Happy New Year! Welcome to the first-edition of 2025. I’m Julia Levy, Founder and Editor in Chief of the Switchboard. I’m looking forward to exploring the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond with you. This year, I’m introducing community quotes — ways for you to be a part of the stories I feature. Here’s the first opportunity:
🚨 Question: How has being involved in culture transformed your career? Have you participated or contributed to culture at your organization with a positive result — perhaps it led to a new friendship, a mentor, a new job opportunity? Reply or message me to let me know or nominate someone.The start of the year brings an opportunity to reflect and reset. For my fellow calendar nerds, it’s that feeling when we choose our new planner for the year, filled with blank pages of possibilities.
Looking back, when have you had that blank-page vibe at work? It takes place when you start a new job with opportunities to learn, connect and build. So what would happen if we brought that new perspective to our current work style? That’s the focus of this edition.
For inspiration to rethink the start of the work year with a new point of view, I reviewed the best-selling book, The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, stories from business leaders like CEO of Ancestry.com’s Deb Liu’s newsletter,
and best practices from leaders featured on The Switchboard. Let’s get started with these 5 tips:📅 Clear Your Calendar
🎧 Take a Listening Tour
📘 Create Your Learning Plan
🤝 Find a Buddy
📣 Celebrate People’s Successes
1. 📅 Clear Your Calendar
We literally spend a lot of time in meetings. I featured Professor Steven Rogelberg, author of Glad We Met: The Art & Science of 1:1 Meetings, who shared:
“There are approximately 200 million 1:1 meetings a day around the globe, costing well over $350 billion dollars each year based on just time and wages.”
That’s expensive! But, when you start a new role, your calendar is beautifully blank. What if you declared meeting bankruptcy and removed as many meetings as possible?
In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins encourages:
“𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 – Let go of old habits.”
It’s not easy to take this action so find works for you, perhaps it’s shifting the cadence to every other week. Ultimately you’ll find the right meeting balance and when you do, be sure to make them matter. I curated best practices here.
✅ Make It Happen Guide: Questions for ConsiderationWhy do I need this meeting?
What is the goal of a recurring meeting?
Do I have time to prepare an agenda? What’s on it?
Could this meeting be accomplished async or less frequently?
Are there clear action items with follow-ups and wins?
2. 🎧 Take a Listening Tour
Listening is one of the most important skills in business and communications. Chief Communications Officer Tracy Van Grack emphasizes why:
“It might sound counterintuitive, but the most important tool for success in communications is listening. Listen to your leadership, team, and partners. Active listening is more than just comprehending what people are saying. It’s making sure that the party feels heard. This is especially critical when it comes to internal communications.”
When you begin a role, you want to learn from as many colleagues as possible to build rapport and learn from their experiences. In Perspectives,
writes:“Listening tours are not just a box you can check off as you enter a new role. Rather, they lay the framework for your direction going forward. Approaching learning with true curiosity and an open mind will open up these conversations to new and interesting ideas that you may otherwise miss.”
In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins encourages:
“𝗡𝘂𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 – Regularly engage with key stakeholders to maintain and grow your alliances.”
Block time for one, two or three 30-minute calls per week. Increase your frequency if you can. Make time for those conversations. Track your learnings from key questions and identify action steps from them.
✅ Make It Happen Guide: Questions for ConsiderationWho have I not met with on my extended team?
Is there someone I admire and would like to learn from this year?
What questions would be helpful to learn more about someone’s work?
3. 📘 Create Your Learning Plan
There’s no syllabus for the world of work and life. When we consider our growth and development, we often need to design our learning journeys. However, there’s so much to choose from — it’s like being a student in an intellectual candy store with courses, coaching, certificates and more!
Consider prioritizing one way to learn this year. Learn more about this process and what Switchboard leaders committed to learning last year, from getting rejected to daily reflections to taking classes.
In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins recommends:
“𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 – Define key areas and set clear milestones for your progress.”
