Setting yourself up for success in a new job is all about addressing a few key aspects. Among the most crucial aspects is fully understanding the expectations the organization and your boss will have of you; getting along with new co-workers and colleagues; understanding the unwritten rules of your new environment; and, creating positive patterns in terms of how your position relates to key colleagues within the organization.

Communication is crucial to fitting in, even before you accept your job

Communication is the key to integration. And some of these communications should be performed well before you accept the job. For instance, you don’t want to wait until you’ve already accepted the job, to learn what their expectations are. What if the expectations are impossible to meet? Likewise, exploring the culture and operating dynamics around this new environment should be done before accepting the position, because it might materially impact your ability to fit in and/or perform the job. And finally, smart professionals want to speak with key colleagues before accepting the job to ensure there’s a good fit in terms of personal compatibility. Such communications will increase the likelihood of a good fit and easier transition once you do accept the job.

Actively integrate yourself

After you accept your new job, there is plenty you can do to improve the transition. One crucial key is to create a feedback mechanism for yourself. Tap someone at your new job that you connect with well on a personal level and who is knowledgeable about the organization, but who ideally is not directly vested in your appointment. This individual can share the ins-and-outs of the organization, answer questions that pop up, provide suggestions about how to maneuver through the organization, tell you where the land-mines are buried, and finally, provide you with feedback about how you are doing.

Of course it’s important to immediately work on developing a rapport with your boss and hopefully receive similar help from your boss as you are from your “feedback” colleague.

Be sensitive to what’s going on around you

You need to be extra sensitive at the start of your new job to recognize the subtle dynamics at work in your surrounding environment, so as to avoid becoming the proverbial bull in the china shop. Most of all, people appreciate individuals who are respectful of an organization and its legacy. While new ideas and impulses are desired, it helps to show that you are interested in being part of the team and not just a rogue newcomer with little respect for the people who are already on board.

Help set the pattern

Perhaps the most important advice is to establish yourself as competent and confident as soon as possible, without alienating people. Voicing your opinions in a respectful way is important from the very start.

What most people don’t realize is that the patterns that are set within the first 3 months of starting a new job, most often become permanent patterns. For example, if in the first few months it becomes common practice to have your superior sign off on your decisions, it will easily turn into a pattern where your boss will expect to have your decisions continuously run past them.

It’s more difficult to change existing patterns than it is to establish positive patterns right from the start. This is crucial. While initially it may seem like a good idea to run decisions by your boss or watch and listen the first few months, you have to learn how to respectfully establish yourself, so as not to become marginalized simply because of your good intentions.