“I just got promoted to engineering manager. What should I focus on in my first 30 days?”

Well, first of all, congratulations. If you're feeling excited and a little bit nauseous all at the same time, well, that's totally normal. In the first month, you unintentionally set defaults. Your communication norms with your team and your boss, response times for how quickly you get back to people, meeting culture, how decisions get made, and so many more things. Now, I said you set your defaults. Well, I want you to flip that and be by design instead of by default. Make some intentional choices about how you're going to manage those things because how you navigate the first 30 days says a lot about who you are as a manager and leader, and it gives you an opportunity to make a first impression that is truly by design instead of by default or by accident.

Now, new managers often overcorrect and either over or underplay their hand. Now, if they're promoted from within, they're often likely things that their predecessor did that they didn't really like that much and that they want to do differently. And so they overcorrect and make way too many changes too fast. Now, another thing that they often do is either overplay their hand or underplay their hand. And by that, I mean they either try to prove their competence by doing too much, again, overplaying their hand, Or they underplay their hand and they avoid leadership moves entirely because they don't want to mess it up and they're afraid of taking action. So I don't want you to overplay or underplay, and I certainly don't want you to come in and make sweeping changes really fast without completely understanding the context.

So the first 30 days is less about proving yourself and more about understanding the context and the system that you've just inherited. Now, you wouldn't refactor a code base or re-architect a database on day 1 without understanding the history of the system, the dependencies, and so on.

And teams are very much the same. You don't want to come in and remodel everything on day 1. Now, I want you to think about your first 30 days as a discovery sprint, not a redesign. Sprint. And in that discovery phase, I want to break it down for you into 3 specific and distinct sections. So this whole structure here, again, your first 30 days, we want to break that down into 3 mini phases. And I'll go through each one of these mini phases one at a time. So days 1 through 10, this is where you're going to observe the system.

And you're thinking about, like, getting access into the system state, getting visibility into what is already so. Now, even if this is a team that you were promoted from and are now managing, you might think that you know everything. But I want you to, in this new role, take a sense of curiosity with you and really be exploring and observing the system. Don't presume that you know everything about how it all works because now you're sitting in a different place on the org chart. Now, and of course, if you came in from the outside or from a different department altogether, then for sure, you know, and you're probably more predisposed to coming in with a sense of curiosity and you don't already feel like you know everything. But especially if you were already there, don't presuppose that you know everything. So your goal in this first 10 days is to reduce uncertainty by making the invisible visible. Don't take anything for granted.

I want you to think about yourself or think of yourself as an anthropologist who is studying a new culture. You're observing a culture that you've never seen before, again, even if you've worked there for years. Now, when I first moved into a role as a user experience director for a large company, I took field notes just like an anthropologist did. I imagined myself a stranger in a strange land. Now, at the time I moved into that role, I was coming from being a college professor. I'd had corporate experience prior to grad school, so that part wasn't completely new to me. But by pretending in my mind's eye to be an anthropologist and literally taking field notes about my experiences so that I wouldn't forget what it felt like to be new, and I wouldn't forget when I observed something that I was like, "Why do they do it that way?" And instead of like doing it a different way right away, I just made a note of like, I observed this, I wonder why they do it that way. And then as I gathered that data over the course of the first few weeks, I was then able to discern why they did things certain ways and, you know, make some intentional choices about what I wanted to do the same and what I wanted to do differently.

Okay, so let me give you a few practical things that you can do during this first 10-day window to gather the data. So the first thing is run one-on-ones as listening sessions. So ask 3 consistent questions of everybody on the team. What's working that we should keep doing, that we should really protect? Where do you see friction slowing us down? And then number 3, if you were me, what would you focus on first? Now, I want to point out a little bit of a caveat here with number 3. If you are promoted from within and your competition for the job was one of your former peers that you're now managing, you might back off on that question or reframe it a little bit so that it doesn't come across to them like you're not confident. Now, if you came from a different team entirely or came from outside the organization, Then I think you can really ask that question explicitly. If you were me, what would you focus on first? Now, you may or may not know if somebody was running for the, you know, in the running for the job with you at the same time, but if you suspect that they were, then I would not really soften the question, but I would, you know, just position it so that you don't necessarily come across as looking like you have a lack of confidence. Okay, so the second thing to do in addition to running those listening sessions is to map what I call the work reality.

So think about how work gets done. Where does it get stuck? What are the bottlenecks? Are there handoffs that don't go well? Is there a review process where things get gummed up? Is there unclear ownership about different assets that you're now managing? So map out that work so that you can see how it flows through the organization. And then I want you to think about this. What is the actual decision-making process versus the purported decision-making process or the decision-making process on paper? Like you may have been told that you now have decision-making authority in certain capacity areas, Well, when you try out making a decision, do you actually get to make the decision or is there pushback from your boss or pushback from the rest of the team? And then it feels like you don't actually have authority. Again, this is a great place to be taking notes on how things go, because you will be much more attuned to what's actually happening if you're jotting things down and making notes periodically across these first 10 days.

