When you’re new on a team, watch for a week before you suggest changes. You’ll suggest better ones.

Every group has reasons buried in its habits, and most of them are invisible on day one. The odd thing you would fix immediately is sometimes a bad habit and sometimes the solution to a problem you have not met yet. A week of watching tells you which, and it earns you the standing that makes a suggestion land instead of bounce.

Give yourself a quiet first week anywhere new, a team, a job, a club. Ask why rather than proposing what, and ask the person who has been there longest. Bring the best one up in week two, when you can say what it fixes.