I started at the Boston-based restaurant technology platform company/rocketship Toast, Inc., this month and was met with an initial surprise – one of the first things my boss told me was to not try to accomplish anything substantial any thing in the first 30 days!!

As a dyed-in-the-wool member of the GSD team, I was a bit uncomfortable initially. What do you mean don’t do anything? Didn’t you hire me to get stuff done?

As we explored what she meant, she offered me the opportunity of the first 30 days to get the lay of the land, meet 40+ people, learn about their jobs and responsibilities, get to know my team of 30 and gauge the current state of the teams. Having that freedom was fantastic! I still felt internal pressure from myself to make an impact quickly, but not having that initial external pressure was a great start and really allowed me to listen and learn.

The second thing she did with me was to point me to the “First 90 Days” framework, a book by Michael Watkins. For those transitioning into new leadership roles or starting a new gig, I highly recommend reading it. It is a great resource covers everything from preparing yourself for the new role, situational analysis approaches, negotiating what success, organizational alignment, creating alliances and accelerating change. It is a comprehensive book that I will definitely use again in the future with my leadership hires.

I am very much looking forward to my new opportunity at Toast and making an impact quickly and leveraging the first 90 day framework should give me a headstart on that!

What other tools/frameworks do you use to get going quickly at a new job?