If you’re transitioning as an apprentice, work with your manager on a joint plan for getting started. Questions to discuss include:

• What will be my scope to start, and how do you expect it to change over time?

• How will my transition be communicated?

• What do I need to know about the people that I’ll be managing?

• What important team goals or processes should I be aware of and help push forward?

• What does success look like in my first three and six months?

• How can the two of us stay aligned on who does what?

A useful exercise to go through at the beginning of your transition is to sit down and make a list of all the things that are awesome about the current state of the world. Does everyone get along? Are your processes efficient? Is your team known for rigorous and high-quality work?

Now, next to that, create a list of all the things that could be better. Is your team cagey about deadlines? Does it seem like priorities are always shifting? Is there that one really long weekly meeting nobody wants to attend?

These two lists give you the start of a plan for what you should and shouldn’t change. You don’t need to fix what isn’t broken, but neither should you feel like you’re stuck in a time machine of this is how it was always done. After all, that’s why you got the job! Taking the time to reflect on the biggest opportunities for improvement helps you understand how to best act as a multiplier for your team.

To help you get started, ask yourself the following:

• Assume you have a magic wand that makes everything your team does go perfectly. What do you hope will be different in two to three years compared to now?

• How would you want someone who works on an adjacent team to describe what your team does? What do you hope will be your team’s reputation in a few years? How far off is that from where things are today?

• What unique superpower(s) does your team have? When you’re at your best, how are you creating value? What would it look like for your team to be twice as good? Five times as good?

• If you had to create a quick litmus test that anyone could use to assess whether your team was doing a poor job, a mediocre job, or a kick-ass job, what would that litmus test be?

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CURRENT TEAM

• What are the first three adjectives that come to mind when describing the personality of your team?

• What moments made you feel most proud to be a part of your team? Why?

• What does your team do better than the majority of other teams out there?

• If you picked five random members of your team and individually asked each person, “What does our team value?” what would you hear?

• How similar is your team’s culture to the broader organization’s culture?

• Imagine a journalist scrutinizing your team. What would she say your team does well or not well?

• When people complain about how things work, what are the top three things that they bring up?

UNDERSTANDING YOUR ASPIRATIONS

• Describe the top five adjectives you’d want an external observer to use to describe your team’s culture. Why those?

• Now imagine those five adjectives sitting on a double-edged sword. What do you imagine are the pitfalls that come from ruthless adherence to those qualities? Are those acceptable to you?

• Make a list of the aspects of culture that you admire about other teams or organizations. Why do you admire them? What downsides does that team tolerate as a result?

• Make a list of the aspects of culture that you wouldn’t want to emulate from other teams or companies. Why not?

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE

• On a scale from one to nine, with nine being “we’re 100 percent there” and one being “this is the opposite of our team,” how close is your current team from your aspirations?

• What shows up as both a strength of your team as well as a quality you value highly?

• Where are the biggest gaps between your current team culture and your aspirations?

• What are the obstacles that might get in the way of reaching your aspirations? How will you address them?

• Imagine how you want your team to work in a year’s time. How would you describe to a report what you hope will be different then compared to now?

So while you find a way to cover the five key questions, remember several guidelines to make the very best first impression.

1. You Don’t Have to Have All the Answers

No one expects you to know everything; in fact, people will be suspicious if you imply that you do. Avoid the temptation to think you have to be the savior and have immediate answers.

Given the magnetic pull that many leaders feel of having to have the solution to every problem, this point is worth reiterating, especially if the situation you are moving into is a sensitive one…

2. Addressing Doubts and Fears

Whether you are a new CEO coming into a company or a manager coming into a new department, your arrival is bound to create anxiety. Being sensitive to this and having a process to address it will help you minimize the upheaval. Recognize that your reputation will be preceding you as you walk into the room. By the time of your arrival, you can be sure that you’ve been researched on the Web and that your former colleagues have been called. It’s not just your individual reputation; if you are an outside hire, it extends to your previous company as well…

Libby Sartain, senior vice president of human resources at Yahoo!., describes the essential elements of a new leader assimilation process:

• When a new leader is hired, convene a meeting with that person’s new team members during the first week. With the leader in the room, give all the team members the chance to introduce themselves and say a little bit about who they are and what they do.

• Then, with the leader out the room, have the team answer these questions:

• What do we expect of this new person?

• What do we want the new leader to know about us? What do we do well? Where do we need improvements?

• What do we want to know about the new leader? What are our concerns about him or her?

• What are the burning issues in our department?

• What are the major obstacles that the new leader will face?

• Put the answers on the flip chart - but make sure they’re anonymous so that the leader won’t later be able to connect the comments to any one specific team member.

• After a break, reconvene the team with the leader and go over the items on the flip chart. Give the new leader a chance to ask questions about the comments and explore the ways in which he or she can take quick action on some of the issues.

• This discussion is a great way for the entire team to discover with the leader some of the unspoken issues, misunderstandings, and disconnects. The anonymity of this exercise can bring to the surface more issues in one day than weeks of one-on-one meetings. Dirty laundry is aired. And in this open atmosphere, the team begins to gel. The new leader can now formulate an agenda for the first few months…

3. Neutralize Lingering Resentment

…

• What should I be thinking about that I wasn’t thinking about when I was head of XYZ division?

• What should I know that I might not have known before?

• What’s on your mind?

• What would you like the new CEO to be doing?...

4. Don’t Disrespect Your Predecessor

…

Jeff Killeen had prior CEO/COO experience at Forbes and Barnes & Noble, both of which were “founder-intensive” companies, when he took over as CEO of GlobalSpec, the world’s largest search engine and online information resources for engineers. He succeeded John Schneiter, one of the company’s four founders, who was staying on as president. “There are some who look at an entrepreneurial situation and without even meeting a founder thinks a founder needs to be moved out,” Killeen says. “But unless founders become unmanageable or otherwise destructive, I believe you’re generally better served to build off their vision and make them feel like a million bucks than you are to get rid of them.