Since I’ll be doing the same in less than a month, this kind of advice is precious to me. Obviously, the advice the person below offers goes along with a million other pieces of critical advice and wisdom. You could literally fill a book with all the great advice folks have to offer about your first day, first week, first month on the job…and someone probably has.

The advice offered by my out-of-state colleague below, though, fleshes out several of the tips (#s 1-3) offered in my first things first blog entry. Those tips essentially involve speaking to departments, campuses, and documenting the conversations. However, aside from some general advice, there isn’t much said in particular. My colleague provides very specific advice, such as the following:

When I first started here I scheduled individual conversations with every administrator and technology person, as well as a few teachers who were identified as very interested and “high end” users. I had good conversations and took lots of notes, and I also asked every one of them to identify “2 stars and a wish” – 2 things we were doing really well on and one thing we could do  (or do better) that would really impact their school. I mentioned their “stars” when I spoke at School Committee meetings or other events to make sure they heard that I valued their existing successes, even though they might be small, or things I didn’t think were necessarily stars. I managed to find something in them that I could praise. Then, I used the “wish” list so that during that first year I made headway (at least some progress) on every item. This is part of my building relationships strategy – people want to know you care before they care about what you know. So working on their wishes showed I listened and made what they cared about a priority for me, which showed I cared. 

People build relationships in different ways – some by chatting and going to lunch and connecting about personal topics, and others tend to work more through shared tasks. I lean more to shared tasks (but not exclusively) – I find I can connect with people faster that way and can let the personal relationship grow over time. That’s just me – you may have a totally different style, but given that’s my approach, the strategy of working on something together with each person gave me the opportunity to start off building relationships through my strong suit.

If you had to look at your departments and campuses as a CTO/DoT (a.k.a. Director of Technology), what would be the stars and respective wish that your department and campuses would identify?

Another piece of advice offered by my colleague affirm the importance of building relationships. Below is an excerpt from what she wrote about that:

Definitely advice worth considering. I’ve often seen the highlighted section–where C&I buys something and then lets you know afterwards–and it can be destructive for school district morale and costly for taxpayers.

The bottom line for all of this advice is that it presents the opportunity to build relationships and connect with people about is important to them. It sends the message that you care about what they are doing. That is the message I want to send on my first day, first month as well as until I retire. Don’t you agree?

Star+Wish. Imaged adapted from http://goo.gl/s06kt

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