INTHEBLACK February 2023 - Magazine - Page 15
Roxanne Calder
Dr Dominic McLoughlin
Founder and managing director, EST10
People management specialist
Navigating new job jitters in today’s landscape
is a whole new ball game. With upskilling
and reskilling, tech-savvy onboarding and
the overlay of virtual and remote, it can be
daunting. Be prepared to not know everything.
It’s OK and expected. Remind yourself of this
if you start to feel flustered for forgetting
the “new way of working”. For the first
month, be an observer. Watch, listen and
learn. Try not to make judgements, and do
not contribute to office gossip or politics.
When you meet with your manager, if not
already covered in the interview, seek to
understand how they operate, how best to
communicate with them, their expectations of
you and what success will look like in the first 100
days. Write it down and use that as your guide.
Establishing relationships early and working
out who’s who are key. As a newbie, you have
the perfect excuse to introduce yourself. If
you get caught in the lift with the CEO, stick
out your hand and introduce yourself – it is a
prime opportunity to make yourself known! If
you are an introvert, even more reason to get
it out of the way. As you observe, work out
the influencer. Every office has one. They are
important people to be across, no matter their
authority, role or level. Of course, knowing
who to call in IT will be your lifesaver. Finally,
for speed of emersion and building those
precious relationships, try to be in the office
as much as you can. It will pay dividends!
As a new manager, I felt I had arrived. However,
it quickly became apparent that I needed
to take time to adjust to the differences
in the new role. The key areas that really
helped me adjust in my first 100 days were
mindset, trust, vulnerability and availability.
I realised that I needed to schedule
time to plan ahead and to be clear about
the team’s priorities and goals.
I already knew that trust was important. If a
manager can increase the amount of trust that
their team has in them, the team will be much
happier, more productive and more willing
to contribute ideas for improving things.
A key mistake I had seen other new managers
make was to assume that now they were a
manager, they had to have all the answers –
that they must be perfect. I also knew that the
managers I liked working for were prepared
to admit when they did not know something.
I found that this gives the team permission to
acknowledge their own areas of weakness.
When I first started, I found it easy to be
overwhelmed by everything that needed
to be done. I was still learning myself, let
alone answering everyone else’s questions.
Initially, I fell into the trap of dealing with
the urgent, instead of the important. Team
members need to know that they are
supported in achieving their own goals,
so I recommend keeping in mind what is
really important and making time for it.
“You have the perfect excuse to introduce
yourself. If you get caught in the lift with the
CEO, stick out your hand and introduce
yourself – it is a prime opportunity to make
yourself known.”
“A key mistake I had seen other managers
make was to assume that, now they were a
manager, they had to have all the answers –
that they must be perfect.”
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au 15