The first 30 days

- Congrats, you've got the job. How do you set yourself up for success now in the first 30 days? There is three R's I recommend focusing on, your role, your relationships, and your reputation. When it comes to your role, the first thing I recommend you do is articulate on a single page your responsibilities. Work with your CEO, make sure this list is stack ranked and prioritized so you know the core bull's eye of your responsibilities. And based on this, you can determine whether or not you're going to need a team as well. I've seen some larger organizations like at Microsoft for instance where the Chief of Staff will have an Office of the CEO, a team of individuals, because there are so many responsibilities on the plate. So once you have this document, you have to understand it's a living document. It's going to change over time, but at least you have a basis that you can point to. And that brings me to the second R, which is relationships. I recommend going on an introduction tour to meet with the rest of the executive team. One of the things that Jeff told me when I first started is while my title is Chief of Staff to the CEO, my job is to make the entire executive team more productive and successful, and so you have to form really productive relationships with the entire executive team. Take that one-pager you developed and share it with them. Make sure they understand your role, your background, your interest, who you are as a person, and that you do the same for them and that you learn about their world as well. You can ask them about what they think are improvement areas for the company and what's going well and you can also get their recommendations for who else in their teams you should be talking to and forming a relationship with. I would say don't forget about the other stakeholders as well, so for instance the Executive Assistant or EA to the CEO. At LinkedIn, I meet with our EA, Amy, every week for a one-on-one where we work together to figure out how we can best support Jeff, the CEO. Lastly, don't forget about the CEO. Make sure you have a weekly one-on-one with your CEO at least 30 minutes. I do mine on Monday mornings. It's the first thing that we do to make sure we're on the same page for the week ahead and that we are completely in sync on the priorities and the key projects that we're focused on. And finally, the third R is reputation. In the first 30 days, all eyes will be on you. People are going to be wondering who are you and what are you doing exactly, and so it's really important here to over communicate and over deliver in those first 30 days. I like to think about small early wins that you can generate and that you can celebrate, and not just you but also your CEO. Because the more you can point to these and the CEO can point to these, the more others will understand your role and the impact that you can have.