New Team

A couple of times in my career, I have had to take over for an existing team. This can be a difficult time for the people that I'm a new manager for; it's important that trust be established quickly.

Things that have worked for me:

• Have regular 1-on-1s with the whole team, even if they aren't direct reports. This can work especially well if the team is small. Eventually, scale back on skip-level reports, but still meet with them on a regular basis (monthly, every six weeks, etc).
• In the initial meeting:
  • Ask each person what they are most proud of to date, and how those successes have impacted the team
  • Ask what their concerns about me coming into this new roleare, and what I can do to mitigate those concerns
  • Find out about their families, hobbies, likes, dislikes
  • How do they prefer to get feedback?