And then the third thing to do is to collect various artifacts. What are the project management tools? Is there a roadmap, whether it's for your product or for a larger area that your product fits into? Is there an on-call schedule? Are there sprint rituals, team docs that you need to be aware of and know where they live, a stakeholder list of people that you're getting back to, standard meetings that you usually go to, and so on? Collect that whole set of artifacts so that you really know what the different pieces of the job, and not just the job on paper, but like how the job gets done. That's what we're looking for, how the job gets done.

Now, again, in these first 10 days, your job is really getting a sense into, you know, getting the big picture, getting that visibility of the system state. If you can't see the system, you can't lead it. So we want to get really clear on what is the system. All right. Now we're going into phase 2. This is the second set of 10 days. So days 11 through 20. And this is where we really want to stabilize the experience.

And we're working on cognitive load and balancing things. Your goal here is to reduce noise for your team and prevent predictable failures. So let me again give you 3 things to do during these 10 days. Number 1, clarify what good looks like. What does success look like to you as the manager? Because your employees are thinking, what's it going to be like working under this person and their leadership? So, for delivery, delivery of product, delivery of code, delivery of whatever it is that your team is producing, what is the quality bar? What is good enough? When is it going to get kicked back? When, you know, because of errors, are there, is there a formal review process? What does the review look like? What are the expectations during that review process? And then what— how do we know if it's done? What does done look like? Now, with your communication, you want to be thinking about what are the response times? What are the escalation paths? What are the outreach of communication? When are you reaching out to people? When do you expect them to come to you? And really setting those expectations so it's crystal clear.

Now, if your predecessor let things slide, be clear with the team that your approach will be different. Now, there's no need to trash talk your predecessor or anything like that, but to just be clear, hey, I'm going to lead differently than Joe did. You'll see some things that I keep the same and you'll see some things that I do differently. Just wanted to make sure everybody is clear that things are, you know, I mean, kind of like there's a new sheriff in town, but I wouldn't call yourself a sheriff. Okay. Now, if you're coming from the outside and you don't know what your predecessor was like, again, you want to be explicit about that and clearly state your expectations. And you might even leave the door open with a comment like, hey, if there's something that my predecessor did really well and it was a best practice that you'd like to see me continue to do, please bring it to my attention so that I can evaluate it. So again, and do you hear what I said there? So that I can evaluate it. So you're not necessarily saying that you're going to carte blanche take on and be a yes to whatever the previous manager did, but you're saying, bring it to my attention so that I can think it through and decide if I want to do it that way as well. Okay.

Second thing to do is to pick 1 to 2 quick wins that are going to reduce friction. So again, going back to those listening sessions that you where you asked about friction points. So here are a few examples. Maybe there's a meeting that happens too frequently or too infrequently. So just simply fixing that broken meeting cadence would be a quick win that's going to reduce friction. Maybe you're going to clear up ownership about the confusion, you know, confusion in the ownership space. Who decides what? Who makes decisions when? So again, if you can get some clarity around just a couple of things, that is going to be a quick win for you.

And it's going to show that A, you were listening in those first 10 days, and that B, you're getting some traction already. Maybe you're going to introduce a lightweight intake process for requests, something like that. Just something simple that shows that you were listening. Again, these should be easily tied back to what you heard in the first 10 days. And then number 3, you want to create a single source of truth, and that is you are setting the priorities. And so here's what we're working on. Here's what's next. Here's how I'm going to handle it when our priorities do shift. So once you have set the bar on that, there should be no questions about what's most important and what are we working on right now. Now, a big part of leadership is reducing cognitive load, not only for you, but also for the team.

Now, I've talked about cognitive load in a couple of other episodes of the podcast here, episode 232, Beat Workplace Overwhelm with UX Thinking. And that was— there was a significant amount of information in there about cognitive load and how it can get in the way of making decisions and getting work done effectively. And then just last week, I talked about cognitive load as well when— in that episode, Episode 256, is How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Urgent. And we'll link those up in the show notes to this episode. And if you're watching here on YouTube, we'll drop those into the description as well so that you can easily pop over and get some more information on cognitive load and why it's so important, especially in these first 30 days.

All right, now speaking of 30 days, let's step into Phase 3. This is day 21 to day 30. Okay, and what we want to be doing in this segment, on this phase, is aligning expectations. And our goal here is to prevent misalignment. So misalignment is the slow killer of new managers. And so if you can be both in alignment with your supervisor, you know, whether that's a manager, director, whoever it is that you report to, and then cascade that alignment down to your team, and you may discover some misalignment in those listening sessions. And so what we want to do then is to recalibrate and get that misalignment back in alignment. And I'm going to give you again, 3 things to do intentionally here. The first one is to manage up. So schedule a calibration conversation with your manager. And this is probably something that, because now you are, even if you have been around for a long time in that organization, you're still a new employee of your manager, unless you both got promoted at the same time.

