Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career. I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, and super excited, as always to be here with you again this week.

In today's episode, I'm going to lay out for you how to create a 90 day plan. Now, this is something that I talk a lot about inside of Executive Ahead of Time. And, of course, in my advanced program, The Leadership Table, because a lot of the corporate badasses in these groups are getting promoted pretty rapidly. And so, wenever you get a promotion or you land a new opportunity, you really want to think about your first 30-60-90 days in this new role. So it's inevitable that I talk about the 90 day plan.

And there's a book that's been written about this called The First 90 Days and a lot of the corporate badasses will refer to that book from a strategy standpoint. But today, I really want to lay out for you what my thinking is and my philosophy for these first 30-60-90 days in a new role. And the first thing I want to say to you is, I am always looking at how you're setting yourself up, yes, to be successful in this new role, yes to do a good job in this new role. But honestly, to get your next promotion and to get closer to your 3xed vision. And I think this is an incredibly important distinction. Because, how you're probably approaching your first 30 days at your new role, is from the 'being-a-good-employee-mindset'.

And you've heard me talk about a promotion is not a reward for your hard work. And even if your goal I mean, it seems very strange to think: when I first get a job to be thinking about my next job. To be thinking about where I'm headed next. This is a total break from your normal way of thinking, your normal way of being. And I want to acknowledge that because even if you go.

Into your first 30 days of a new role. Thinking about your 3xed vision the entire time, your first 30 days. If you just think about your 3xed vision during those first 30 days, you are going to approach those first 30 days drastically different than you would if you were just grateful to have a job. Just wanted to prove yourself in those first 30 days, wanted to do a "good job". Now, again, like I said, you don't want to screw up.

In the first 30 days. You don't want to do a bad job in those first 30 days. But at any point in your entire life. When you look at the big scope of your life span in that role, let's say if you end up. Being in that role for three years, the first 30 days is your opportunity to have the most wiggle room. I mean, truthfully, you have an opportunity to set up a foundation for the life span of not only this particular role, but how you're going to continue growing in your career.

So the first thing that I want you to do is to be thinking about those first 30 days of a new opportunity as laying the foundation for your next promotion. I'm going to say that again. The first 30 days of your new opportunity, lay the foundation for your next promotion. So put that thought into your head and ask yourself, even if you're in the middle of a roll, you're not in your first 30 days, ask yourself: what would I do differently if I was thinking about my next promotion versus just doing a "good job"?

And I'm just going to give you my answer. And I'm also very curious for you to truly think about what you would do differently is it's all about relationships. It's relationships. It's communication. It's creating a cadence. It's understanding. And when you are laying that foundation of relationships and communication and understanding. Understanding the role, understanding the organization. When you're laying that foundation in the first 30 days of your new job, you can't fail. You literally cannot fail.

So you're going to go in and I'll tell you again how this starts to shift in the next 60 and 90 days of your new role. But the first 30 days you're going to go into it with this assimilation mindset. You're going to have a certain level of criteria for your job. You're going to have output, you're going to have deliverables. You might have to have come up with strategy. Like there's going to be certain things that you have to do for your job. And I'm saying: go do that. We're not just sitting around, not doing any work. Of course you're going to. Do all of those things. But the best thing that you can do for the life span of your entire career in the first 30 days of a new role, is to build relationships, to build a cadence with executive leadership.

Now, here's the really fun part. Because you're new, you can use being new as an excuse to build relationships. So I come up with all kinds of excuses for my clients to schedule 15-Minute Ally Meetings. I'll tell them: tell them that you're in a coaching program. Tell them that you're trying something new or you can say: Hey, I'm new here. And I was wondering if I could schedule a check in with you? I want to get to know you because I'm new here.

