The seven steps in your plan are designed to help you prepare for your “launch date” on Day One and to carry you through the critical first few months on the job. Let’s take a look at each step individually.

By this point in your job process, you have probably done thorough due diligence on the company where you’ll work. This includes reading information on the company’s Web site, looking at analysts’ reports on the company or the industry, and speaking to people who work for the company and/or who used to work for the company. However, if you haven’t done that yet, you had best undertake some last-minute due diligence so that you aren’t totally unprepared on Day One.

In the days before you start working, contact your boss to see if any material is available for you to read so that you can get up to speed on your new job. Show that you’re eager to begin making a contribution.

As a new hire, you’re probably eager to dive into the job, to see what you can do and what changes you can make. Your first concern, however, is not your own agenda. In fact, setting targets on your own can lead you astray from what you should be doing. The best approach, therefore, is to identify from Day One the boss’s agenda and to make sure your efforts are focused on those priorities.

In your first few months, you probably won’t accomplish much as you learn the ropes of the new job and how things are done in the organization. Nonetheless, your priority is to make sure that you are off to the right start, especially with your initial tasks and assignments. As stated earlier, based on your initiative and attitude in these early days, people will form opinions about the kind of team member you are, your diligence and commitment, and the quality of your work.

Your boss may communicate her expectations for you—including how you will work and who will train you—directly. Or she may let you know her preferences by inference. It will be up to you to pick up on your boss’s signals, including who will train you.

“Does your boss want to see you in his office, or does he want you to disappear into the organization? Does he want to communicate with you through memos, or in face-to-face discussions?” asked Warren Batts. “The boss may not want you hanging around his office door all the time, and instead expects you to find out for yourself what you’re supposed to do. The expectation is that you’ll be trained by your peers. Other bosses may have the time, energy, and patience to invite you to come in and discuss what you’re working on. This ‘talking’ is a subtle form of coaching, but not all bosses engage in it.”^[44]

Understand, too, that the flow of information from the boss may not be at the same frequency as yours. With broader responsibilities and more people to manage, your boss will likely initiate communication far less frequently. But don’t go too far the other way so that you inundate your boss with updates. A good ratio is to communicate two or three times more frequently than your boss does with you (unless you have a frequent communicator as a boss, who matches you email for email.)

For that first task or project, you may very well want to overachieve. However, don’t do your work at such a blistering pace that you’ll have a hard time living up to the expectations that you’ve set for yourself. (We’ll address pace later in this chapter.) In other words, plan to overachieve, but only by a measured amount. You can beat a deadline and surpass expectations of quality and content. When you go to extremes—turning in a report that was expected in two weeks after only four days—you set up expectations for yourself and your work that are unrealistic. And you could end up sending some unintended negative signals. Your peers may see you as grandstanding. Furthermore, your boss may expect you to complete every project thereafter at the same pace. If you start out working every Saturday, expect to keep that up. If you work long hours, you’ll be expected to keep that up as well. Patterns are critical.

As you interact with others, let your work speak for itself. In other words, while your boss will know that you graduated with a certain grade point average or that you have an MBA, everyone else doesn’t need to know that. It’s much better if your co-workers get to know you through the contribution you’ll make rather than your résumé. You’re on a team now, so act like it! The independent style you used in college no longer fits. You will be evaluated not only on how well you do, but also how well your team performs.

The main purpose of your communication with your boss is to demonstrate your commitment to the company’s goals and objectives and to confirm that what you’re doing is in line with the boss’s expectations. This is a particular challenge if your job is to work on a longterm project with few interim milestones. That’s when it’s up to you to establish some “mini-MBOs.”

Management By Objective (MBO) is a common tool used in many businesses. Essentially, it is a set of objectives that you and your boss agree on that will guide your tasks for a period of time. You will then be managed by these objectives. Your boss may not ask you about them very often since it’s presumed that your work falls in line with these objectives. In reality, however, it is very easy to get off track either because you are following your curiosity in one direction or because the project leads you on tangents.

By devising “mini-MBOs” for yourself, you set incremental objectives within the overall project or larger objective. You can then report to your boss from time to time to give periodic updates and to confirm that what you’re doing is in line with the boss’s expectation. What you want to avoid at all costs is finding out four months into a six-month project that you’re far off target.

