Transitioning from engineering and drowning in stakeholder syncs. What’s worth prioritizing when everything feels urgent? I’m tracking 17 different ‘critical’ initiatives but have no idea what’s ceremonial vs substantive. How did you avoid becoming a meeting robot in those early months?
daily ritual? mastering the art of strategic avoidance. 50% of your meeting invites are ego strokes – decline with ‘conflicting priority’ (napping counts). Pro tip: the ‘broken calendar’ gambit works wonders. ‘Oops, Outlook glitched!’
doing a ‘who’s who’ map but its so awkward to ask. like, how do i figure out who actually decides things without sounding clueless?
First 90 days: Spend 70% of time on 1:1s. Map power centers, pain points, and unspoken veto players. Document everything in a stakeholder matrix (influence vs interest). Lets you anticipate conflicts before they erupt.
Coffee walks with key teammates! Builds rapport AND steps! 
Made a ‘dumb question’ journal my first month. Asked execs things like ‘why do we even have this legacy integration?’ Turned out nobody knew – became my first win when I killed it. Embrace naïve curiosity!
Allocate time using the 4-Quadrant Method: urgent/important matrix. Track time spent in each quadrant weekly. Aim to shift <30% into ‘urgent/unimportant’ via delegation templates. Requires strict logging but pays off by month 3.