Category Archives: Uncategorized

February 25, 2013 · 12:05 am

Lessons from Business For Life

Time To Learn

There are a lot of things that businesses do as a matter of course that if we did them in our personal lives, things might run more smoothly:

Have a Mission

  • What is the purpose of your life?  A business probably couldn’t get a way with having a “just go with the flow” approach to mission.
  • Why do you exist?  Check out mission statements from Fortune 500 companies.  Some are better than others, but they all are a statement of why that organization exists.
  • Do you have a mission statement? Is your purpose in life to make the world better?  To impact your family?  Your community? To grow yourself in some way?  If you think it through and write it down, then it is more likely to happen.

Have a Strategy

  • How are you going to accomplish your mission?
  • What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT).
  • What is your timeline.
  • Who are your competitors?
  • Challenges?
  • What actions will you take.
  • What help do you need?
  • Where will you find it?

Set Quarterly Goals

I think corporations take this focus on quarterly goals too far, but I do think that having an annually goal and quarterly milestones do help keep things focused and on track.

  • Do you even have annual goals?
  • Do you break down the milestones necessary to meet these goals?  It will help you get there.

Remove ‘C’ Players

Ok, Ok, maybe some of those ‘C’ players are family.  I’m not advocating getting rid of family.  If, however, you have people in your life who are naysayers, bullies, constantly critical or who sabotage you, then it’s time to think about ‘firing’ them.  They aren’t supporting your goals or mission, and they are dead weight that you’re carrying.  Get them out.  (And if they’re family, maybe figure out how to get them into therapy or at least spend less time with them!)

Manage the Money

  • Have revenue goals.
  • Have spending constraints.
  • Manage cash flow.
  • Establish and keep good credit.
  • Use the tools–budget, review, track, adjust–that businesses use.

Have a Recognizable Brand

  • Who are you?
  • What do you stand for?
  • What value do you add?
  • When people think of you, what do they think of?  (Aunt Alice is always late . . . Dad is always grumpy . . .Brother always resists . . .Sally is always knowledgeable and cheerful).
  • Figure out what you want to be known for.  Figure out how to establish a brand that does that.

Market

  • Market yourself.
  • Market the things that you believe in.
  • People don’t know things about you unless you tell them.

Communicate Effectively

  • Focus on being clear about your message–so many problems in family and friend relationships are the result o communication problems. If you were having the same kinds of issues with your boss or your subordinates, chances are you would seek help or spend a lot of energy trying to find a solution.
  • LISTEN.  Most failures of communication are actually failures of listening.  Let the person you are communicating with KNOW that you hear what they are saying (even if you don’t agree) BEFORE you respond.
  • Choose the right media for communicating–be careful what you put into text or email.  Try to be face to face or at least voice to voice during important communications.

Be a Leader . . . and a Manager

  • Set the vision
  • Inspire
  • Don’t give up
  • Focus on the systems and structures of your life.  Set up systems that run themselves and are supported by your life’s structure.
  • Balance long-term and short-term views.

What Lessons From Business Would You Add To Your Life?

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February 12, 2013 · 10:02 pm

The Art of Networking

Network Now, Before You Need To

LinkedIn sent out a lot of emails this week, notifying people that they were in the top 10%, 5%, 1% most viewed profiles.  LinkedIn probably did that to pump up their own volume, but you should take it as an inspiration to pump up the volume of your networking.  Networking is a lot like weight loss (although not as hard).  It is best done slowly, over a long time, with an eye toward your career goal.  Networking doesn’t work well when you need to have a full-blown network in the next week (like getting into that dress your really want to wear to this weekend’s wedding–that is 2 sizes too small).  I work with people who find themselves out of a job, or reorganized to a boss they can’t stand and they suddenly realize that their network is old and cold.  Whereas people who find themselves in the same situation with a robust, active and varied network find jobs and opportunities MUCH faster.

Just for fun, look at your network on LinkedIn.  Go to http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/ and create a map of your network.  LinkedIn lets you label the parts of your network according to professional groups–former job #1, professional group #1, school, etc.   Look at your network map.  If you needed a new job in the next six months, do you have contacts in the kinds of areas that would help?  Here’s mine:

linkedin map 2.12.13

If you want to develop new skills or get a mentor–can you use your network to do it?  When was the last time that you talked to most of the people in your network?  This year?  In the last five years?  LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ provide you with easy and helpful tools to connect to people without much heavy lifting. 

