Working with Newcomers

Sam: What about the newcomer? There are people in key positions who are not resistant in the sense that they actively disagree with collaborative philosophy, but they are naïve about it. Maybe they are completely unaware of collaboration as a legitimate approach to management. Or maybe they know the hype about it but have never lived through the kinds of tests and character building that you’ve all been describing today. How do you work with the newcomer who just wants to “go off and do his or her job”?

Deborah: We’re having this exact conversation now. We hired a key player, a senior manager who is excellent at the type of work we hired him to do. And he has a new team. I quickly saw that his team was going to need some attention because we’re still in the process of building our culture and there was no reason to assume that this new team, led by a newcomer, was going to develop along collaborative lines. So I discussed it with him and we came to the conclusion that for a while, I would join his operations team. The idea is to make sure the team has the support and attention of the CEO to make it as successful as possible. We had to clarify that I’m not watching over him and his team; I’m offering coaching and support and vision while they invent themselves.

Jim: You’re engaging with them.

Deborah: Yes, precisely. I can’t afford to leave these early developments to chance.

Jim: Me too. I am so much more deeply engaged than I was a year ago.

John: About eight years ago, we did an analysis of the turnover pattern in our organization. We learned that we had a huge turnover rate among people who were in their first three years at our organization. But we also found that those who made it to the three-year mark were likely to stay forever. My strategic management team discussed this quite seriously, and we came to the conclusion, since borne out, that it takes a huge effort to build a shared framework of understanding with newcomers. For high-level people, the CEO has a major role in this. I can recall twice over the years bringing on high-level staff, whom I recruited for many months each, and then once they were hired, I moved on to other things—and in both cases they didn’t last a year. At other times, I have brought in people who I have stayed closely connected to, and—surprise!— they’re still here to this day. It takes an enormous commitment of senior staff to bring them in. I have seen senior staff be welcoming, and I have seen them be resistant, to the introduction of new managers, whether senior or middle managers. And you can predict the outcome, if you’re paying attention.

Kathy: That goes to what Deborah was saying: she interjected herself into the situation where the newcomers were being indoctrinated with the vision and values and culture of the organization.

Kriss: At a previous job where I was COO, we went through a period during the early years when the organization was new, small, and very collaborative. Then we had a big growth spurt, and we made the mistake of thinking that collaboration was fully incorporated into the culture. We didn’t systematize it. We didn’t do anything intentional to integrate the way the leadership team worked with the way the rest of the organization worked. We had so many new projects and programs starting up that we just let people do things their own way. And sure enough, we paid significant consequences for that. That experience raised a question for me that I’m hoping we can spend some time on: how to institutionalize the culture.

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