Day One

Like many of us, we will experience anxiety related to starting a new role at a new company with new peers.  How do I work toward a successful onboarding?  Many of the people we meet on “day one” will have the same questions. Whether it’s masked as a question about our background, our family, our priorities or our favorite sports team, the real underlying question from those we meet is “What does this mean for me and my team?”

A January 2021 survey of 14,000 consumers in nine countries (by the IBM Institute for Business Value) found that about 20% of workers voluntarily changed employers in 2020, citing desires for such things as job-location flexibility and more-meaningful work, and more than 25% were making a move in 2021. And a Microsoft study of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries indicated that 40% of employees were considering leaving their employers in 2021.  Many of us will have started or will be starting something new in the next few years.  We will need to make a new and strong first impression.

How can I be more self-aware of what I am walking into?  If they work for me, I need to understand they may be scared. If they are my peers, I need to understand they may feel threatened. If I work for them, I am hedging that they are hopeful (after all, they hired me). But in any case, we must choose our words and actions carefully to make each person feel better about how we (and our work) may impact their lives.

We need to apply our experience and talents to our new position, make sure we are accepted by the hierarchy (including our own direct reports), and find a few big wins in the first couple of months to demonstrate what we can do.  And be kind along the way.

Research would also suggest one overlooked prerequisite for transition success: the effective use of internal networks.  To be successful, we must discover the informal org chart of key company-wide, energetic opinion leaders, who are able and willing to help us get things done.  We don’t have the luxury of allowing our network connections to form serendipitously.

And while we do this, we need understand the value of modesty. When transitioning and meeting new people, many of us are tempted to oversell ourselves—to describe our skills and experiences and immediately explain how we’ll add value. But we should all heed the “show me, don’t tell me” philosophy. We should work to engage with others to create a joint narrative of success. 

We will need to quickly integrate into our new roles AND get things done by harnessing the power of those we know. We should tap our networks for both ideas and implementation advice —that is, we should seek help from innovators across our company who can offer solutions to pressing problems and from influencers who can help execute on, spread, and sell those ideas.

Learning, observing, engaging will be keys to our early success.  Communicating our intentions and vision along the way.  We will need to take what we learn to diagnose issues and then act on appropriate solutions. 

Those last two sentences make it sound very easy.  We all know it is not. 

We need to make great first impressions, build trust with others, acknowledge that we need to learn – hopefully they hired us for our experience and expertise.  We should gather information and learn from all levels and functions across the organization.  Taking time to reflect and process all that we initially learn.

And lastly, my best advice, is to do less in our first few weeks.  Do not make big decisions or make sweeping changes.  We may have learned the hard facts, but we also need to learn the soft issues – the relationships, the history, the emotions, etc. 

Look for some short-term wins and celebrate success along the way.  Start formulating a plan and finalize our thoughts.  Prepare to share and launch our plans – and remember to communicate how they involve people, processes and systems.  Implement our plan, adjust along the way and continue to celebrate our successes.  Engage and encourage our teams.  Enjoy our new relationships and the path to success you can lead with our new peers.

 “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Together. We. Win.