I always think it must be hard for a senior person to come into a new firm. I haven’t had much experience of it myself, for obvious reasons. But when I took my last corporate job, which involved managing a couple of people, I remember being absolutely terrified. What if my new team hated me because they’d wanted the job, or because the previous incumbent had been their best friend, or (worst of all) because they thought I was an idiot? (And would it matter if they did?) How would I establish the right balance between iron fist and silk glove?

For want of any better ideas, I ended up reading about 300 business books in an attempt to work it all out. I remember one in particular called ‘The First 90 Days’ (like the President’s first 100 days, but shorter – you’ve probably seen it around), which gives you ten strategies that help you reach the ‘break-even point’, i.e. become indispensable. It was actually pretty useful – securing quick wins, accelerating learning, building coalitions and so on – but there was just so much stuff in there that it made my head hurt, and probably actually made me more nervous than I was before. In the end I decided to rely on my instincts, keep my ear to the ground and basically wing it, and it was fine.

The new guy’s actually in an odd position: although he’s clearly a senior hire – he’s slightly older than the average, and will have a lot more autonomy than most – he won’t have anyone reporting to him, and he’s also doing something that’s quite separate to the rest of the business. In theory you’d think this would make life easier, but actually maybe it’s more difficult – he has no obvious way of establishing his place in the hierarchy (such as it is). And I worry that if people don’t get what he does, or who he does it for, they might end up resenting the fact that he’s senior to them and getting paid more money (although nobody’s actually asked that question yet, with the obvious exception of my top sales guy Mammon – ‘Not as much as you’, I replied, which seemed to satisfy him entirely).

However, if the new guy’s been losing any sleep over all this stuff, he’s done a pretty good job of hiding it. He waltzed in nonchalantly on day one and immediately began schmoozing the entire office systematically. Sensibly, he’s been taking people out for coffee to get to know about what they do, and they tend to come back looking like they’ve had the time of their lives. To be fair, he’s quite charming and has a nice line in self-deprecation, so I can see why. And he is basically a salesperson, so he’s made a career out of sweet-talking people who don’t know him from Adam.

Let’s just hope he’s as confident when he gets on the phone to some clients. A few quick wins on that front certainly wouldn’t hurt, on every level.