Situations · Workplace
When a new boss is parachuted in, find out what they were sent to do, whom they listen to, and what they must deliver in ninety days, then become the person they need.
In the first ninety days, a parachuted-in boss needs not loyalty but people who help them see the situation clearly and deliver a first result. Find out what they were sent to do before choosing your place in it.
The order of judgement is: what problem the people above sent them to solve, whom they will learn about the team from, and what they must show upward in ninety days.
The right move is to give them early a piece of factual ground they cannot get on their own, rather than a declaration of allegiance, while keeping your relationships in the old team. Those who pick sides are often the first cleared out once the new boss is secure.
Also searching for: new boss parachuted in what to do · how to deal with a new manager from outside · new boss brought in over me · how to work with a new boss first 90 days
Reporting intensively in week one and volunteering the previous boss's failings. The new boss files you as an opportunist, and your old colleagues stop trusting you.
Letting them make the first move. In the first ninety days they define the team by the people they meet. If you do not appear, you are defined as background.
We never did it that way. To a new boss this is a resistance signal, and the reason they were sent is often precisely to change the way it was done.
Assuming they came to preserve when they came to consolidate or cut. If the mandate is misread, every position you take is wrong.
Look at their background and recent moves above them: growth, consolidation, cutting, or replacing people. The appointment itself is the biggest piece of information, and their first all-hands confirms it.
Whom they met one-on-one in the first two weeks, whom they brought with them, whom they eat lunch with. Those are their information channels, and your information must travel through one of them.
A parachuted-in boss usually carries a specific short-term promise. Find that promise; the part you can help with is your place.
The Art of War, chapter 8, Variation in Tactics
The wise leader weighs advantage and harm together.
Sun Tzu says the wise consider gain and loss at the same time. When a new boss arrives, picking a side gains immediate visibility and risks losing the old team and being seen as an opportunist; waiting gains safety and risks being defined as background. Only with both sides counted do you know when and how to appear.
In the first one-on-one, bring a list of the team's real bottlenecks and one thing you can move immediately. Do not judge the predecessor; state facts and the part you can do.
First find out where your area sits after consolidation. If it is core, help them make the transition clean. If it is peripheral, learn the direction early and secure a defined role in the new structure.
Do not compete with them and do not isolate them. Find one task that needs your local knowledge and their new methods together, and build the bridge yourself. Being the interface both sides need is steadier than belonging to either side.
Tell the strategist the new boss's background, recent moves above them, whom they met in the first two weeks, and your current role.
The strategist first judges whether the mandate is growth, consolidation, or cutting, then looks at what facts you can provide and where you might sit in the new structure.
You leave with an action card: the one-page material to bring to the first one-on-one, and a signal that tells you when to adjust your position.
This page covers the order of judgement. Your own situation, opponent, and resources are worked through with the strategist in the app.
Get the app and run your situationYes, in week two or three, after their first round of conversations. Bring one page: what you own, the biggest current risk, and the one thing you think they most need to know. No judgements, no asks.
Listen, but do not join in. What you can say is: let us see what they do in the first quarter. Neither side with the complaints nor defend the new boss.
Their people have new methods but no local knowledge, which is exactly your value. Take on one task that needs both, and it works far better than competing for favour.
Execute for three months before judging; most new directions look unreasonable in the first quarter. If you still disagree after three months, raise it with facts from execution rather than predictions. If that fails too, then consider whether to stay.
Workplace · When another department will not cooperate, look at what they are measured on and what your request costs them, then decide whether to change the exchange, escalate, or go around.
Workplace · When your boss will not take your advice, find out what they are accountable for and what they fear, then rewrite the proposal into something they can defend upward.
Workplace · When someone takes credit for your work, separate one-off from pattern and peer from manager, then decide whether to add a record, have a direct conversation, or change how you work.
Workplace · When you and a colleague are up for the same role, find out who decides, what they measure, and what the role requires, then decide where to put your effort.
This page covers management judgement only and is not HR or legal advice. Do not use Sun Tzu's language to justify manipulation, informing on colleagues, or harming them. Compliance concerns during reorganizations belong in your company's formal channels.