The
30/60/90 Day Plan
(Canadian Immigrant Magazine December
2011 Issue)
What is the 30/60/90 Day Plan?
It was not Camp Obama, but this was as serious to me as
it must have been for them.
Landed in Canada, a new land of opportunity but where
do you go? I needed to put down a plan, a guideline to move forward, a template
to follow.
Having a corporate management background, I put on my
thinking cap. My plan would have to be as strategic as when I was leading a
team that re-engineered a 4000 strong organization some years ago.
Simply put, it was going to be my 30/60/90 day plan for
Canada.
The first 30 days, I decided, was going to be spent
primarily putting all my ducks in a row: Opening a bank account, getting a
credit card, getting my SIN number, driving license, cell phone, new
connectivity, calling cards and such formalities. And I realized, I needed to
understand the terrain that I was operating in, the lay of the land.
A TTC pass and a flask of hot coffee and I was equipped
for the days to come. Every morning, I would get ready and leave the house at
0830 hours and catch the TTC - no book to read, no iPod to listen to and no
cell phone to talk on, I was out with a mission. The mission was to map out the
lay of the land in Toronto, and a Toronto map was my only companion. I spent 3
to 4 hours those initial days going up one end of the subway to the other,
getting familiar with the route. Soon confidence had grown and I would venture
out and connect on a bus route crisscrossing the city getting familiar with the
place I now had to call home. My eyes and ears were open, taking in the ambiance, watching how life went on by and listening to a multitude of
languages and variety of English accents.
Occasionally, I would get an opportunity to speak to a
fellow passenger and that would add to my knowledge of the terrain around me.
Yes, this was the first 30, as any general worth his
salt would do - understanding the terrain before deploying your troops.
Now that I was a little familiar with the landscape, the
next 30 days would begin my networking. I had identified several networking
groups during my initial month and now was time to reach out. My initial
homework was done online and connectivity was one of my initial investments as
it allowed me 24 hours access to the internet.
Then I ventured out and physically attended the
networking meetings assessing several things – who were the members, what was
their background, what were they looking for, how could I leverage my skills,
how often did they meet, did I get a warm vibe and was it expensive?
The answers helped me select a few that were closer to
my field and my area of expertise. And then I began my involvement. “If you are
taking the trouble to belong to a group, give it all you have”. I did not sit
in the back row nor waited for things to happen. I put up my hand, got involved
and ensured that I made a mark there. “Giving back is an integral part of
networking and so I volunteered my time and my aptitude to the groups I was
involved in”. I made friends, got involved with their events and began to
slowly shape up a brand personality for myself. Gautam Nath soon was moving
away from being a mere statistic and an unknown face to a human being with a
face and a name and a slow network of Canadians who were beginning to see what
I could offer.
At the end of my 60 days, I was offered a marketing
advisory role in two organizations, however on a voluntary basis. But this
helped me build my Canadian experience.
The next 30 days to my 90 day target was all about
meeting more and more people, my confidence grew as I volunteered my time and
my familiarity with the ways of life here became easier. I travelled outside
the city when I could and slowly was able to see differences between the city
of Toronto and some other smaller towns like Kitchener, Waterloo, Kingston,
Hamilton, Georgetown and even got to Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver.
And surely, by the end of my 90 days, i had met many
people, not all but some were in relation to finding a job and soon was in
serious dialogue with the President of a well regarded Canadian firm, one that
would take me into their fold for the next two years. More to come in my next
month’s column.
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