s vision, you can understand exactly why they are on the team and what their values are, which makes teamwork much easier。
In a previous post, I described how to effectively conduct this 1-on-1 meeting in the case of welcoming a new member to the team. This time it’s the other way around, as I’m joining the team myself, but the basics are exactly the same. If you have time, please refer to it.
In a 1-on-1 meeting, it may be a good idea to have a casual conversation about hobbies to get to know each other better. However, if you want to get results quickly in a limited amount of time, I recommend that you first share your vision and values with each other to gain a mutual understanding. (I don’t mean to deny casual conversations. It’s just a matter of order.
Disclose yourself fully
When you are in a new environment, it is often said that it is important to unlearn. The rules, habits, processes, etc. of the previous team. It is true that the experience and knowledge gained in the previous team can often create unnecessary bias in the new environment, so I consciously unlearn myself.
However, on the other hand, if you are changing jobs after having built up a certain level of career, there are often expectations of your previous experience and knowledge. As a way to resolve the dilemma between these expectations and the possibility of creating unnecessary bias, I recommend that you introduce yourself fully.
Normally, a self-introduction might take a couple of minutes, but here, a full self-introduction means at least an hour of explanation, about the size of a small seminar. On the spot, you should disclose as much as possible about your experience, knowledge, strengths, weaknesses, and work values. When you can introduce yourself appropriately to many people, you can quickly optimize their expectations of you. Also, if you have your own past experience that can be useful to the team, people will be more likely to reach out to you.
This self-introduction is self-disclosure itself. You may be hesitant to disclose yourself at an early stage, but sooner or later, your weaknesses will be revealed. If you’re going to be found out, it’s easier and more honest to disclose yourself early on.
When I changed jobs before and when I changed jobs this time, I introduced myself for about an hour. This time, I think I was able to verbalize not only my past experiences but also my strengths and weaknesses in a reasonable way. When you can properly verbalize and self-disclose, you won’t have to worry about yourself unintentionally, and the possibility of misaligned expectations will be very small.
Find critics
In my 1-on-1 meetings, I sometimes meet people who have a neutral and critical point of view about the business and the team. The word “critical” here is not a negative one at all. Rather, it is a perspective that is essential to properly understand the possible risks involved in any new challenge or initiative that involves a lot of uncertainty.
This is just my personal feeling, but I feel that in a team of 50 people, there are about 5 people or about 10%. If I find a critic, I don’t hesitate to ask him or her to be my own critic. It’s to speed up my own execution.
If you are expected to be an immediate asset, you are expected to produce results as quickly as possible, but the faster you try to produce results, the more difficult it becomes to make decisions and take action after you have all the information. On the other hand, if you try to take action after you have enough information, there is a high possibility that you will not be able to meet the expected speed.
To avoid this, ask those who have an accurate critical point of view to be your critics. Then, when there is an expected risk for an action in an uncertain situation, you will be in a position to be pointed it out. This is the purpose of finding critics. I believe that it is good to ask for critics, preferably not just one, but several people with different points of view.
If you have high expectations when you join a team, it is difficult to get people to criticize you, even if you yourself want critical feedback. Asking to play the role of a critic is also a self-disclosure that you want to be seen from a critical perspective. However, having an appropriate critical perspective is a strong skill. Therefore, it is far more effective to find people who have this skill and ask them individually than to ask everyone broadly.
At the end
I wrote about the things I consciously do when I join a new team in a management capacity.
1. Verbalize your vision before you join the team
2. Communicate your vision to as many people as possible
3. Disclose yourself fully
4. Find critics
Having a vision, thorough self-disclosure, and creating an environment where you can be criticized for both speed and accuracy of action are all basic things when written down. However, because they are basic, I think they can be applied to any situation. And my personal feeling is that by being thorough with these things, you will be able to perform several times faster.
I’m sure some of it depends on my style, but I’m glad if it can be of some help.
