A new manager arrives. By the second week there is a new report, a new meeting and a new way of doing call plans.
The team smiles, nods, and waits for it to pass.
I understand the pressure. You want to show you were the right choice. But change made before you understand the team usually fixes the wrong things.
Michael Watkins' The First 90 Days makes the case well: learn fast first, secure early wins, then drive the bigger changes. For a first-line manager, that looks something like this:
Meet every rep one to one. Two questions: what works here, and what gets in your way? Listen more than you speak.
Spend days in the field. A field day with every rep before any big decision. The territory always looks different from the car park than from the spreadsheet.
Find one early win. Fix one problem the whole team keeps raising. It shows you listened, and trust grows when a promise is kept.
Then change what matters. Share what you learnt, and agree the changes together.
The team will accept a lot more change from a manager who clearly listened first.
“Earn the right to change things by learning them first.”
Lesson 2 of 5 in Step 1: Becoming a manager, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.