But even still, even if that happened, then you still want to be having that calibration conversation. And in that calibration conversation, what you want to know for yourself is what does success look like in 90 days? And 90 days, you know, a full quarter is a very typical stretch for you to run at some things and take some things on, demonstrate your responsibility, demonstrate your leadership, and so on. So, but being really clear and in alignment with your boss on what those things should be during those first 90 days is going to help you run at them and be successful at them. Another great question to ask in that managing up meeting is what are the non-negotiables? Like what has to happen? What, you know, are there any things about this position, my role, whatever, that you don't want me changing or tinkering with? And then a third question to ask in that meeting is, Where do you want me to push back? And where do you want compliance? Now, especially if you were brought in or promoted in order to change or champion some cultural initiatives. So some culture change. So this is a really good question to be completely on the same page with your boss. Where do you want me to push back? And where do you want me to rein it in or comply? And they might not know the answer to that question. But having asked the question will have them having their antenna up for those issues.

All right. Now, second thing for you to do is to set team norms. Now, do this with a light touch. Again, we don't want you going in there and completely remodeling the storefront. But, you know, so I don't want you to introduce 12 new rules. Instead, I want you to introduce a norm or two, maybe three tops, that are going to improve clarity. So maybe this is how decisions get made, how feedback happens, how you're going to handle it when priorities change. So set those team norms, be explicit about them.

And if it is something that you want feedback on, then you can ask for that feedback. And you might say, hey, I'm experimenting with having our team meeting every week instead of every other week. I'll be checking in with you to get some feedback on how that's going after we do it a couple of times. Now, if you are, and this also goes along with the idea, the big idea of naming the transition out loud. So when you are making changes, I want you to call them out and let people know that this isn't by accident. This is by design. This is on purpose. Now, if you're managing former peers, you might say something like, hey, I'm going to be, you know, learning this on the go or learning in public and perhaps making some mistakes or some missteps.

So I'm just going to ask up front for your patience and your forgiveness in advance because nobody's perfect and I don't expect that I will be either. So, you know, labeling your own humility before mistakes happen can really help you step into a space where you can own those mistakes as they do happen. And inevitably they will. You're bound to make some missteps. And if you aren't making missteps, then probably you're not completely in touch with reality. So we all make missteps.

Now if you are experimenting and you do want their feedback, let them know, I'll be asking for some feedback. Now, again, if you were up against your former peers for a promotion, you're going to want to dial that back in a little bit so that they don't think you're questioning your own competence, but you do want them to understand both the vulnerability that you're in, in this position that you are going to make mistakes and that you are going to be authentic and real when they do happen. So teams don't just need you to be competent, they need you to be authentic and consistent. All right, now I want to just, in my last couple of minutes here, I want to give you a few common mistakes to avoid. I've got 3 of them for you. Number 1, trying to prove yourself by staying in your individual contributor role and doing all the work that you were doing before. Now, I know in some cases you got promoted, and so now your first big task is to hire your backfill. And that there is some legitimacy then that you need to kind of keep that train on its tracks and keep doing some of that work. But there's also an opportunity for you to delegate some of that work to other people, even if it's only temporarily until you're backfilled.

Backfill is there. So if you keep doing the work, then you delay becoming the manager. Okay? So that is a common mistake to avoid. Number 1, trying to prove yourself by doing all the tasks of your former role plus the management tasks. Okay. Number 2, changing things too fast. This is again, a common misstep of new, newly promoted managers. So you must establish trust before you earn the right to make changes.

And let me repeat that one because this is so important. You must establish trust before you earn the right to make sweeping changes or really to make changes, you know, of any magnitude. They don't have to be huge sweeping changes. All right, and the third common mistake that I want you to avoid, and that is defaulting to meetings. If you are a longtime listener of the podcast, you have heard me talk about how we have meetings about meetings. And that we have one study said that 60% of the meetings that we have are meetings about the work instead of actually meetings to get work done. So meetings can show up as a substitute for clarity. Like you don't know what to do, so you call a meeting.

Okay? If you don't know what to do, go have a think. Call a meeting with yourself. Worst case, have a meeting with your boss and bounce off your boss the situation that you're struggling with. When you're defaulting to meetings instead of actually making decisions or getting work done, that is again, not going to put you in the best light. And it is a common mistake that new managers make. So don't confuse being busy or making changes too quickly with being a good manager or a good leader. All right. Now, if you remember nothing else from this episode, I want you to remember that your first month is user research.

You're learning how the team actually experiences the work, experiences each other, experiences the clients that you serve, and so on. And then you are going to design improvements from there. All right. If you are in your first 30 days, the thing that surprises most new managers isn't the responsibilities. It isn't the management. It's the conversations. Now, if you want help preparing for the conversations that are tough and the ones that you might be avoiding, I want you to grab my hard conversations prep checklist from my website. You can find it at janelanderson.com/hcc for hard conversation checklist.

We're going to link that up in the show notes and drop that in the description here on YouTube if you're watching it on YouTube. I want you to succeed in those difficult conversations again, because one of the first things that surprises people is the conversations. All right, my friends, again, if you got promoted in these last 30 days, congratulations. I wish you the very best and tune in, keep tuning in because I'm going to have a lot more things coming up for you here on the podcast and great ways for you to excel as a new manager. All right, my friends, be well and I'll catch you next time.