When the Job Changes on You: How to Reframe, Communicate, and Realign
In a new role, sometimes your mandate shifts – priorities change, new information surfaces – here’s how to manage expectations.
Starting a new role is never easy, but starting one that changes as you start is even harder. Often, we go in with a clear picture of what we are expected to do – the job description, conversations with your manager, shared ambitions from stakeholders – these all contribute to what we think we are doing.
However, once in role, things can shift – new information comes up, priorities are uncovered, capabilities are assessed – and all the sudden what we thought we would be doing is not what we need to be doing.
For instance:
You might find that a roadmap for the company strategy does not include your role or alternatively, includes your role but with unrealistic expectations.
You might find that your team is under resourced and may not be able to achieve what was agreed upon when you started.
The idea here is, the reality is different from the theory – you started on based on the theory of what was possible, now you’re facing the reality of the job.
A helpful approach to this challenge is to actively manage expectations – with your boss, your team, and any others who are relying on your work.
Managing expectations is helped by continuous awareness, good communication, and partnership. You want to maintain continuous awareness with critical stakeholders (i.e., your boss, team, etc.) about the reality and how it is shifting your mandate.
To create awareness, you want to maintain good communication – to be transparent about what you are learning and how it’s impacting direction.
Through this process, you can develop strong partnerships – by bringing folks into your process of updating, they can share input, offer advice, and you can create buy-in. That is, people need to know that things are shifting, what’s shifting, and be allowed to contribute to the process of revision.
Things may be shifting underneath you, but you can align people on the updated reality and set yourself and the team up for success – whatever that revision may look like.