In LinkedIn, comment on posts in your groups (and get some groups if you don’t have any).  Send a congratulatory message to people who get promotions.  Respond to people’s blogs.  Reach out with an offer to make connections for people when you notice that they start following a company where you know someone. Endorse people.  Recommend people.

In Facebook, keep up with birthdays and let people know when you enjoy their posts.  Like your friends’ business pages.

In Google+, comment on people’s posts, create circles, join, join, join.

Join Professional Groups.  Think about where the next career opportunities are for you.  Are you a project manager?  Who knows of the project management positions as they open up?  People who belong to PMI.  Join and participate. Do you want to start a business?  Where do the entrepreneurs go to get together?  Find the groups who can open doors for you.

Volunteer.  One of the best ways to get known and to get to know others is to volunteer.  Most nonprofits have significant players in your community on their boards.  Organizations who need your skills usually have people in them who can help you.

Be seen as an expert.  We are lucky to live in a time when we can be seen as an expert through participation in virtual activities.  You can write, join, comment, help and over time be seen as an expert.  When you think of who you admire and who you think of as an expert and thought leader in your field, chances are you don’t ‘know’ that person from an in-person relationship.  You know that person through his/her writing, speaking, participation in activities that you are also a participant.

Excuses.  Whatever excuse you’re giving me as you read this, it doesn’t stack up at all to not having a good network when you need one.  Do JUST ONE THING a week to improve your network.  At the end of a year you will have a network you can use to improve your career–without having to work very hard.  The last thing you want to do when you need your network is to start from (almost) scratch.

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August 31, 2012 · 2:48 pm

Will Your Style Get You To The Next Level?

You have gotten to where you are based on a lot of things, but a key element of your success is your style.  Are you the “expert/straight-forward/opinionated” person?  Are you the “social/make everyone comfortable/cheerful” person?  Or are you the “large/take charge/tell ’em the way it is” person?  Which ever style you have, it has worked for you so far.  What ever success you’ve had, you style has contributed to it.  As you move up organizations, though, your style isn’t necessarily going to be as  helpful at the next level.

Think About It

When you look up the organization chart, do the people have a style like yous?  Or do they have a different style?  What styles do you see?  Are there a range of styles?  Or does it seem that everyone above you has one style. Look closer.  There are two possibilities.

The Top Has The Same Style As You

It is possible that you were hired in the ‘style’ of the organization.  If so, then you need to check out the nuances of the styles of others above you.  It may actually be harder to discern the ways in which you need to work on your style if the top of the organization has the same style as you.  You have to look harder at what is different.  Do they vary their style when they are talking to different people–customers or superiors or subordinates?  Does that work well?  Do they connect with you well?  Are there people in the organization that they don’t connect with?  Can you tell why?

The Top Has A Different Style Than You

This is actually more common, especially in bigger organizations.  There are two aspects to this.  The first is whether or not a different style is actually going to be more effective at a higher level in the organization.  The second (and more important) is whether people making decisions about promoting you perceive that it takes a different style to be successful at the next level.  Either way, you need to figure out whether you can/should adjust your style.

So How Do You Do That?

The first thing you need to do is overcome your reluctance to change your style.  You style is not you.  Think about the way you were in junior high school v. the way you were in high school v. the way you were in college.  You had different styles, right?  Those changes weren’t necessarily voluntary, but over time you learned to present yourself differently to fit in, to be comfortable in the situation, and to get what you wanted.  You are different at work, at church and at home.  A lot of this difference is external, a lot of it is style.  The real you is more like the way you are at home, but you manage to (easily) be different at work.

What we’re talking about here is simply being deliberate about changing your “outside” style to be more effective.  If you’re introverted and you’re a sales person, you figure out how to be more extroverted to be a good sales person.  This is the same.  What do you need to be ‘more’ of or ‘less’ of to be successful at the next level of the organization?

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August 24, 2012 · 3:45 pm

The Water You Swim In

Culture is Like Water to a FishUnderstanding Your Organization’s Culture

Organization culture for people is like water is for fish.  It is there.  It is critical to how the organization works.  It shapes people’s interactions.  It guides how work gets done, what is considered success, who is powerful and who is not.  It is also invisible.  People are not consciously aware of it.  It is probably the single most important thing in the organization, and most people know nothing about it.

