You know, when you’re coming into a new thing, my tendency, I think anybody’s tendency is to just start fixing everything that’s broken. Right? And you start running around, like, I gotta do this and we gotta get this thing back to profitability and, and tighten this lug nut and that thing.
And so, first 30 days, I said, “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to go and hear everybody’s stories.” Because you’re the new person and everyone is freaked out and they’re norming to you. They’re watching for your response, right? And they’re worried like, am I part of this or am I going to get thrown out?
Is the person going to be like a hatchet person and come and cut everybody? So it’s basically at first is like, try to calm the group. And then just try to understand, right? So you’re hearing their stories and everyone’s giving you recommendations and suggestions. We should do this, we should do that.
So for me, it was like 30 days with a notepad. And if I saw something that was at the point of going to, you know, we’re about to do this, and this is a big new initiative and it’s going to be like….. ah, Timeout! Let’s just hold on to that idea. It’s a good idea. It’s probably the right idea, but let’s just keep doing what we’re doing as opposed to a big shift right now.
And then, I said after about 30 days, I’ll start to talk in terms of what we might want to think about in the future. You know, like, you know, that sounds like a good idea, but I think we may want to be thinking about it in this way. Like you just have to kind of start telegraphing. What’s coming? And I think if you wait much more than that before actually doing change, then people are like, “What’s this guy going to do?”
Right? So I think there’s a time that you have to kind of give yourself at least 30 days to listen to everybody. Give yourself another couple of weeks — two to three weeks where you start telegraphing what is about to come. So it’s not a surprise.
