If you haven't already learned what your employer ranks as highest in priority for you in filling the post, this is a good time to find out. Try to do this as quickly as possible, because it's your insurance that you will get off to a successful start in your boss's eyes.
You should also ask for your own copy of departmental policies and procedures, organization chart, and job descriptions. Ask about regularly held meetings, who calls them, who attends, who sets the agenda, and so on. Find out where you are expected to eat on a regular basis and with whom.
Obtain an agenda for the projects that are expected of you. At the same time, ask to set target dates for preliminary evaluations rather than wait for formally scheduled reviews. Invite your boss to brief you on each person who reports to you. He or she may not have been able to go into detail about them before you were hired, but you will need to know now. Ask what functions each one performs and find out about any duties that the person may have assumed or may be carrying out that are not shown in the job description or on the organization chart.
You can also ask about the availability of supplies, equipment, and even furniture if you need it. Again, a note of caution: Go for the highest-ranking symbols your boss will let you have, but don't select anything that is parallel to, or above, whatever he or she has.
If you have a private secretary, arrange to meet him or her—before you meet your staff, if possible. To insure your mutual survival, your secretary may be willing and able to fill you in on things your boss may not have mentioned. Be careful here, too, however. Your secretary may still harbor a loyalty to someone who was moved into a higher position or is now your equal in another function. As a result, the secretary could be a conduit directly to this person. Such a situation could work to your advantage or to your detriment.
Stress loyalty—your secretary's to you—right from the start. A secretary whose former boss was fired may welcome you or may resent you. Be cautious until you find out which. If you felt that you were the knight in shining armor when you strode confidently into the building, you may now begin to wonder if you are perceived by some to be the enemy. Neither is likely to be totally true. For some, you may be the answer to a dream; for others, you may be a nightmare of historic proportions. Most will regard you as neutral until the game begins in earnest and the chips begin to stack up in front of the players.
Visiting with Staff
When it comes time to visit with members of your department, whether your staff or your superiors, everyone will want to check you out. This may not be done as blatantly as a pack of dogs eye a newcomer, but it has some of the same overtones. They will want to know where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, whom you’ve done it with, and more. And all the while, they will try to determine whether to accept you, where you might fit in the hierarchy (often despite what the organizational chart says), and how they should relate to you.
In the days and weeks to come, they will check you out even further. Some will ally with you; others may try to test you; and one or two may even try to challenge you. Now, we can put as genteel a face as we like on all this, but it comes down to the same issue: Will you be accepted or will you not? There must be some significance behind the phrase, "It's a dog-eat-dog world," that we hear so often.
How you handle this will be a matter of your own personal style as much as anything else and strategies for successful survival on the job go well beyond. As we said earlier, however, first impressions can carry forward with you, so make certain they're the ones that will serve you best.
