The Top 10 Things I’ve Learned in My First 30 Days
Because people love lists and loath dissertation, I’ve decided best to list the top ten things I’ve learned in my first 30 days running innovation and partnerships at a global real estate company.
Originally posted here on Medium with additional photos
The Top Ten Things I’ve Observed in my First 30 Days:
1) The Best Leaders say to their employees, “Tell me how I can be helpful to you” and then give their employees the freedom to solve problems — with the leader as a resource to be called in for air support.
2) A company that says “We’re lucky to have you” will outlast companies that tell their employees that “they’re lucky to have jobs”
3) It takes a strong stomach and mental fortitude getting comfortable struggling to define the answer when asked “What do you do here?”
4) Building social capital and understanding the connection points and organizational “pipe-work” of the organization is more important then trying to solve any problem at the onset.
5) How to speak outwardly about your company, its history and its purpose by observing your other executives and the way they wave the company flag is paramount for brand building.
6) Drawing mental maps of how a company’s flywheel spins and how hand-off and overlapping baton passes looks is critical to seeing where efficiencies can be identified at the company.
7) You don’t need to know how to read an MEP set, perform an Argus run, how to price a GMP or perform an energy audit BUT you do need to know who does and how to ask them for help to solve problems.
8) Asking as many basic questions as needed early is much better then waiting until you feel more comfortable and your tenure clock is ticking up.
9) Over-communicating and then scaling back is better then under communicating and then trying to make up lost ground.
10) Don’t mess with the snack purchasing decisions, newbie– Oh, and take the time to get to know your property managers, they live and breathe the assets and can uncover serious value.