First 100 days

When I was learning my first trade at the Military Academy of Sandhurst, I was taught that three essential elements in taking an enemy objective were to plan:
The route in
The route through
The route out
I was reminded of this earlier in the week when coaching a marketing exec about to take up a big overseas role. The reminder came because the concepts are in fact applicable to how you approach a new job in the context of an overall career plan.
Plan your route in by considering what the best approaches are, what approaches to avoid (or at least if you are forced to take a sticky entry route be aware of the consequences - e.g. having to sack half your team!). Think what resources you bring with you that will help and also what resources you have that you can leave behind - don't carry around that unnecessary baggage of irrelevant past experience. Also think what resources you can call on from other sources (in military terms, get the artillery and engineers to support you!) for instance a coach or a mentor; or just someone who has worked in that part of the world before.
Plan your route through by identifying the crunch issues that you will have to address, now or at some time in the future, and what issues you can bypass and leave to the reserve troops. Think about how to get your team facing up to the issues - attacking the dug-in machine gun post head on might seem brave and glamorous but it does not go down well with the troops! And remember that one objective of the route through is to avoid unnecessary casualties or expenditure of your resources. So have a plan for how you will sustain yourself and your team. Moreover, look for opportunities on the route through to actually increase your resources; so think what the job will add to your experience, to your capabilities, to your self-awareness. Make a conscious plan for how you and your team are going to be a stronger force once you have got through the position.
And of course plan a route out. In other words, think about how success in this role will give you a springboard onto the next level of your career plan. Don't loose sight of securing this position, but give some thought to the next objective and make sure you end up pointing that way! There would have been no point in Montgomery fighting through the Ruhr on his way to Berlin only to come out facing Paris (check the map!).