Warren Batts recalled from his early career working for a utility company in Georgia where he took it upon himself to come up with ways to save on engineering costs. What he didn’t realize, however, was that those engineering costs were added to the company’s investment, and the utility was guaranteed a fixed rate of return on the total investment. “Let’s just say my efforts to save money were not appreciated,” he added.^[45]

Too often, young professionals resist the concept of mini-MBOs. They may think they know better than the boss, or they are so focused on making a name for themselves that they’ll take any opportunity to show off what they can do—even if it’s not in the best interest of their team or the project they’re working on. This me-first attitude is endemic in some organizations. Ironically, it can be seen clearly in sports, where the emphasis is supposed to be on the team. Chicago Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux advises that, no matter what your job is or what you’ve accomplished as an individual, you can’t forget who the boss is.

“You have to realize in your organization that you’re working for them. You have to know who the boss is. You may be in a position one day to make your own rules, and if you get there, the more power to you. But for now, you have to roll with it,” Greg explained.^[46]

Young professionals may also resist mini-MBOs occasionally because they want to prove that they can handle the project themselves. They don’t want to be perceived as running to the boss every five minutes to make sure they’re doing okay. Believe me, periodic assessments will put you in a position of strength, not weakness. You’ll be able to report on what you’ve done thus far and ask for clarification if results are different than you expected or if the project is taking you in a different direction.

For example, suppose a young engineer is assigned to a project to develop a new factory layout that will optimize the material flow. The engineer, however, is keenly interested in high-tech equipment. When his boss asks him how the layout project is going, he explains, “I haven’t finished it yet because I’m investigating some new equipment that will change the layout.” The boss replies, “No, that’s not what I want. I need that layout using the equipment we already have.”

Now consider the mini-MBO scenario. While working on the factory layout, the young engineer wonders if material flow could be improved if the company invested in some new high-tech equipment. At this juncture, he goes to his boss and discusses the idea. He still gets credit for showing initiative, but he doesn’t run the risk of crossing boundaries and taking the project into tangential territory.

Here’s another example: Recently hired by a public relations (PR) agency, a young professional is given a routine task of updating media contact lists. It’s tedious to call up every magazine and newspaper and double-check the names and titles of the reporters and editors on staff. She makes a few calls every day, but sheer boredom keeps her from updating the list as quickly as possible. Instead, she spends as much time as possible with the writers at the agency, a job that keenly interests her. When her boss asks her about the list, she explains that she’s made a few calls, but now she’s very busy helping out with a writing project.

Now consider the mini-MBO strategy. The young PR professional completes the calls on the media list as quickly as possible and begins compiling a neatly organized list. Halfway through her calls, she notices that two publications in the area—including one she reads—are not on the list. She sends her boss a quick email to see if she should add them to the list. Her boss replies immediately that she should go ahead and thanks her for her thoroughness. When she finishes the media list, she can ask her boss for more work to broaden her knowledge of the agency.

While using mini-MBOs to gauge your progress and to keep your boss informed, you can take the initiative to tackle more work or to expand what you’re doing. But don’t do it on your own without your boss’s knowledge. Instead, let your boss know that you’d like to volunteer for a specific task force or that you’d like to become part of a specific team, particularly if it expands your learning and your skill base. As long as your desires are expressed in the context of what you can do—as opposed to what you need to get promoted—you’ll strike the necessary balance.

Mini-MBOs can also help you if you’re the type of person who likes to “hide” on a work team. This problem, known as “social loafing,” can be seen frequently among some college students who ride along on the momentum of everybody else’s efforts to move a team project forward. Students who tend to be the laggards on the teams, however, will be at a disadvantage in the business world. The competition is tougher, and less tolerance is shown for those who don’t shoulder their share of the work. If you have this tendency, you can discipline yourself through mini-MBOs by committing to your part(s) of the project and giving yourself a deadline to complete the work.

All of us, to some extent, are creatures of habit. That’s why, when you are new on the job, you want to take extra care to vary your routine. While you will probably spend much of your time with your team or your particular department, you will want to avoid focusing all your attention there.

