I’ve survived a month into the new job, and I’m about to take week’s holiday. This seems like an appropriate moment to reflect on how it’s been getting reacquainted with my new/old team.
Month 1
Successes
- My general sense of calm over the last month that tells me applying for this job, even if it felt early/ambitious, was the right thing to do.
- Successfully recruiting to a couple of vacant roles in our team, and onboarding others. I was worried when I started that the team was shrinking and this was going to put more pressure on already stretched people, but we (not just me! I’ve had lots of help) have managed to get back up to our usual running size quickly.
- I’ve set off on the right foot with open dialogue. I feel able to speak my mind, and the team are telling me their frustrations as well as the good stuff.
- I’ve managed to observe some primary research — 1 hour live and 1 hour on playback. A good start to my commitment to 2 hours every 6 weeks.
- Resetting my behaviour (and hopefully setting a good example) around working hours and regular breaks. In contrast to my previous time on Homes for Ukraine we’re no longer working at emergency pace — sustainability of individuals and teams is key to our further success.
- I’ve been getting exposure to budgeting and assurance stuff, which hasn’t been part of my previous roles, and in all likelihood I will see less of once our new Head of Delivery starts. This is great learning for me — it’s hard to get stuff done if you don’t know how the money works.
- I’m managing to get stuck in and contributing to conversations. I’m asking lots of newbie questions. My team have been kindly reminding me that I have time to settle in and most people take a few months to start adding value in a new role, but I’m not hanging around.
- Getting back into the writing habit. These notes are helping me process everything I’m consuming and learning and switch off at the end of the week.
Struggles
- The step up is a bigger adjustment day-to-day than I’d anticipated. I’m still finding where to pitch the level of detail I need to know — I need enough that I can shape our product strategy and back up the team when they’re not in the room, but I can’t do my job effectively if I hold onto every detail. I’m learning which questions to ask and which to leave.
- The cognitive load of a new job, even in a subject matter area I know well, is intense. I’m trying to keep up with lots of policy things that have similar names, and separate off the memories of things that were in place a year ago that have since changed.
- My timing to start a new job was not great. It’s not something we often get to choose — adverts come up on our employer’s schedule, not ours — but an August start was particularly difficult with extra band rehearsals (=extra tired) and key stakeholders away for summer who I’ve not been able to engage with early on.
- I’ve found myself being put on the spot in meetings for questions I don’t know the answer to, and possibly never will given the level of specificity. I’m having to get comfortable with being new again and saying ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I’ll have to ask the team’ or ‘we’ll get back to you on that’.
- I’m still working out what my job is and how to get the balance right between management stuff and product thinking; internal team matters and external engagement; maintaining our live services and looking to the future.
Month 2
Hopes
- Smooth onboarding of new team and new energy around the team
- Time to build and re-build relationships with policy and operational colleagues
- Headspace for goal setting and thinking about more formal/structured learning I want to do
Fears
- Being able to give my direct reports the energy and attention they each deserve individually when there will be more of them. To mitigate for this I’ll be asking what they need, not assuming each wants the same level of interaction.
- Potentially losing sight of something important in amongst all the moving parts of the programme. To mitigate for this I’ll be working in the open with the team, sharing what I’m seeing and thinking and asking what they’re seeing that I’m missing.
