Concept
Learning before acting
Learning before acting is Michael Watkins's rule for the first weeks in a new role: because the transition is when you know least and are watched most, run a structured listening tour with the same questions for everyone and diagnose what you inherited before the first real decision.
The instinct on arrival is to act fast and visibly to prove yourself. Watkins argues that many failed transitions trace back to exactly that: leaders who came in with the answer, stuck with what they knew, and changed things in week one that they did not understand. The alternative is a schedule. In the first two weeks, meet every person on the team one-on-one with the same few questions: what is working, what is not, what would you change if you were me, what should I not touch. Meet your manager and ask what success looks like at ninety days. Meet the teams you depend on and the ones that depend on you. Write it all down. At the end there is a diagnosis, and it is usually not the one you walked in with. It tells you whether you inherited something that mostly works, which needs you not to break it, or something that is on fire, which needs decisions.
A real-life example
A new branch manager at a bank in Denizli moves the morning team meeting to the afternoon in her first week, because mornings are busy. Within days the tellers are tense; the morning meeting had been the only time the branch planned the day before customers arrived. She moves it back and spends the next two weeks meeting each of her nine staff with the same four questions. The change they want most turns out to be a second cash desk at lunchtime.
How to use it
- 1Book a one-on-one with every person in the first two weeks, with the same four questions.
- 2Ask your manager what success looks like at ninety days and write it in their words.
- 3Change nothing structural in the first month unless it is on fire.