If you want to be successful in an organization, one of the first things you should do is work on understanding the culture.   You will be able to use the culture to help you be effective.  You will be able to avoid getting into trouble by understanding the rules of engagement, power and territory.  You will be able to use the informal networks to grease your requests and deliverables.

What is Organizational Culture?

The culture is the set of assumptions, beliefs, customs, behaviors, rites, rituals, behaviors and values that exist within an organization.  These sometimes come directly from the founder (think Steve Jobs), then get influenced by subsequent leaders (think John Scully, then Steve Jobs).  The culture is sometimes a creation of combined organization cultures, or an organization culture that has been transplanted into another geographic region—Apple in China, Honda in the US.  The culture is never JUST what the company says it is.  In 2000, Enron’s stated values were:

  • Respect We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness and arrogance don’t belong here.
  •  Integrity We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.
  •  Communication We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take the time to talk with one another and to listen. We believe that information is meant to move and that information moves people.
  • Excellence We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun here will be for all of us to discover just how good we can really be.

Obviously, there was more at work in the culture than what they said.  There were other things driving behavior.  The culture rewarded conformity and punished dissent.  Individualism was valued over other behaviors (Jeff Skilling’s favorite book was Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene.)  There was a belief that the people who worked at Enron were the “best and the brightest.”  Eighty hour work weeks were the norm.  There was a “rank and yank” performance system.  Cumulatively, these things and lots of others, describe the Enron culture.

Disney has a very different culture.  Google has a differently culture.  Organization cultures are the (organizational) DNA combination of all of kinds of inputs.

How Can You Figure Out Your Organization’s Culture?

 Answers to the following questions can help you begin to understand the culture:

  • Who founded the company and what were his/her beliefs?  About   the organization?  About the way things should be?
  • Is the founder viewed as a hero?  A villain?
  • Is the founder still with the company?
  • If not, what impact have subsequent leaders had?
  • Are any of them considered saviors?  Heros?  Villians?
  • What are the stories that are told about the company?
  • What kind of person(s) seem(s) to be favored?
  • What behaviors are accepted?  Regulated? Discouraged?
  • How does communication flow?
  • What parts of the organization’s history are important?
  • What traumas have happened to the company?  Are there psychic scars from those traumas?  Do people still talk about them years later?  Have behavioral norms been put in place to avoid the same trauma in the future?
  • What is the dress code?  How rigidly is it enforced?
  • What are the social norms?  Do peoples socialize together?  Have  lunch?  Spend time outside of work? Are there cliques?  Does inclusion/exclusion impact your career?
  • Who speaks in meetings?
  • What is the power structure? How do people break into the power structure? What kind of people are in the power structure?
  • What are the performance evaluation norms?
  • How is information shared/not shared?  Who controls it?

Once you’ve thought about these, identify the ways in which you can use/benefit from how the culture works.  Focus specifically on:

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July 16, 2012 · 6:36 pm

Onboard Yourself

Onboarding

Onboarding is the process that organizations use to get their employees up to speed enough to do their jobs.  Another term for it is “organizational socialization.”  Organizations have informal and formal methods for the knowledge transfer or processes, tools, methods, culture and introductions that is sufficient for the employee to be effective in his/her new job.  I’ve seen really good onboarding and really horrible onboarding.

The best onboarding I ever experienced personally was as a consultant when I was going to work for a group of consultants.   The onboarding was a combination of providing me with detailed “playbooks” of how the organization did its work and of having me spend intense time with each team of consultants to see/understand how they put the playbook into action.  I traveled weekly for my onboarding and in three weeks’ time, I felt that I understood the whole and was fully able to go do it myself.  It was the combination of the intensity, the excellent documentation, and the seeing it all in action—including being given tasks I didn’t know how to do, but being surrounded by people who could/would help me.

I’ve had so many “worst” onboardings that it is hard to pick just one.  They range from putting me in a room with a year’s worth of reading and leaving me to read for two weeks to putting me at a desk and spending less than 10 minutes telling me what to do and walking away, never to return.  I think that I eventually did OK, even at the jobs with these onboardings, but the time it took to get me up to speed and to be productive was vastly different.