Now, if you're listening to this and you're not new at your organization, you can still use this. It just looks a little bit more like: We haven't caught up in a while or I haven't had a chance to check-in with you. But when you are new, this is the absolute best time for you to say: I'd love to get to know you. So your goal for the first 30 days of a new opportunity is to assimilate with the organization, to build relationships, to create a cadence, and to understand the needs of your boss, your organization. And you're not going to be able to do that if you're just talking at them, if you're coming in trying to prove yourself. if you're coming in trying to do a "good job". And you're going to do a good job. You got hired in this role for a reason.

I have a woman inside of The Leadership Table now who had to hit the ground running. She got a new vice president role and she had to do immediate layoffs. She had to create a new strategy for her team out of the gate. They hired her to do that. And she has to do all of those things. And instead of saying: no, I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to assimilate in the first 30 days. That would not make sense. So she had to come in. That was part of her job, that she had to make some drastic changes. But also, part of her job in that 30 days is to take the time, even though you're doing the work to assimilate, to build those relationships, to have those side conversations, to create a cadence of relationship building in addition to check-ins with people about work.

Simon Sinek says trust is built between the meetings, not in the meeting itself. And what I mean by that is the bumping into somebody in the hallway. And so when I refer to meetings with people, we're going to do those 15-Minute Ally Meetings, like bumping into someone in the hallway. The only reason that we have to do it in a meeting format is because we don't have the luxury of bumping into people in the hallway anymore. And personally, I feel like that's not really a strategy. That's just an accident that happens. And so we're going to do it purposefully through 15-Minute Ally Meetings.

But in those meetings we're building trust. We're understanding them, you're going to be in those first 30 days doing more listening and asking questions than you're going to do any talking about yourself. It's much more important for you to understand what is actually happening at the organization so that when you get to the 60 day mark, you can start to create that strategy. So I'll talk more about that in a minute, but I want to tell you a caveat here before you start to think: Oh, yeah, I'm already doing that, and that's a lot of organizations, which is awesome. Their human resources department will create a meet and greet schedule for you, which is fantastic. I love that they're doing this and I think it's a great idea. But the problem is that every organization sees these quick check-ins differently than how I'm describing them. So it's going to require a little bit of effort on your part to do these meetings slightly differently. Because what's happening when they're giving you this checklist of people to meet with, they're meaning it like a standard meet and greet, which means that person is going to tell you about their work experience. You're going to tell them about your work experience, and then you might talk about some projects that you could do together, and then you're going to move on and so you're going to do that rinse and repeat with maybe 8 to 10 people that human resources has sent you the connections to do that with and that could seem like you're assimilating because you know more about that person. But truthfully you could have gathered that information from their bio on your company website.

And I'm not saying that those meetings are bad. Because I think they're good. They are important. We need to at least know who's the person behind the title that will be working with. We need to actually see them. Especially if we're not physically in the office. We need to know who they are. And so that meeting is important, but these assimilation meetings are totally different than that.

When you start to schedule these meetings, people are not going to know what you're talking about. They're not going to be used to having these get-to-know-you sessions. It's going to feel a little bit unique and different. But that's okay. Because, not only are you establishing trust like: I know you, I get you, I understand you. But you're showing them that you mean business. That you're here to do things different. That you're an executive leader no matter what title you have. So you're walking into these conversations asking solid questions, about their leadership, about the obstacles that their team is facing. You're getting to know them as an executive leader and as a person who has created this leadership role for themselves. They didn't come out of a box, out of a vacuum, they worked somewhere else. They have expectations. They have an understanding of the organization. They know what the obstacles are. So this type of conversation is going to go so much farther than just one of those standard: here's my resume. This is what I'm working on. Here's your resume. This is what you're working on. Okay, great. Yeah. I'll see you on Tuesday in our group meeting. You're showing up differently. So in those first 30 days, you're creating this amazing cadence, this beautiful foundation, for the rest of your career. Literally the rest of your career.

Then in the next 60 days, you're going to start to put together a strategy. So you're coming up with your own ideas, but you're basing it on the conversations that you had with everyone. So you're going to find yourself transitioning from assimilating understanding. Being able to gather information into being able to actually offer your own advice. So you're going to have follow up conversations with some of the people to reiterate, to say: this is what I hear, this is what I'm seeing. Is this true? Is this what you meant by X, Y, Z? You're going to be having conversations with your boss to now understand how your ideas fit into what everybody else at the company is already telling you.

