Your 90-Day New Job Plan: Priorities, Unofficial Roles, and Metrics

Setting Your Top Priority

• 🎯 Identify your single most important priority to avoid spreading yourself too thin, a common mistake that leads to inefficiency.
• 💡 Drawing parallels to military strategy, focus resources on the decisive point to achieve success.
• 🗺️ Sometimes, your top priority is explicitly assigned during the interview process, which is an advantage.
• 📊 In other cases, priorities may be less defined, requiring careful assessment of what truly matters.

Understanding Your Unofficial Job Description

• 📌 Recognize that job descriptions are incomplete; there are always unofficial duties that contribute to the company's mission.
• 🤝 Accept these unofficial tasks, especially in the first 90 days, rather than challenging them or trying to change them immediately.
• ⏳ Avoid spending early political capital on unofficial tasks that may not be critical or may be politically charged.
• 📝 Keep a personal record of these unofficial responsibilities as you discover them.

The Danger of "Not in My Job Description"

• ⚠️ Stating "it's not in my job description" is a detrimental phrase that signals a lack of commitment and understanding.
• 🚫 Even if technically true, such a statement can lead to negative perceptions and damage your professional reputation.
• 💡 Focus on contributing to the company's needs rather than adhering strictly to a written job description.

Establishing Clear Metrics

• 📈 Define measurable metrics for your role to track progress and demonstrate performance objectively.
• ❓ Many managers are frustrated by a lack of metrics but also relieved because it prevents them from being measured.
• 🏠 A company cannot expect internal parts to not be measured when the whole organization is measured.
• 🚀 Proactively propose metrics to your boss if they are not already defined; this demonstrates initiative and a commitment to performance.
• ✅ Even if your initial metric suggestions are incorrect, they open a valuable dialogue about expectations and performance measurement.