Your First 90 Days in Your New Role

An open letter to all who are moving into new positions...

Congratulations!  I'm really proud and impressed with you and your new school.  I'm sure you will do well.  As you know though, any new school assignment comes with some challenges-some are more explicit than others.  If your role is to improve the school, remember that you have to get this done through the willing participation of other people. Regardless of whether you are an insider or an outsider, you face the challenge of getting the people in your new organization to embrace you and buy into the vision that you have for it. These lessons are not a guarantee of future success, but they will substantially improve your chances for success in your new role.  These questions (to be asked of your staff, your boss, external stakeholders, and possibly the person you are replacing) may help you hit the ground...listening.

During these interviews, which should last about 20 minutes, giving you 10 minutes to catch your breath and  summarize any notes.  You should block out about an hour for your direct reports-you want to get a good sense from them and their priorities during your time together.  I’ve listed below some sample questions that you can use as a springboard for your discussions.  These questions were adapted from my friend and colleague in executive development, Jim Shanley-I’ve framed these questions as though for a principal for a new school-you can adapt these when you move to another role.

• What are our school’s top 3-5 priorities?
• How do we plan to meet and achieve those priorities?
• What are your top 3 priorities (you want to see how they match up with the school’s priorities)
• What are the 3-5 most important things we should preserve and keep doing here? Why?
• What are the top three things we need to change? Why?
• What do you most hope that I do?
• What are you most concerned that I might do?
• If you were in my shoes, what would you do first?

You will want to take careful notes-think like a researcher-and synthesize what you have learned. Be sure to share what you have learned back to your various direct reports and stakeholders.

Best of luck to you and let me know if I can help you in any way,

Chris

Comments

[tft]

You wrote:

"During these interviews, which should last about 20 minutes, giving you 10 minutes to catch your breath and summarize any notes."

Is that even a sentence? Do you guys ever proofread your posts before posting them?

Here's another interesting bit:

"Congratulations! I'm really proud and impressed with you and your new school. I'm sure you will do well."

You sound as if you know the people who will be reading this self-described open letter. This is another example of vapidity, vacuousness.

If you are leaders here at leadertalk, you might want to bone up on some basic writing skills to make yourselves at least appear that you are worthy of the "leader" moniker.

[dcowart]

Thank you for posting this piece. I am taking over a new building and I was looking for an activity to survey my new staff. I think I will use many of these questions for a "chalk talk". For those who do not know what a chalk talk is, essentially each question is posted on a piece of chart paper and hung around the room. Teachers (or students) move around quietly with a marker and answer the questions or add comments (almost like a blog). Then you can go around reviewing one or all of the charts. I almost always have the results typed and distributed for future review. Results can be discussed at a later date or over time. It is a quick way to get the info and it allows everyone to read what everyone is thinking. Thanks again.

[Michael Watkins]

You might consider my book - The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at all Levels