A functioning inherited team is not a reason to keep every ritual. The first edit is usually a meeting, not a person.
Incoming executives are told not to change anything for ninety days. I understand the courtesy. I do not accept the superstition. A team that “already works” is often a team that learned how to survive the last occupant. Their rituals are optimized for a person who has left. If you keep all of them, you are coaching a ghost.
I start with the calendar the team is trapped in, not with character. Which meeting exists because a previous CEO liked a Monday theatre? Which report is still produced for a board that no longer reads it? Which “alignment” session is the place where dissent goes to die? Chief Executives books transition work for incoming operators who need the week to match the job.
Stop a ritual before you stop a person
Firing someone in the first month to “set a tone” is usually vanity. Stopping a meeting that wastes twelve operators every week is a decision the room can see without a rumour.
The fastest way to lose an inherited team is to critique their character. The fastest way to earn the right to move a person later is to remove a piece of waste they already hated and could not kill themselves.
That is also why decision rights belong on paper before you start a listening tour. If you do not know what is yours, you will stop the wrong ritual — or you will keep a ritual that is actually the last occupant’s veto.
What “already works” usually hides
A Monday pack no one decides in. The room reviews. The owner is not named. By Friday the same argument has moved to Slack. Stop the meeting or give it one decision. Do not add a “pre-meet.”
A deputy who ran the last CEO. The deputy may be excellent. The mandate is usually not. Leave the person. Write the mandate. If you cannot write it, you do not yet know whether the role survives you.
A report for a board that has changed. The analyst is not the problem. The unnamed reader is. If no named director can defend the report, stop the report. Keep the analyst until you know what the new pack actually needs. A board paper is not a confession — and neither is a thirty-page weekly.
If the word everyone uses is “alignment” and no one can define it, read alignment usually means someone has gone quiet. Polite teams are not the same as working teams.
The calendar is the first inherited document
The strategy deck will lie. The diary will not. If the inherited week has no room for the work you said you took the seat to do, the team is working — at the last job. That is the calendar as strategy applied to a floor you did not design.
Stop one standing meeting before you announce a new operating cadence. The room will learn your seat faster from an absence than from a speech.
A takeaway you can keep
| Inherited fact | First stop | Leave alone for now |
|---|---|---|
| A weekly meeting with no decision | The meeting | The people in it |
| A report no named reader can defend | The report | The analyst who makes it |
| A deputy who ran the last CEO | The unclear mandate | The deputy’s job, until the mandate is written |
| A ninety-day “listen only” rule | The superstition | Courtesy that does not block a map |
This is transition work, done one-to-one, not a team offsite. If you have inherited a machine that still hums, look at the coaches available to book. Fees and fit are agreed in writing.
Enquire to book a coach before you start a listening tour that changes nothing.