Tom Ferrari talks with a sales leadership expert about what new managers should do in their first 90 days. Spend week one observing, not commanding. Evaluate each person's fit and skills early. Confront bad behavior immediately rather than letting it fester.
Chapters
That is fantastic. And that is quite comprehensive in terms of a lens. Let's get tactical for a second and speak to the— we've got a number of first-time, second-time, third-time leaders, right? So people who are either a first-line or a second-line manager. What would be the list? What's the checklist of what you do in the first 90 days to set yourself up For success, for, to get beyond the, you know, 12 to 18 month tenure?
Well, so is it a CRO level? Are you saying?
No, I'm talking about first level and second level sales leaders or CROs of startups and scale-ups, because I was going to say often they become chief rotating officers because they don't last. Right.
Yeah. Yes. I think it's one of the hardest jobs, Pri. This, the reason is because of all the dynamics under, underneath that you're not always told when you take the job. So at the line leader level, you want— the first thing you have to do is earn the trust of your team without question. And if you come in and start commanding or barking orders, you lose them immediately. And so you have to learn who they are. You have to learn if they're in the right role. You have to learn if they have a core set of skills that are refinable. And you can do that in the first week just by spending time with them and not inspecting, but observing. And you know what good behavior— we all know what good behavior is. It's not very difficult. What we don't want to admit is when bad behavior is present, that it's really hard to fix it. So, we avoid it. And that's the biggest flaw when you start. Your first week is observation, integration, learning the team, and not doing too much, but building a little bit of trust that you're gonna help them do better.
