Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Build Trust With a Sceptical Team
Transcript
- Lucas: You've just been promoted to manage a team you used to be a peer on. Or maybe you're coming in from outside. Either way, you walk into your first team meeting and you can feel it — the air is cold. People are polite, but they're watching you. They've been burned before. Luna: That's the sceptical team. And it's one of the hardest situations a new manager can face. Because you haven't done anything wrong yet, but you're already starting from a deficit. Lucas: Right. And today we're going to talk about how you rebuild that trust — not with a team-building offsite or a big speech, but with a specific, repeatable process. I want to anchor on a real case I studied. Luna: Let's hear it. Lucas: So there's a mid-size SaaS company — about 400 employees — and their engineering team had gone through three engineering managers in two years. The first one was promoted internally and then couldn't handle the pressure, so they quit. The second was hired from outside and was super aggressive, micromanaged everything, and got fired after eight months. The third was a nice person but completely checked out — basically just rubber-stamped whatever the senior engineers wanted. Luna: So by the time the fourth manager walks in, every single person on that team is thinking, 'Why should this be any different?' Lucas: Exactly. And the fourth manager — let's call her Priya — she knew she had a trust problem before she even shook anyone's hand. So she didn't start with a vision presentation. She didn't send a 'here's my leadership philosophy' email. Instead, she did something that sounds simple but is surprisingly rare: she scheduled a listening tour. Luna: A listening tour — where she just met with everyone one-on-one and asked them what was working and what wasn't. Lucas: But with a specific twist. She didn't ask the usual 'what are your goals' or 'how can I support you.' She asked three questions. First: 'What's one thing the previous managers did that you never want to see again?' Second: 'What's one thing you wish they had done that they didn't?' And third: 'If I mess up in the first 90 days, what do you predict it will be?' Luna: Wow. That third question is genius. It's almost like asking them to project their fears onto her, so she can see exactly where the landmines are. Lucas: Exactly. And what she heard was painful. The team's biggest fear was that she'd come in and change the code review process without understanding their workflow. They'd had two previous managers do that — one enforced a strict two-reviewer policy that slowed everything down, the other abolished reviews entirely and broke production three times. Luna: So they were terrified that Priya would swing the pendulum again. They just wanted consistency. Lucas: Right. So Priya made a specific promise: she would not change the code review process for at least 60 days. She said, 'I'm going to learn your current system, and I'll only suggest changes after I've seen it work — or not work — in real time.' And then — and this is the part I love — on day one of her second week, she called a team meeting and started with a personal mistake. Luna: Wait — she admitted a mistake on day one? What mistake could she possibly have made already? Lucas: She said: 'Yesterday, I scheduled a meeting with the VP of Product without telling any of you first. That was a mistake. I should have looped in the team lead before I committed the team to anything. I'm sorry, and I'll do better.' Luna: And the team's reaction? Did they see it as weak? Lucas: According to the case study, several team members said later that was the moment they started to trust her. Because she showed she was willing to be wrong — and that she'd own it publicly. That's a huge trust deposit. Luna: Which brings us to the framework. The idea of trust deposits and withdrawals — every interaction either builds trust or chips away at it. Lucas: Stephen M.R. Covey wrote about this in 'The Speed of Trust.' But I like the simple version: imagine you have a trust bank account with each team member. A deposit is something like admitting a mistake, following through on a small promise, or asking for their opinion and actually using it. A withdrawal is cancelling a one-on-one last minute, changing direction without explanation, or — the big one — lying. Luna: And if you're starting with a negative balance, you need to make a lot of deposits before you can make any withdrawals. The problem is most new managers start making withdrawals immediately — they want to assert authority, make changes, prove they're in charge. Lucas: Right. So Priya's approach was to spend the first 30 days making deposits. She did the listening tour — deposit. She made the promise about code review — deposit. She admitted the mistake — deposit. She also did something else: she asked the team to teach her something. Luna: Ah, the 'reverse mentoring' move. New managers often feel like they have to be the expert. But if you're managing people who have deeper technical knowledge than you — which is common in engineering — admitting you don't know something and asking them to teach you is incredibly disarming. Lucas: Exactly. Priya went to the senior engineer who had been on the team the longest and said, 'Can you walk me through the deployment pipeline? I want to understand it from your perspective.' That engineer later said, 'No manager had ever asked me to explain my work. They just assumed they knew it.' Luna: That's such a simple gesture. And it cost her nothing but time. But it earned her enormous credibility with that engineer. