This Is The Most Powerful Mantra For A Leader In Their First 100 Days

Like many of you, I’ve moved across multiple roles in my career — from sales and marketing to general management, from regional to global leadership positions — and have spent time exploring different industries and diverse cultures along the way. Every opportunity has its own thrilling challenges. No matter the role, I’ve found a powerful mantra for the first 100 days: listen and learn.

In my first 100 days with Amway, it was no different. I listened. And I learned. Day after day. There was little action, to be honest, and plenty of patience and education as I sought to soak up this new world. But in the end, my listen-and-learn philosophy didn’t slow the company down — it helped launch us into the future. Here’s how.

Listening and learning isn’t passive

It was two years back that I had the privilege to join Amway — a 60-year-old, purpose-driven, family-owned company — as its first non-family CEO. It’s a global business, one powered by millions of entrepreneurs called Amway Business Owners (ABOs). While it’s headquartered in Ada, Michigan, 85 percent of Amway’s approximately $8 billion revenue is generated outside the U.S. Suffice to say: the stakes were sky-high.

It was time to listen and learn to find out what made this company tick. But that’s not to say I just sat back idly and let information wash over me. Listening and learning needs to be intentional. So in my first week, joining a global conference of 200 executives, I made it my mission to fully understand the 3 Cs of the company — capabilities, culture, and customer and Amway Business Owner (ABO) experience. 

I connected with colleagues. I went on field trips to organic farms in El Petacal, Mexico. I asked questions and learned about the journey from seed to supplement. It was enriching, to say the least. (All the listening had a personal impact too: hugely impacted by the Nutrilite philosophy, I’ve adopted new personal habits to stay well.) 

This visit and subsequent engagements with the team (including Stanford’s WELL for Life program) highlighted for me more than just the three Cs. And through the trips to markets, the long flights, the jet lag, I enjoyed ample time to reflect, and wonder about the things I was soaking up. I saw the beginnings of a mega-trend of consumers seeking long-term, holistic wellness... and, in my moments of introspection, started to wonder if we could laser-focus on empowering our business owners with health and wellness solutions. 

Listening and learning happens on the frontlines

In my first 100 days, I got the opportunity to travel to seven markets (China twice!), join ‘Ask Me Anything’ town halls in multiple cities, and meet the most optimistic, pioneering entrepreneurs of my career. (To stay connected with them, the team got me started on Instagram, which turned out to be especially helpful during the pandemic.) 

But the speaking opportunities didn’t bring me nearly as much satisfaction as I got listening to the expertise of the people on the frontlines.

Incredibly savvy entrepreneurs like Makiko-San from Kyoto, Pramilla from Mumbai, Angelika from Moscow, and Min Ki from Seoul made it clear that millennial entrepreneurship was fundamentally changing. These leaders were building online communities (generally from 1,000 to 20,000 followers) around their passion — be it fitness, beauty, wellness, adventure, cooking or parenting — and curating authentic, personal brands on social platforms like WeChat, Line, Kakao or Instagram. 

These pioneering business owners were growing their communities by combining their passion with products. Simultaneously, e-commerce was rapidly evolving to provide easy, frictionless experiences to customers. It was perfect timing: together social platforms and e-commerce offered young entrepreneurs the freedom to turn their passion into profits.

Today, we call it social commerce: a rapidly evolving business model with a massive potential across the world. And really, it was listening to and learning from the young entrepreneurs on the frontlines that helped me fully understand this powerful model. 

Listening and learning extends outside the company

While I gleaned so much from the Amway Board in my new role as a first-time CEO, I knew it was also important to listen to and learn from outside voices, too. I was keen to learn from the gurus, and inspiring people such as Indra Nooyi, David Novak, Ram Charan, and a peer group of new CEOs were all generous with their time. 

This external perspective proved to be important as Amway looked towards the future. While Amway has a valuable culture based on family values, it was clear that to pivot and unleash entrepreneurship, it needed to evolve. We visited start-ups in California that specialize in personalized nutrition and data science, and studied new gig-economy business models. We learned from industry leaders like Google, where we were hosted by Gopi Kallayil, and the Alibaba team in Hangzhou, China. We deeply studied organizations — like Microsoft — that had made successful transformations, and looked to leadership philosophies like Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset” for inspiration. 

Through these meetings and readings, we listened, learned and found ideas that fused well with the Amway founders’ spirit of pioneering entrepreneurship. And so, as Amway celebrated its 60th birthday in 2019, a new vision for the next 10 years was laid out. The goal was audacious, but built on a solid foundation of listening and learning: Amway’s next decade would involve a pivot from traditional direct selling to social commerce, with “Creator” ABOs providing health and wellness solutions to customers. 

This long-term journey will require an unprecedented pace of change. But I know we wouldn’t be in this position to sprint if we didn’t start with patience, information, and strategy. Through that quiet, humble attitude at the beginning, we’ve been able to craft a plan that will launch Amway into the future at lightning speed.

It’s a myth that all new roles require hitting the ball out of the park in the first 100 days. It’s important to take the time to understand the mega-trends, organizational strengths, and culture already in play; these first few months are also a powerful time for fostering meaningful relationships and levelling up your team. All of this is best done by spending time where the rubber hits the road — in the markets with entrepreneurs, customers and employees — and soaking up as much as possible about what’s already going well, so you can build on a great foundation to make it even better.

Stay up to date with my latest by clicking the "Follow" button above, or follow me on Twitter or Instagram.