This takes a special awareness of where you spend your time—and where you don’t. I derive this concept from “Management By Wandering Around,” or MBWA (which has come to be known as Management By Walking Around). This management philosophy was embraced by Hewlett-Packard and described by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in the classic is In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. Peters and Waterman wrote that managers at some top-performing companies such as Hewlett-Packard found that they connected better with their staffs and direct reports as they “wandered around” talking with people and learning what they were doing.^[47]

If you’ve just received your graduate degree and you’ve been brought into a company as a new manager, you might want to try your own MBWA technique. But what if you’ve been hired as an undergraduate in an entrylevel position? You’re not managing anyone else. How can MBWA apply to you?

One way is to use “wandering around” to learn all you can about the company from more experienced co-workers and also to find out where your expertise and knowledge can make a contribution. Look for opportunities to fill the “knowledge gap” (see Chapter 3, “Your Network: It’s All About ‘Giving,’ Not Just ‘Getting’”), which will allow you to build your network within the company. Of course, you don’t want to take this to the extreme of being a company gadfly. But if you have a chance to interact with others in another department, take advantage of this opportunity to broaden your learning. Look for ways to connect with other young professionals in the company outside of work hours, on your lunch break, or at social functions such as the company holiday party or annual picnic. Once you’ve made friends in other departments, you can easily stop by to visit on occasion, which will give you a chance to observe the kind of work they do and how they contribute to the company’s goals.

As you establish your patterns in your new job, you need to observe where you go when you “wander around”—and where you don’t. This “reverse MBWA” is a very enlightening tool to help you observe your initial patterns. What department do you rarely go to, if ever? Why is that? Is it because your day-to-day responsibilities do not take you there, or is there another reason? Do you find the work they do in that department extraneous to what you do? Do you even understand what that department does?

Furthermore, do you avoid certain people or spend little time dealing with them? Do you find yourself using the 80/20 rule, spending 80% of your time with 20% of the people? If so, you are sending a very clear signal to the other 80% of the people that you consider them to be of little interest to you, that they will not help you or coach you, and cannot teach you anything. This is a mistake as a new employee, since you may very well misjudge someone’s importance in an organization, and (as you recall from Chapter 2, “Your Personal Philosophy”) it’s far better to treat everyone equally.

As you meet people in the company, you will probably gravitate toward some people more than others. You may, as a new, entrylevel employee, form friendships with some people with whom you socialize on weekends as well. Be careful, however, as you move up the ranks not to “mix business with pleasure.” In fact, as a manager you should make it a practice not to socialize with people from work. Keep strict boundaries between your personal and professional lives, because you never know who might end up reporting to you one day, or vice versa.

As a new hire, you may also find that some of your new friends at work want to capture you, inviting you to have lunch with them almost every day or monopolizing your free time. This is a trap that you must avoid. It’s normal to spend 60 to 80% of your day with the same people in your department or on your team. After all, these are the co-workers with whom you interact most closely. When it comes to your free time—especially your lunch hour—make a deliberate effort to vary your patterns. Eat lunch by yourself on occasion, or with new acquaintances from outside the company (see Chapter 3). Keep in mind that someone is usually observing you and your patterns, whether it’s your boss or your other team members. You don’t want to be perceived as belonging to a certain clique, particularly in the first days of your new job.

Another note of caution is not to drop names about who you know higher up in the company. Perhaps you were hired by a senior manager, or you may have a personal connection with a top executive through your family or your personal network. At work, you may be operating many tiers below this person, who could even be your boss’s boss’s boss! How, then, do you use this connection? The short, but emphatic, answer is: you don’t.

If you let other people know that you have this connection, it will immediately work against you. It will be perceived as going over your boss’s head for your own gain. Chances are the person with whom you have a connection won’t appreciate it, and you certainly won’t do yourself any favors.

If you know a high-ranking executive at the company, when you are at work you should do nothing to indicate that you have any connection. If you see this person socially, you should take care never to talk business. The executive will appreciate your discretion and will be impressed by how you handle yourself.

Most importantly, let your work speak for itself. Whatever opportunities come your way will be based on your ability and your proven contribution, not because someone pulled a string for you. That’s not to say that your connection won’t continue to work behind the scenes for you. But any endorsement you receive will be based on what you’ve demonstrated you can do, not merely because you know someone.

