(Photo Credit: Searsie)

Have you ever started a new role full of excitement and then a few weeks in wondered what on earth you had done? Perhaps you feel that way now? The initial enthusiasm after the interview process can sometimes wane as you start to feel out of your depth.
It puts me in mind of the poem by Stevie Smith ‘Not waving but Drowning’.

Perhaps, on the surface, you are putting on a brave face. Perhaps, if you don’t pro-actively do something differently during the rest of what could be thought of as your ‘transition’ period, the following lines from the poem may feel particularly apt in a month’s time:

I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

So what’s going on and what can you do about it?

1. Firstly, let’s assume that the recruiting team knew what they were doing and you are in the right role for this stage of your career.
2. Secondly, silence the voice in your head that reads that and says “but what if they were wrong? What if I AM out of my depth?”
3. Thirdly, consider that what is going on is exactly what you might expect – remember when you learned to drive? Before your first lesson you may have thought it was going to be fairly easy – you were confident because you knew many others that had succeeded and you didn’t know what you didn’t know (‘unconsciously incompetent’). Once you started to have lessons, you were much more aware of what was needed but still not able to drive without an instructor to guide you and you may have stalled the car or not been able to perform a hill start (‘consciously incompetent’). Gradually you became more able to drive effectively although there was still a lot to think about (‘consciously competent’). It’s the same with your new role. You are likely now at the point where you have become conscious about your own relative incompetence in certain aspects of the role but with some proactive steps, you can develop to the stage of being consciously competent.

(Photo Credit: Jaromir-Kavan)

The following 3 complementary strategies can help you keep afloat:

1. Setting the right conditions for success with a 90 day plan – following the advice of Michael Watkin’s book set up a plan to build relationships, set up support systems (coaches and mentors can help as part of this), set your team up for success, target low risk, high gain wins, establish a vision and ensure early activities fit with it, and learn from previous transitions
2. Setting yourself up skill/capability-wise – take a step back and review the facts rather than the stories in your head. Take stock of what has been going RIGHT. There will be some things that are. Evaluate your skill set, capabilities and experience against the role as you now understand it – work out where there is a good match and identify any gaps that you see. Reviewing the gaps, work out which one or two are the most critical to fill for you to be successful or to avoid de-railing. Then consider strategies to fill them – these can be shorter term and longer term. For example, if you have a knowledge gap in an area where critical decisions need to be made, who else can help in the short term while you build up your understanding?
3. Perfecting your mental preparation.
   1. Remember that ‘Life is an experience not a performance’ and if things don’t go quite as planned tell yourself ‘this is what it feels like to…’ in order to learn from the experience rather than berating yourself.
   2. Remind yourself of what success in this job means to you (not just what your boss or their boss might say) – if you look back 5 years from now, what will have been important about the way you conducted yourself in the role? Use this as your compass in times of stress to help you feel greater peace with decisions that you make.
   3. Give yourself the best chance of feeling calm and being able to think clearly by doing what works for you in terms of diet, sleep and getting into a ‘low energy, positive state’. For me this means taking short 15 minute walks to get into a positive mind-set if stuck with something – by the time I return to my desk I am ready to move forward again.

Finally, by taking your new role transition into your own hands, you will feel more in control and, as the days pass, you’ll become more confident in your ability to fulfil the role, just as you became more confident in driving in the past. In a few more weeks, with progress against the 3 areas above, and you’ll be waving with confidence, even in deep waters.