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a small way to keep the conversation going without any ads. Luna: Yeah, and it really does help us keep doing deep dives like this one. So back to the case — after 30 days of deposits, what happened? Lucas: So after 30 days, Priya had built enough trust to start making small withdrawals. She needed to rebalance the on-call rotation because one person was getting burned out. She presented the data, showed her reasoning, and asked for feedback before implementing. Because she had made deposits, the team gave her the benefit of the doubt. Luna: They thought, 'She's been fair so far, so let's see how this goes.' Instead of 'Here she comes, changing everything.' Lucas: Exactly. And by the 90-day mark, Priya had successfully implemented three changes — the on-call rotation, a new sprint planning cadence, and a clearer escalation path for production issues. All of them were adopted with minimal resistance. Luna: Because she didn't try to do all three on day one. She earned the right to make changes by first showing she respected what existed. Lucas: That's the key takeaway. If you're walking into a sceptical team, the first 30 days are not about proving you're smart. They're about proving you're safe. Safe to talk to, safe to be honest with, safe to take risks around. Luna: And I want to add one nuance: this doesn't mean you can never make a withdrawal. The goal isn't to have a perfect bank balance. It's to have a positive enough balance that when you do need to make a withdrawal — and you will, because management requires hard decisions — people don't assume the worst. Lucas: Right. So let's talk about the specific tactics. First, the listening tour with the three questions. Second, the proactive vulnerability — admitting a small mistake early. Third, asking to be taught. Fourth, making a specific promise about what you won't change for a defined period. Luna: And fifth — and this is something Priya did that I think is underrated — she wrote down what she heard from each person and then, in the next one-on-one, she referred back to it. 'Last time you mentioned the code review bottleneck. I've been observing it. Here's what I'm thinking.' That shows you were actually listening, not just performing listening. Lucas: That's huge. Because one of the biggest trust killers is when a manager does a listening tour and then nothing changes. People feel manipulated. So if you're going to ask for input, you have to act on it — or at least explain why you're not acting on it. Luna: What about the scenario where you're managing former peers? That adds another layer. You used to grab beers with these people. Now you have to give them performance feedback. Lucas: Yeah, that's a different kind of scepticism. The team might think, 'You're one of us. Are you going to sell us out to get ahead?' Or they might test you — 'Come on, you know this policy is stupid, just let it slide.' Luna: So how do you handle that? The trust deposits are similar, but you also need to explicitly address the changed relationship. Lucas: I think the best move is to name the elephant in the room. In your first one-on-one with each former peer, say something like: 'I know this is weird. We used to be equals, and now I'm your manager. I'm going to try to be the same person, but my job has changed. I promise I'll be transparent about when I'm wearing my manager hat vs. my friend hat.' Luna: And then you have to follow through. If you're in a social setting and someone starts complaining about a new policy, you can't just join in. You have to say, 'I hear you, but I can't have this conversation right now. Let's talk about it in our one-on-one.' Lucas: Exactly. And that's actually a trust deposit in the long run — because it shows you take the role seriously and you're not going to gossip. But it can feel like a withdrawal in the moment, which is why you need to build up that balance first. Luna: So let's say you're starting Monday as a new manager of a sceptical team. What's your first week look like? Lucas: Day one: meet with each person for 30 minutes. Ask the three questions. Don't try to solve anything. Just listen. Day two: shadow the team's work — sit in on their stand-up, watch how they collaborate. Day three: find one small thing you can fix immediately, like a broken process or an outdated document, and fix it without asking for permission. Luna: That last one is important. You want to show you can add value without needing to overhaul everything. Lucas: Right. And by the end of the first week, send a brief email to the team summarizing what you heard and what you plan to do — or not do — in the next 30 days. That closes the loop and shows you were paying attention. Luna: I think the biggest mistake new managers make is they try to be the hero. They want to come in with a grand vision and rally the troops. But if the troops don't trust you, they're not going to follow you anywhere. Lucas: So the real job of a new manager, especially with a sceptical team, is to earn the right to lead. And that takes time, patience, and a lot of small, consistent deposits. Priya's story shows it can be done in 90 days — but only if you're intentional about it from day one. Luna: So one last question: what's the one thing a new manager should absolutely avoid in their first month with a sceptical team? Lucas: Don't make a promise you can't keep. If you say 'I'm not going to change anything for 60 days,' and then on day 45 you change something because the VP demanded it, you've just made a massive withdrawal that will take months to recover from. Better to promise less and deliver more. Luna: Underpromise and overdeliver — it's cliché because it works. Lucas: Exactly. And if you do that consistently, over time, that sceptical team becomes your biggest advocates. Because they'll remember that you were the one who actually listened, who cared, and who earned their trust the hard way. Luna: Alright, that's a good place to leave it. Thanks for joining us on this episode of New Manager Conversations with Fexingo. Lucas: We'll be back next week with another practical conversation for new leaders. Take care.