I finally decided that I needed to take responsibility for my own onboarding.  As a consultant, it is critical that I hit the ground running and know enough in a week to make a difference.  If I wait for people (who all have other jobs and many of whom are not sure they want me here, anyway) to tell me what/how/when/why in the organization, then I will fail.  These processes can apply for anyone, in any job, including people who have been in the job for a long time.

DIY Onboarding

Steps to Your Own Onboarding:

  • Make a Plan:  Identify what you want to accomplish and how fast.  You have a fairly short period of time before people get over you being new and expect you to “do” something.  They are very open to questions in the early days; they think you’re dumb if you’re still asking questions later (even then, you need to ask questions to learn—deal with what they think).  Who do you need to know?  What do you need to know?  What do you need to be able to do?  Ask people what they think you need to do to be successful.  Then put in place a plan that gets you there.  Fast.
  •  Meet People:  Meet people at every level.  Set up meetings.  Invite people to lunch or breakfast.  Accept all invitations.  Learn the power structures.  Learn the informal networks.  Learn the ‘go to’ people.  Learn the whiners.  Learn who to listen to and who to avoid.  The only way to do that is to throw yourself into meeting people.  (Even introverts need to do this)  Ask people to help you.  Ask people who you should meet.  Ask people who helped them when they started.  Target someone to be a mentor in this process and ask for his/her help.
  •  Figure Out the Tools:  Luckily, today most organizations use the same fundamental tools—the Microsoft Office suite plus SharePoint.  If the organization uses different/other tools, however, learn these as soon as possible.  Learn Oracle, Salesforce.com, EPDM, or whatever other tool your organization uses.  You need to understand it and be conversant in its strengths and weaknesses.  (Every tool you learn makes you more marketable—use the opportunity of being new to dive in and learn new tools).
  •  Understand the Culture:  Every organization has its own culture.  This is like the water the fish swim in—the people inside the organization are not very aware of it consciously, but it shapes all behavior unconsciously.  When you’re new is the only time you can actually “see” the culture.  Don’t make the mistake of assuming it is like the culture you just came from.  Just because engineers are the dominant players in the new culture as they were in the old, there will be huge differences.  Learn these differences with “new eyes.”  Learn what the organization thinks about what makes success, who are the people who seem to “get it.”  What are they like?  How much does the leader shape the organization?  Is the founder still there?  How long since the founder was there?  What are the left over influences from that?  (These are frequently the things that don’t seem to make sense because they started a long time ago but are still there).  Write down your observations of the culture.  Make a mind map.  How does the culture influence the way that you will get your work done?  How can you use the culture to be more effective?
  •  Learn the Product/Customers/Processes:  Become an expert.  Take all the classes you can.  (Organizations frequently have classes for new sales people that are available to others).  Ask people about the processes.  Become best friends with the Intranet.  What’s there and what can you learn from what’s there?  What do others outside the organization say?  What do people in the organization say in reaction?  Everyone in every part of the organization needs to thoroughly understand the Product and the Customers.  You need to at least understand the processes in your own organization and those that take product to market and get money to the bank.  Like I said, BECOME AN EXPERT.
  •  Take Actions:  You have a very short window before people start to see action.  Look for opportunities to take early action.  It is better to be right about these actions, so be careful—but not too careful.  Action is better than no action, even if you make mistakes.  Ask your boss and peers what kinds of actions they are expecting from you and deliver them as soon as possible.

 Good Books That Help With This:

The First 90 Days, Critical Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels  byMichael Watkins

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan by George Bradt, Jamye Check, and Jorge Pedrassa

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April 29, 2012 · 8:38 pm

Don’t Take Your Needs to Work

Basics/Needs/Wants

My first exposure to the idea of how my needs impacted my career came from Laura Berman Fortgang’s book, Take Yourself to the Top. Fortgang divides things into basics/needs/wants.  Most of us can tell what the basics are–enough food, housing, warmth, safety.  Most of us also can tell the “wants”–house at the beach, Thunder season tickets, designer wardrobe, fill-in-the-blanks.  It gets tricky when we are dealing with needs.  Needs are sometimes disguised wants, but more often, they are buried in our subconscious–we don’t even recognize them when they are running our lives.

