One month in

I’ve been at the new, full-time, in-office job for a month now. Most of my career I’ve worked in small, young companies — founded no more than ten years or so ago, with anywhere from a couple dozen to a couple hundred employees. This one got its start in 1978 and has a couple thousand employees. There’s a lot of history here, and a lot of leaders in the mix. I need to be patient while I learn why things work as they do, and who really has power here, before I start trying to change things. I’ve been extremely mindful not to jump fully into the fracas. When my boss has specifically asked me to dive into something, I’ve done it, but cautiously. If I start fixing things without enough context, I risk making things worse and alienating a lot of people. I’m also trying to resist my tendency to want to be Superman and carry too much too fast. It’s led to burnout more than once in my career. It’s a pattern I’m going to work very hard to avoid here. Not that I’ve had full energy to give…