Use time from the meetings you hopefully canceled to build this into your day. Friday mornings are often great days to start with learning. But, also carve out evening, early morning and weekend time as learning after hours is most likely.
✅ Make It Happen Guide: Questions for ConsiderationWhat is one skill I want to grow in this year?
How can I approach this skill building into 30, 60, and 90 days?
Where can I learn this skill?
Do I want to invest in overall growth and development with a coach, certificate or mentor?
📚 Bonus: I’m writing a small weekly growth experiment - Sunday Night Study Hall where I summarize one resource weekly. I post on Sundays on LinkedIn and on Substack. Join me:
4. 🤝 Find a Buddy
This might be a controversial opinion during National Mentoring Month, but I believe in the power of work buddies just as much as mentors. Many organizations assign buddies when a new employee begins. In Harvard Business Review, Microsoft leaders Dawn Klinghoffer, Candice Young, and Dave Haspas shared their powerful results:
“Research found that after their first week on the job, new hires with buddies were 23% more satisfied with their overall onboarding experience.This trend continued at 90 days with a 36% increase in satisfaction…. Onboarding buddies provide context, boost productivity and improve satisfaction.”
Even though you might have been at your organization for a while, do you have a person you can turn to for questions, a peer to bounce ideas off of, review a draft or simply listen over a cup of coffee? Those work relationships matter.
Your buddy may go on to become a founder of a new company or start a meaningful project and keep you in mind for those opportunities. Don’t always focus on the title, consider the person and their experiences when reaching out for a buddy.
Mentorship can also be a two-way street where mentors and mentees teach each other. This essay on The Power of Mentorship by Deb Liu and Audrey Wisch, takes that perspective:
“You will still need mentors who can not only guide you through difficult situations and decisions, but help you discover the best version of yourself. The key to unlocking the power of mentorship lies in understanding how to find and nurture these relationships. Truly game-changing mentors don't come easily—they require hustle, buy-in, dedication, and gratitude.”
✅ Make It Happen Guide: Questions for ConsiderationWho is a trusted peer I admire at work?
Who is someone whose work I’d like to learn more about?
What would I like to talk to my buddy about?
What ways would we support each other?
Who would I like to learn from as a mentor?
5. 📣 Celebrate People’s Successes
I’m a big fan of expressing gratitude all year long, but over the years, I’ve realized how important it is to publicly thank and recognize people for their impact. That’s why I’ve used this newsletter to organize The Paper Plate Awards and The Kindness Honor Roll.
In The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins emphasizes the power of recognition. He encourages:
“𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 – Celebrate wins to foster a positive culture, boost morale, and energize your team.”
In her newsletter article Praise of Praise, Deb Liu writes about this potential impact with the science to back it up:
“A McKinsey study cites that non-financial incentives mean as much as, or even more than, financial incentives when motivating teams. While this study focused on praise from managers, appreciation from coworkers is equally meaningful.
“When someone makes a contribution that you appreciate, you have an opportunity to call it out. But effective praise is about more than just saying, “Good job.” The best way to compliment someone is to focus on something they did that had impact and meaning.”
When you send thanks, ultimately you will shape someone’s employee experience and hopefully wind up in someone’s Smile File (here’s a guide to creating yours).
✅ Make It Happen Guide: Questions for ConsiderationHow can I take 5 minutes to start each day with a thank you?
What are the forums I can publicly thank someone at work?
How am I tracking the thank you notes that you receive?
I hope these five tips help you have a great start to your first 90 days of work this year. What would you add to this list to help set yourself up for success in 2025 or perhaps something that’s been helpful in the past?
☃️ I’m grateful you’re here. It’s my winter wish to support more people with stories, interviews and best practices from The Switchboard, and it’s only possible because of your kindness that I can reach others. I have a start of the year ask — if you appreciate The Switchboard, would you share it with a friend or post your favorite edition on LinkedIn? Thank you and Happy New Year. ❄️
📻 Recording Sound Effect: Courtesy of SFX Frenzy
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