Examples

The kind of needs I’m talking about are those that start in early childhood–usually because of deprivation or mistreatment–and drive our behavior for the rest of our lives.  Someone very close to me grew up incredibly poor and without things that practically everyone has–things like soap, combs, jelly, sufficient clothes, or coats.  Her need was to never feel deprived again.  She accumulated stuff to prevent the feeling of deprivation.  It drove her whole life.

Some have the need to be appreciated.  Some have the need to be respected.  Some have the need to be treated fairly.  Some need to be right.  You get the idea.  These needs are all wrapped up in our self-worth.  If you don’t respect me, then you have shaken the very foundations of my belief in myself.  When this happens at work, then you are behaving like the same five-year-old who initially developed this need.  You probably aren’t aware that you are acting like a five-year-old.  You probably feel completely righteous in your reaction.  You won’t stop talking about it.  You tell your co-workers how wronged you are, and they probably are somewhat intimidated by your level of emotion.  They may or may not agree with you, but they are reluctant to challenge you because of how you are coming across about it.

This happens all the time.  It happens to pretty much everyone.  The way you can recognize it is by how upset you are.  How driven you are to fix it.  How much you talk about it.  How much you think about it. These needs are legitimate.  You came by them legitimately.  My friend who was so deprived in her childhood was trying to protect herself from ever feeling that horrible again.  But you need to get your needs out of your work.  They will do much more damage than it is worth.  People will think you’re completely irrational about weird stuff.  They will not be able to connect the dots between your behavior that they see and your need that you are trying to address and whatever happened to you that created that need.

What Do You Do?

So, what do you do?  Think back.  Think of times when even you could tell you were being irrational.  What was driving it?  Are there patterns?  Same reaction to similar situations?  Same reaction to similar people?  Figure out which needs are driving you (literally) crazy.  Try to reason with yourself (this isn’t usually all that successful).  Point out to yourself that that was then (when you were 5) and this is now (when you are an adult who really shouldn’t care if your GenY employee isn’t respecting you as much as you think she should).  If trying to talk yourself out of it doesn’t work, don’t give up, but there is a Plan B.

irrational at workWhen you feel yourself getting irrational (ok, not irrational–incredibly irritated), try to think of another way that you can get this need met OUTSIDE OF WORK.  Where can you be respected that matters more?  Church?  Home? Professional group?  Who appreciates you who matters more than people at work?  Can’t you go tell someone else you were right without rubbing your peer’s face in it?

Why Should You Go To That Much Trouble?

Because it really does have a negative impact on your career.  When you are being driven by things that are outside your conscious awareness, then you aren’t really in control.  When you aren’t in control, then you will do something that looks stupid to people who can make decisions about your future.  So, get your needs away from your work.

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April 23, 2012 · 10:05 am

Keeping Up

Why Should I Care?

I talk to people who want to get promoted.  I talk to people who just lost their job.  I talk to people who want to go work for a cool company they know about.  I talk to people who want to start their own company.  If you are one of these people, or if you might become one of these people, then you need to keep up.

WinningKeep Up With What?

You need to focus on staying on top of the latest:

  • technology
  • social media
  • trends in your (and other adjacent) industry(ies)
  • issues in the market place
  • political undercurrent in your own organization
  • gurus in your field
  • books in your industry/field

It absolutely isn’t enough to show up and do your job.  The way things work now, that makes you vulnerable to the next layoff, the next new boss, your company going out of business.  The fact that you did your job just fine for 5, 10, 15, 20 years does not put you in good stead for the next step.  And it is highly unlikely that your next step isn’t the one you expect.  Without the most current skills, you are likely to have to take a demotion for the next position.

For example, if you think you are proficient at Microsoft Office, you aren’t if you don’t know your way around Sharepoint (and not just as an occasional end-user).  If you are a Project Manager, if you’re not conversant with Organization Change Management, Lean Methodologies and Scrum, then you aren’t competitive.  If you are a second level manager and you don’t know how to use social media (at your company) to lead your people, or how to develop and implement a strategy, how to measure and analyze your processes and implement changes, then you’re not keeping up.  If you are a Director, you need to know how to think like a V.P., how to dismantle and start up an organization, and how to manage your peers.  If you are a V.P., you need to understand the dynamics of managing a Board, how to analyze business opportunities, including whether to purchase a company or compete with it.  You need to think and learn beyond your job, your role and your company.

