The short version
Senior hires rarely fail on capability. They fail on context — and most companies give them almost none.
The story is familiar: an impressive senior hire arrives, proposes obvious improvements, meets quiet resistance, and leaves within eighteen months. Everyone concludes it was a fit problem. Usually it was a context problem nobody was assigned to solve.
What senior hires are missing
- History: which of their obvious ideas has already been tried, and how it went.
- Decision rights: who actually says yes, and who can quietly say no.
- Unwritten rules: what is discussed in the meeting versus beforehand.
A 90-day context plan
- 1Weeks 1–3: a documented tour of past attempts in their domain, failures included.
- 2Weeks 4–8: one clearly-scoped win with an explicit sponsor and decision path.
- 3Weeks 9–12: a written read-back of what they see, discussed with their manager, disagreements welcome.
Experienced hires don't need direction. They need the history that makes your constraints legible.
The read-back at day ninety is the highest-value artifact. It is the only moment you'll get an outsider's accurate description of your culture before they assimilate into it.
Related resource
Team Norms Template
A one-page template for writing down how your team meets, decides, and disagrees — then reviewing it every quarter.
Get the Team Norms Template