Ask - Propose - Ask Why Not - Repeat - When new to a role

You've just joined an org as an employee or a contractor and you want to contribute now. You have to contribute now to validate being there. now. This can lead to the urge to start spewing solutions based on your previous experience or what you saw others do somewhere successful. 

Famous billionaires can force their will to what they want. The rest of us are best served by asking questions, asking the right questions, learning the language of the domain, and building credibility inside the organization. Then you have to differentiate the real from the imagined and drive towards improvement wall iteratively asking questions, proposing solutions, and teasing out the real from the imagined in the responses.

I'm not saying to wait until you know everything until you contribute. Instead, work on two paths.  The one where you can make contributions now and the one where you increase your credibility, create relationships, and become deep enough to have an impact.

I've seen people drive real change even when they don't deeply understand the issues and are not domain experts. They do it by asking questions, exposing issues, suggesting a path and then repeating when people raise real and perceived issues.

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Created 2023 11

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