What's your typical game plan for understanding the culture/politics at your new organization? Are there any reliable strategies you've found to grasp those dynamics quickly?
Sort by:
Gartner has a really good document about the first 100 days in the role of CIO/CISO. Those help a lot.
I went through the process last year when I started my current organization after 20 years at my old place, and yeah things are different. Very different. Remind yourself daily that the new place is not the old place, and stop comparing all the time. I did that a lot in the beginning and I am sure it was annoying for my staff and coworkers.
Start by talking to your team. I met with all my direct reports, and I really tried to find out what we were doing well, what they perceived as challenges, and what we could do better in their mind. I have a lot of veteran staff on my team that have been here for 10+ years so they know a lot. Try to figure out who you have a connection with and who has a lot of organizational history to help you understand how decision were made that lead you to where the organization is today.
I put together a 90 day report for my manager on my own as well, so they would understand a little bit about what I saw, what I thought, and what I thought some of my priorities should be. I think it shows self initiative, and shows a little bit of what you learned.
Ultimately, you need to find out who the key players are. You probably know that already from your interview process, or previous job experience, but set up meetings with those people, or have 1:1 meetings with the people who were on your interview panel.
Finally, find the other key resources in IT that you need to work with. For me the biggest allies have been the budget people, and our application support people. Without them there is no way I could have been successful.
Talk to your boss, and ask questions, and try to be observant on what is going on politically. You'll start picking up dynamics pretty quickly.
Active Listening and Pattern Recognition
My go-to strategy is structured active listening—asking the same open-ended questions to diverse stakeholders across levels, then mapping the contradictions between their answers. This reveals hidden power structures and cultural fault lines. I supplement this with observation of meeting dynamics and social rituals to identify unspoken rules—like whether consensus or top-down decisions drive progress.