92: First 30 Days with Lauren Rose Eimers

Charlotte Ward 0:13
Hello, and welcome to Episode 92 of the customer support leaders podcast. I’m Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is the first 30 days in your new role. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I’d like to welcome back to the podcast today Lauren Rose Eimers. Lauren, it’s lovely to have you back.

Lauren Rose Eimers 0:38
Thank you so much for having me again.

Charlotte Ward 0:40
So Lauren, the topic of this week is first 30 days in a new role. And there are I think, perhaps slightly different things we need to consider here, whether it’s the first 30 days in leadership at all or whether it’s first 30 days in a new to you kind of support leadership role.

Lauren Rose Eimers 0:58
I think The key thing to do is listen, be a sponge, listen, absorb as much as you can, if you are in a completely new ecosystem, because of course, you need to figure out who you’re going to be reporting to who is reporting to you, who is your team, existing issues, issues yet to be seen or solved. I mean, there, there are just so many things when moving into just a new place, that I think the first 30 days, the best thing you can return to is to listen if you are already in an organisation, and let’s say you’re promoted from within. I think listening is also an important piece because your issues and what problems you’re going to be solving for are going to be different in a different role. So I think, if you’ve already got that strong base of who your company is, who you’re working for, who your customers are, who your teammates are, I think at that point, if you’re figuring out You roll, you first need to look to the leaders that you admire. And they could be within your organisation, they can be outside of your organisation. I know there’s a book circulating around, I think it’s called the first 90 days, I read it, and it had some great pieces of advice, but it also seems like very cutthroat, find your allies and figure out who you know who you can and who you cannot trust. And I kind of want to wipe that from the board. And let’s just assume that you have accepted a position or you are working for a company that you truly like, and there aren’t people that you have to watch out for. But I think looking at the leaders who you want to grow into the skill set that you want to aspire to. I think these are great things to start to look at in those first 30 days. Maybe it’s how you run your meetings. Maybe you’ve never run a meeting before. So I would say you know, reach out to the leader that you have And ask them how they run their meetings. Maybe it’s how your workflow works for the day, are you going to be someone who time boxes, these are different kinds of workflows and ways that you can kind of try on in that first 30 days, and see if that works for you. I know there’s also a school of thought saying, well, you have to get some quick wins in by that 30 day mark, like you’ve got to put some new initiatives in play and have some quick wins to get people on your team. I don’t know what you feel about how you feel about that. Charlotte? Yeah, I know,

Charlotte Ward 3:32
I think I think the basic advice, the listener advice is really, really crucial. And actually, you know, I’m a doer by nature. And I think that I struggle whenever I step into a role to want to do things really quickly, and I just want to pick up the hammer and start fixing things right. But I have to remind myself and actually have to be okay with telling the people around me as well, but I’m not going to achieve anything by 30 Because anything I achieved by 30 days is probably going to be pretty arbitrary, right?

Lauren Rose Eimers 4:05
Yeah, one of my mentors told me the best raise you can have as a new leader is, I don’t know, that I can find out. So being able to be honest and transparent with your team and not be this omnipotent, omniscient. I’m this big leader. And I know everything, like showing your humanity and your fallibility is actually an amazing way to build rapport with your team and also be transparent. So saying, I don’t know, but I can find out is an amazing way for you to impart that. The second piece to that though, is you better follow through, you better find out you better figure things out, right. I was once asked, What would I tell my formulas for myself on day one,

Charlotte Ward 4:48
what, you know, what would what did I wish I knew back then, and I said if I had the opportunity, I thought about all the day ones particularly that I’ve had in my career in new roles. The single piece of advice that I felt I could distil it to was, nothing is as simple as it seems right now. Because you don’t know everything you’re gonna in any organisation, you are going to uncover problems. And you’re going to uncover egos and you’re gonna uncover relationship issues with your peers or, you know, your boss or your team or whatever. And they’re all complications that you can’t see on day one. And frankly, you’re lucky if you uncover some of those over the first 30 days. I think even with all that listening, though, I agree. Yeah, nothing is ever as simple as it seems at the start.

Lauren Rose Eimers 5:41
Now, I think that’s such valuable advice and in the grand scheme of things, 30 days is such a short time to really dig in and get to know your role and start to get your sea legs. And I think especially as women in tech, I definitely think that first 30 days is infused with that imposter syndrome where you’re constantly Questioning like, why did they hire me? Like, who did I trick to get this job and you have to pedal pedal that back and remind yourself that you probably were overqualified because it research shows women won’t even apply for a job unless we meet every single line item on that job listing and then some. So I think the imposter syndrome, you’re going to have to just make friends with it and say, hey, you’re you’re going to be sitting copilot on this journey with me and then before you know it, you’re going to be on this journey by yourself that imposter syndrome will fall away. I can’t promise it’s gonna happen in that first 30 days though.

Charlotte Ward 6:40
That’s it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com/92 for the show notes, and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai