Who gives you permission to enter the group? The story of Brian
Who calls the shots when you enter a new group? Is it your
direct manager, the team, yourself?
Everything in onboarding is geared around creating an environment
where expectations are being synchronised, cultural and political assimilation
can take place at its best. In fact it is all about influencing the system
around you to make sure the new kid on the block can join the sandpit and start
playing and become successful. Brent is a senior exec I have been working with
for the last couple of months. He was
parachuted in quite a hostile environment: sink or swim poor structure and a
couple of business challenges that did not allow any flaws. How did he position himself on the monkey
rock?
Nobody was to know that he seek onboarding support. Not unusual and it created additional tension
for Brent. We had to meet at odd
hours. We spend a lot of time assessing
the power framework. Force field, stakeholders, expectations, history. How it
all was glued together. A new version of
images of organisations was written.
I
noticed very quickly that Brent consistently missed out on a very vital point:
his own ability to change part of the situation. A serious limiting belief
causing him a lot of stress. His belief
was that others allow you to enter a group. But actually that isn’t the case. Yes,
they might be difficult, play a game. But will you let them implicitly and explicitly
control who is in or out of the group?
Although the thought was tempting Brent decided to act differently. Authenticity, courage and a couple of smart
moves at the beginning were the first the drivers to success. Being aware of
your own blind spots, drivers helped him to see the whole picture and make a
couple of bold moves. Brent had also found out that his partner had been saying
some of it for a number of years. Should good leaders spend more time with
their families? How long have we known
this? Or is it the 2015 insight?
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