In this interesting TED Talk, Arnon Kraft shares his insights on how planning out the first 90 days of starting something new can lead to ongoing success.
To start with it’s worth noting what Arnon shares as not being successful within the context of starting a new job:
- Hide & Seek – The people that bunker down and don’t engage or interact with others.
- I’m still new… – Those people that play this ‘card’ way longer than what they should.
- Nostalgic – Forever living in the past of what they did in other roles. Maybe sharing what did or didn’t work in those roles but not offering any value add solutions to current challenges.
- Superheroes – Knowing everything and having all the answers even though they don’t understand the full picture of what is in front of them.
Starting something new requires us to get out of our comfort zone. So it’s easy to see how you can slip into one (or more) of these categories. They are the comfortable options. However if we take on any of these personas, it will not to help us in 3 key areas that are likely to determine our long term success.
- Reputation – Every time you start something new you need to build up a reputation. This takes time and hard work.
- Commitment & Purpose – You need to have a purpose and drive to make things happen.
- Culture – Is the ‘how to fit in’ and how to be part of the team.
How can you build these into the first 90 days of starting something new? Rather than improvising as many people do, you should have a plan.
The first 30 days
Listen and observe. Take in as much data as you can. Who is doing what? How are they doing it? How are decisions being made? What are the important things that people are prioritising. Every piece of information is important.
The second 30 days
Understand and make sense of all that data you have been consuming. Really drill down into the ‘why’. What are the problems and challenges that people are facing and causing them to make the decisions that they are making.
The third 30 days
Is all about creating. It’s not possible to solve all the problems of the world in 90 days. But you can start to add some value. Start creating some little wins and build some momentum.
Summary
Prior planning can make all the difference in starting something new. Use this mini template the next time you start a new endeavour to help you along the way. Some might substitute ‘term 1, term 2 & term 3’ instead of each of the 30 day blocks. The key is to PLAN.
Watch this 17-minute TED Talk to hear Arnon step through this planning process in his own words.
Want to watch even more TED Talks we have shared. Check them all out here.