So you're going to say: Hey, I met with Jim and Jim was talking about this challenge. Is that similar to the challenge that you're facing? By this point in the first 60 days, you should have a really clear understanding of what your boss cares about, what keeps your boss up at night. Not in terms of the project, but in terms of their own leadership. How you can really help to make their job easier.

So this is coming out of what you learned in the first 30 days. It's not coming out of your brilliant brain. And because you had all these really great ideas and you knew you were going to knock tis job out of the park in your interview process. And you're so super smart. All of those things are really, really important. And again, that's your day job. But if you are really, not only building those relationships in the first 30 days, but then listening and putting those relationships into an actual strategy, what you're learning and startin to really engage in partnerships with people in those next 60 days, can you see how this is setting you up for your next promotion?

You're already showing up as this executive leader, this Executive Ahead of Time. Like I said, regardless of your title, you can be a senior manager and still do it exactly as I'm talking about. You're showing them that you want to grow. That you really have the capability to build this team. To grow with this team long term. You mean business. This is something that you're serious about. You're wanting to lay this strong foundation and not just come in out of the gate doing the work and and checking off boxes.

Then by the the 90 day mark, now you actually hve a strategy that you're starting to implement. And at that point, it's all about partnerships so who can I partner with? Who are my allies? Who are the people that I have those rock solid relationships with? You've created this cadence, so you look back at your first 30 days and you said: Okay. Who are those people that I need to have regular leadership check-ins, not just project check-ins with, but what are those executives that really stand out to me that are the key influencers or the people that I just get along well with? And I want to continue to learn from them and grow with them as an executive leader. I want to build this next-level relationship with them. So you're putting all of those pieces together and because you're, actually by the time you get to three months, you have already executed on some job requirements. You're starting to learn what's working for you. What feels good? Am I burning out? Am I getting myself into the weeds? Or am I doing things differently? Do I feel supported? Do I feel like I'm welcomed here and I'm not constantly having to prove myself.

So during those first 30-60-90 days, we're thinking about being in this role or this company or this organization for the long term. How can we build those relationships so that they continue to blossom and grow forever? So this is the foundation that you're setting in those first 30 to 60 to 90 days. And I'll iterate again that this is up to you. You create this 30-60-90 day plan separate from what the organization gives you.

So another piece of your job is that you're going to have to create a 30-60-90 day plan for your boss. For your job. And there are pieces of this plan that you can put into what you actually communicate with your boss. If your boss literally asks you what's your 30-60-90 day plan for this new role? I would not say: Well, my first 30 days I'm going to listen. And then the second 60 days is I'm going to put that into a strategy. And then by 90 days, I'm going to then be able to execute with partnerships. You can you can say aspects of that, but they don't care so much about your career building strategy as much as they care about whether or not you're going to be able to execute on your role.

So understanding what those dynamics are, what the 30-60-90 day plan is in their language, is going to also be key. And the first thing that I'll say to that is that ask them what are their expectations for the first 30-60-90 days? How would they roll out a 30-60-90 day plan? And then you start to be able to put that together for yourself. But as you start this new role and like I said, I get asked this all the time by my corporate badasses because they're always starting new opportunities, whether it's a promotion internally or externally, and they're always thinking about that long term career strategy.

So essentially it begins with assimilation. And you don't want to skip over this part. And if for some reason you're already into the 60, 90 day mark, or maybe the five year mark, and you realize you never got to know people at your company, you never took the time to listen, you never took the time to build those relationships in between the meetings, go back, do it today. This can be done any time, anywhere, but it is the most important, foundational piece for the rest of your career.

Alright. Good luck, everyone. I am so excited to hear about your 30-60-90 day plan. Let me know how it's going and I'll see you next week.

Bye!