Look at job postings in your field.  Do you exceed what they are looking for?  On paper?  If you don’t, you will not even get an interview.  You won’t have the opportunity to tell them how great you are, because they will put you in the ‘delete’ file.   Be honest with yourself.  Don’t fudge.  If you don’t EXCEED the qualifications they are looking for, you will have a long job search and you will probably have to take a demotion in your next position.

Of the people I talk to, the biggest failure to keep up is technology-related.  People tend to stick with what they’ve learned to use and not push themselves beyond to the new technologies.  For instance, lots of companies are now using iPads for providing their sales people with training, marketing materials and sales tools.  Could you do that?  I’m not talking about the programming, but about creating the materials that work on the iPad (they’re not the same that work on paper). The way that sales training and interactions are done are frequently the harbinger for the rest of the organization.  Are you listening HR? IT? Manufacturing?  Are you comfortable with (and continuing to be current with) all the tools that facilitate virtual team management.  If you had to do it on your own tomorrow, could you?

#Winning

If you have ‘bleeding edge’ skills in your field, then you are an asset to your company.  If you use your company’s problems and tools to develop your ‘bleeding edge’ skills, then you benefit.  It is a symbiotic relationship.  It is win/win. Don’t be vulnerable.  Start “keeping up” before you need it.  It’s hard to do at that point.

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April 17, 2012 · 9:50 pm

New Job? Here’s What You Do:

First Thing

The first thing you do is remember that you don’t know what you don’t know.  Be very careful about your assumptions.  If you had the same job in a different organization, remember it might not be the same job in this one–just the same title.  If Directors act/do/are a certain way in your old organization, they might act/do/be different in this one.  If you get promoted in your (same) organization, it is a NEW job, not just more of the same.  Treat it as a new job.  If you manage a new group, move to a different location, get a new boss (yeah, I said if you get a new boss), it is a new job.  Just like all jobs, this job will have good things and bad things.  If you get off to a good start, it will have more good than bad.  Move on to the second thing:

Second Thing

Become hyper-sensitive to your surroundings.  Pay attention.  Listen.  Watch.  Notice.  Who are the power players?  What is the informal network?  Who are the formal and informal leaders?  What is the culture?  Put your antenna up and start to feel out the unwritten rules.  Ask questions.  At the beginning, you have a window of opportunity where people expect you to ask questions and you feel comfortable doing it.  Learn the language (every organization has its own set of acronyms).

Put on a consultant’s hat–do an organization assessment.  What works, what doesn’t work?  What are the opportunities for quick hits?  Talk to lots of people!  Ask them what they do.  Ask them about themselves.  Learn their names.  Learn as much as fast as you can.  Work on putting together your own picture of how it all works together. If you do this right, you will very quickly know more about the organization, or at least have a different view, than many who work there because you will be actively investigating it.  Not very many people do this about their own organizations.

Third Thing

Make a good impression.  Get there early and stay late.  Come across friendly, confident and interested. Dress not only to look good, but to feel good.  It will come across.  Take the initiative–even when it is uncomfortable.  Commit and deliver on your commitments.  Don’t over commit–it’s really easy to do in the early days, when you want to impress.  It’s better to surprise by delivering beyond your commitment than by failing to land your promised deliverables–remember you’re still in the impression-making days.  Work on making a good impression on all levels of the organization.  You never know who listens to whom.

The Fourth Thing

Work on your networks and alliances.  The Center for Creative Leadership has done research that the most successful leaders have what is called “Manager Trade Routes,” informal networks of reciprocal exchanges.(Trade Routes: The Manager’s Network of Relationships (Technical Report) by Robert E. Kaplan and  Mignon Mazique)  It’s best to get started on this early.  Figure out your peers–who are they, what motivates them, what are they trying to accomplish.  Begin to work on developing powerful relationships with them.  My experience is that more Executives fail because of their failed interactions with their peers than with their bosses.

And Finally, The Fifth Thing

Figure out and stay on top of what your boss wants from you.  Learn how your boss asks for things.   Learn how s/he wants things communicated back.  Ask for reports or presentations that will clue you in about what your boss values.  Don’t assume s/he knows what you’re doing in your first weeks.  Ask how s/he wants to be updated.  Over-communicate at first.  Be enthusiastic, energetic and positive in your interactions with your boss.  Make him/her glad s/he hired you.

Check out the book,    The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders by Michael Watkins, for some good tips.

Good Luck!

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