Listen-First Leadership Entry
Spend the opening months learning the people and system before changing it
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
When Millar entered Belstaff from professional cycling, mentors gave her consistent advice: speak to people, listen, avoid rash decisions, and use roughly the first 100 days to form a proper plan. She spent her first three months meeting people one to one while learning an industry she says she initially knew only as a consumer. The method creates a temporary evidence-gathering phase. Set a bounded period, interview people across functions and levels, ask how the current situation developed, and learn the industry's operating basics in parallel. Record recurring explanations, contradictions, and constraints without converting the first compelling story into a decision. At the end, synthesize the evidence into priorities and a plan. The pause is not passivity: urgent safety or survival issues still require immediate action, while ordinary strategic changes wait for sufficient understanding.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO. Fran Millar describes using her first three months at Belstaff for one-to-one conversations and industry learning after several mentors independently advised her to listen and avoid rash decisions.
Core principles
- 01A new leader arrives with incomplete information
- 02People closest to the work hold essential context
- 03Preconceptions should not become immediate decisions
- 04Industry learning and organizational listening must happen together
- 05A proper plan should follow understanding rather than precede it
How to run it
- 1
Bound the Learning Window
Define an opening period in which learning is the default and major strategic changes require stronger evidence. Millar frames this as approximately the first 100 days.
Pro tip Publish the purpose of the period so listening is not mistaken for indecision.
Watch out Do not delay action on immediate safety, legal, ethical, or solvency threats.
- 2
Meet the Organization
Hold one-to-one conversations across functions, levels, and viewpoints. Ask what works, what does not, and how the current state developed.
Pro tip Use the same core questions so patterns are comparable.
- 3
Learn the Industry
Study the economics, customers, operating cycle, language, and constraints of the sector. Separate general leadership experience from assumptions that may not transfer.
Pro tip Ask practitioners to explain the ordinary workflow, not only the strategy deck.
- 4
Triangulate the Evidence
Look for repeated themes and conflicting accounts across interviews and operating data. Treat a single confident opinion as a lead to investigate, not a conclusion.
Pro tip Maintain a list of claims that need a second source.
- 5
Build the Informed Plan
Turn the strongest patterns into a small set of priorities, owners, and measures. Explain how the listening evidence changed or confirmed your initial view.
Pro tip Name at least one early assumption you discarded.
Watch out A listening period should end in decisions, not become permanent avoidance.
In the wild
Millar moved into fashion retail with little industry knowledge and a business facing pandemic disruption. Rather than arriving with a turnaround answer, she spent the first three months holding one-to-one conversations and trying to understand both the organization and the industry before forming her plan.
→ Her initial strategy was grounded in organizational and sector context rather than imported assumptions from cycling.
Illustrative example: a new nonprofit director arrives expecting to merge two teams. Interviews reveal that the apparent duplication covers different client groups, so she fixes a shared handoff instead of removing a function she had not yet understood.
→ Listening changes the plan before an avoidable structural mistake is made.
Common mistakes
Arriving With the Answer
Millar warns that it is easy to enter a business with preconceptions about what failed and what should be fixed.
Listening Only to Senior People
A useful organizational picture requires perspectives from people close to different parts of the work.
Turning 100 Days Into Inaction
The listening phase exists to support a proper plan and does not override urgent risks.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for leaders entering a new organization, turnaround, or industry where early confidence can exceed actual context.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when an immediate safety, legal, ethical, or solvency threat requires action before a full listening period can finish.
From the transcript
“speak to people listen don't make any rash decisions”
“the first three months in the business i just wanted to get to know everyone there”
“get a proper plan”
From the episode
How To Chase Your Dreams Without Fear Holding You Back with Fran Millar