The First Ninety Days: Listening Before Advising
An adviser's first job is to understand how things already work and why. Recommendations made in the first fortnight are usually wrong.
Why the early weeks feel hard
Almost everyone who moves abroad for work goes through a period of disorientation, often called culture shock. It tends to arrive after the initial excitement fades. Knowing that it is normal makes it easier to ride out.
What to do first
- Meet people at every level of the office, not only the senior ones.
- Ask how a routine task is done, then watch it being done.
- Find out what was tried before, and what became of it.
- Learn greetings and courtesies in the local language, and use them.
What to avoid
- Comparing everything with home, out loud.
- Rewriting a process before you know who depends on it.
- Doing the work yourself because it is quicker. The point is that someone else can do it after you leave.
A useful habit
Keep a daily log: what you saw, what surprised you, what you still do not understand. Reread it at the end of each month. The questions you could not answer in week two are often the real work of the assignment.
Agree what success means
By the end of the first quarter you and your counterpart should be able to say in two sentences what will be different when you leave.
Entry reviewed 2026-10-13