94: First 30 Days with Alyssa Percell

Charlotte Ward 0:13
Hello, and welcome to Episode 94 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 this week. Alyssa PErcell, Alyssa it’s lovely to have you back after such a long time. Actually, it’s been a few months since we last spoke. But times have changed for you haven’t they? And we’re here today to talk about we’re here today to talk about first 30 days in a new role. So I would love to hear what your thoughts are there as we each of us take on a new to us role.

Alyssa Percell 1:01
Yeah, absolutely. I thank you for having me back. It’s such a pleasure. We always have a good time no matter what. So I really appreciate it. And so recently, I’ve actually accepted a position as a director of support for a new startup. You know, I think starting a new job is a stressful thing, you know, and from the minute you know that you’re signing the offer, you begin to start to think about how do I want to approach my professional brand? Like, what does success look like in the role within the first 30 days? How can I make an impact and a positive impression? And to be honest, I think the best thing that you can do for yourself and approaching a new position is give yourself some patience. That’s something that I’ve learned over time and something that I’m not always great about is you and me both You kind of have to give yourself a deep breath. And congratulations to accepting and stepping into the next challenge in your career. And know that no matter how much time you may spend worrying or planning or thinking about the role before you even start, it may be entirely different from what you had initially expected. Success is a combination of bringing in your skill set and wanting to hit the ground running, but also having the humility and the understanding that it’s so important to first focus on building relationships, and getting an understanding of the business. So even if I wanted to sit here and tell you here are the 30 things that I would do in my first 30 days. I honestly don’t know and tell I’m sitting in the role and I get time with the people who have been the product experts and leading the team. And I definitely have some ideas on projects and priorities that I’d love to talk But I think the first 30 days is really about finding your footing and focusing on developing relationships. The key to success in your career is not about what you can accomplish independently. It’s about how you can work collaboratively with others in the ecosystem of a company.

Charlotte Ward 3:19
I totally heard you when you said that, you know, you already have an idea of the things that you would like to do. Yeah, when we get that job offer, we’ve had, you know, what, three to six conversations? I had nine at one. Right. That, you know, we’ve had several conversations probably with people that are at different layers or different parts of the business. They all know what they’re interviewing you for. Yeah. very willing to talk to you about their challenges and issues that and they’re there to understand what problems are there as you’re going to solve right? Should they lie to you Through those conversations, we feel we have something of an understanding of the role we’re stepping into, right?

Unknown Speaker 4:06
But you never know until you’re in it, right? You get a snapshot of it. And that’s kind of what helps you and you become so excited and you’re like I’m going to lean in since challenges I’m so energised, and that maintains through starting a job, but you get a little combination of reality. As that begins my primary focus and starting a new position, especially from a leadership perspective, is really focusing on setting up expectations for relationships. relationships, as I already mentioned, are so important and I’ll never forget the first time I became a people manager. I was recommended this book called managing up and managing down it’s and it had this idea of when you meet somebody new, whether they’re your manager or you’re managing them First thing that you should do is have a level setting conversation to a degree. I don’t like to get too busy in a first conversation, but I love to just get to know one another. So I try to come to it, knowing that it’s not about me standing on a platform and sharing my testimonial. It’s about finding out what is that middle ground and really opening myself up to understanding them. I love to understand where you coming from, what’s your favourite communication style? How do you like to be updated? And I find through that conversation, you can get to know somebody on a more personal level, but you’re also setting expectations just through a free flowing conversation. If you approach it like that, from the beginning, you’re gonna have just so much of a greater understanding of one another and a greater respect, because you’re approaching the relationship with purpose and intent and like, obviously expressing how much you care you know I find that helps set relationships up for success and your first 30 days, there’s not going to be a lot that you can deliver on, let’s be honest about in your first 30 days, take a deep breath, learn as much as you can be organised and develop relationships. Like that’s the best that you can do without putting yourself under enormous pressure because it’s already you know, high pressure starting a new job. And you just want room to be yourself. If you’re so worried about delivering within your first 30 days, you’re not going to make space to be your authentic you.

Charlotte Ward 6:40
That’s it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com/94 for the show notes and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai