Many people begin a new chapter of their lives at a new company. They arrive full of energy, ready to change and improve. They spot something wrong and try to stop it. They spot something that worked at their old company and try to copy it here.
The usual result is the opposite of what they intended: the change fails, friction builds with the people who were there before them, and a gap starts to grow between them. It is a pattern I have seen repeat many times across more than 20 years of work.
Why the old playbook fails
This person earned real experience and a real reputation in their old place. So when they move, they try to transplant what was working perfectly well there, forgetting that the new company is different in almost every way: a different environment, different management, a different field, different customers, different pricing, a different business model, different people, a different job description, and much more.
The same action does not produce the same result when everything around it has changed.
A lesson from a science textbook
I was helping my daughter with her science homework, and we came across a lesson many people overlook. When you run an experiment, you must hold all the other variables constant. You do not change one thing, leave everything else different, and still expect the same outcome just because it worked somewhere else.
What is true in science is true in management. Do not try something and assume it will work simply because it worked in another place. Study all the variables before you apply anything.
Spend your first 3 months learning
Make your first three months at a new job about learning. Even from the most junior person on the team.
That employee you see as "junior," the one who has been at the company for five years, has five years more experience than you in its environment, its people, and how the work actually gets done. Your experience here, for now, is zero. Once you have learned the ins and outs, the unwritten rules of the company and the field, then you can start testing what you learned before, after adapting it to fit the new place.
How to run an experiment that works
When you are finally ready to change something, raise your odds of success by making the experiment clear to everyone involved:
- A shared goal. Everyone understands and is bought into the purpose of the experiment.
- A clear target. What you are trying to improve is obvious to the whole team.
- A clear duration. For example, we try it for two weeks, then we review.
- A clear scope. We test in one branch, or with one customer.
- A clear budget. It does not exceed an agreed amount.
When the goal is clear, the scope is clear, and everything else is clear, evaluating the experiment afterward becomes easy: you stop it, adjust it, or roll it out across the company.
And the most important part: do all of this with your team beside you, step by step. Because without them, no matter your authority, you will not succeed.
So before you change anything in your new company, ask yourself one honest question: in your first 90 days, are you applying, or are you learning?
I have spent more than 20 years across companies of every age and size, and I have seen how the same good idea succeeds in one place and fails in another. If you are stepping into a new role, or bringing someone senior into your team, you can submit a request and tell me what you are dealing with. No commitment, just an honest conversation.