Your new job may be in a cubicle or in an open, team environment. You may have an office or aspire to have one someday. No matter how big or small, the space you occupy at work is yours. This work space should reflect, to some degree, who you are. You may have pictures on your desk that are important to you, such as a photo of your boyfriend/girlfriend, an interesting place you visited, or maybe even your dog. It’s okay to show your personality or to display an interest that you have, as long as it doesn’t come across as garish or inappropriate for the work environment. The posters from your last concert may not be considered “appropriate art” in your new job. And, if you always had trouble keeping your bedroom at home or your apartment clean and neat, don’t extend those bad habits to your work space. Adopt new habits from Day One.

Also keep in mind that, while this is your space, it’s also accessible to the public. In other words, your boss, your co-workers, and potentially people from outside the company will see your work space and what it communicates about you, whether it’s a passion for music or your hobby of showing dogs. But be cognizant of the message it sends and ask yourself, is this what you want people at work to know about you?

While your cubicle is a place where you can show others your personality and outside interests and even offer an appropriate glimpse into your personal life, limits exist for what is acceptable. Too much “stuff” will look messy and distracting, and anything off-color or in questionable taste is, of course, out of the question.

As you settle into your new job, you will also adopt your pace of working. Is it the right pace for you and your company? As discussed earlier in the chapter, you don’t want to set a pace that is twice as fast as everyone else’s. You won’t be able to sustain it, and others may very well resent it. Like the long-distance runner who sets a pace to win, you must find your stride.

Time management is one of the most effective means to do this. By managing your time well—keeping track of deadlines and scheduling larger tasks and projects in increments—you will be at your productive best (see the Appendix, “Your Toolbox for Success”). This means finishing projects moderately ahead of deadline, exceeding expectations for quality and content (whenever possible). If you procrastinate for a week and then stay up all night to finish a project, that’s not being your productive best. Fatigue is the enemy of both productivity and accuracy.

You can’t count on being able to “pull an all-nighter” to complete something, even if you’re used to cramming for exams and projects at college. Understand, too, that your work habits are easily observed by others, including your boss. The last thing you want to display is erratic work habits, procrastinating for several days in a row and then staying late at the office to finish something.

Are you using your time effectively to accomplish your tasks, or are you wasting time? As my mentor, Professor Georges Doriot, used to say, you must avoid the “deadly effect of lost time.” Where does time get lost? Usually it’s in time-wasting activities, like spending too much time talking to others or taking too many coffee breaks. Anyone who has ever surfed the Internet knows that you can lose an hour or two online without realizing it. If you run these risks, discipline yourself with strict time management to avoid that trap.

The other trap to avoid is perfectionism, pushing deadlines to make one more effort to make something “better.” A point is reached, however, when a project, report, proposal, or any other assignment is “good to go” and needs to be turned in. Spending another day—or week—on the project passes the point of diminishing returns. In time, you’ll get a feel for where that point of diminishing returns is when you are preparing a project for the boss, a presentation to the board of directors, or a proposal for purchasing.

Setting the right pace also involves knowing when to keep working on a project and when to quit. Perseverance is a virtue that, like patience, is rewarded over time. Too much perseverance for the wrong reasons, however, becomes a vice. That’s why it’s important to know when to quit, even if your ego doesn’t want you to. Let’s say the project you’ve been working on has become bigger than life. Soon you are working on it because you love the project, not because of the results. As you become less and less objective about the project’s benefits, your perseverance goes astray. You need some perspective, literally stepping back from the project and assessing where it has gone, where it’s headed, and what the results have been.

If you’ve broken the project into “mini-MBOs” and kept your boss in the loop, it’s unlikely that you’ll face this problem. If you haven’t done this before, however, this is the time to sit down with your boss and discuss the project’s status. It could be that it’s time to call it quits, even if this means that your results aren’t what you had hoped. It could very well be that, no matter how many alternatives you looked at, nothing will work. That’s not failure; it’s accepting the reality of the situation. Without this “reality check,” you could end up wasting huge amounts of time, energy, and resources on a dead-end project, when you could be investing your efforts in a new project.