While you're at this, try to find out about what Bradt calls "shadow metrics" in the organization you're joining, meaning key measures of how things are going that may not be evident at first glance: "What are the key measures of success along the way? How are they tracked, and how can you get access to them?"
3. Craft your message. How are you going to present your ideas -- the ones you believe got you hired -- on where the business needs to go from here? "Part of preparing to lead is thinking through the messages you want to send, right down to details like whether your office setup will be informal and open-door or more formal and structured," Bradt says. People will be watching closely and talking to each other about you, he adds: "Everything communicates, and not always what you intended, so be careful."
4. Start making a hundred-day plan. The knowledge you gather before you officially start "should help you begin to put things in context and decide what you want or need to do on your first day, during your first week, and in your first three months," says Bradt. "It's important not so much to learn everything there is to know before you show up, which would be impossible anyway, but to have a plan in place to learn more."
Granted, this is a lot of work. "People tend to resist doing all this because there's usually a time squeeze involved in changing jobs, where your old employer wants you to stay as long as possible, and your new one wants to rush your start date," Bradt notes.
"It's also very common to want to take at least a short vacation to rest and recharge between jobs," he adds. But tempting as it might be to sit on a beach and unwind for a few days, if you really want to start strong, you just haven't got time.
Talkback: What helped you most in starting a new management job? If you've ever had a new boss come in from outside the company, what did he or she do well at the start, and what do you wish had gone differently? Leave a comment below.
