An Onboarding Mindset

In previous posts, I have talked about how an onboarding process can be created – a process that meets both aims of organization and onboarding individual.

But there’s an important piece in entire jigsaw – what ‘mindset’ should onboarding individual approach onboarding process with?  Crack this piece- and you might have set up lever that will ensure onboarding process stays on track.

Here are a few pointers on ‘an onboarding mindset’:

·         Its OK not to be OK: There will be extended periods of uncertainty/learning anxiety. You need to live with it. If you are relocating cities/countries, then add in the entire personal transition piece. Uncertainty might last for months – and even for a year. There’s no way out. You need to get comfortable with being ‘NOT OK’.

·         Student Mindset: 

o   Be curious to learn. Don’t let your past experience color your experience of new environment. Different is not necessarily bad. When you find something different, ask yourself ‘Why might it be this way? How might it make sense in current environment?’. You may not get answer immediately but stay at it.

o   At same time, keep on questioning what doesn’t make sense.

Essence basically is to keep a balance.

·         Professional mindset:

o   Figure out what are expectations from your job. Focus on identifying what uniquely you can bring to job that can create maximum impact for organization. Think of what are least ‘nuts and bolts’ you need to know to start performing on your job.

o   You are not alone. Identify and contract with those who will help you in onboarding process. A professional is not necessarily an ‘expert’. S/he’s focus is on effective outcomes. S/he’s not worried about being known as SME/expert – who should have all answers – or should have necessarily ‘owned’ entire piece.   A professional say ‘Thank You’, ‘I Need Help’, and ‘I am Sorry’ – when required.

o   Focus on building trust in important partnerships/relationships. That’s lubricant which will later ensure speed in these partnerships/relationships.

-

Sourav

Talent

What ‘time horizon’ should you leaders look at when ‘identifying and developing talent’? Longer term, obviously!  A longer term focus is certainly a greater than 1 year focus.

But then how do leaders react when a ‘talent’ has an average performance year? Usually there seems to be a tendency to de-select person from ‘talent list’.

Leaders place their ‘talent’ in challenging/next generation roles. There will be some hits. There will be some misses too – but that’s obvious because these roles are at forefront of shaping what company might be wanting to do in longer term.

But leaders need to back your ‘talent’ through highs and lows. I am not talking about backing them through continued failure. But they certainly need to have backing through periodic troughs – or when a critical project is going through a challenging phase.

Else an organization, in long run, might end up with a weak internal pipe of candidates for leadership roles. Those who are ‘leadership talent’ will not have survived. Those who are not ‘leadership talent’ might have survived through not taking risks.

-

Sourav

Hacking Culture

How do you ‘hack culture’? You might first ask me what ‘hacking culture’ means.

 

Well! It’s about creating a significantly different, and not an incremental, vision of culture – and finding non-traditional ways to move towards that vision.

 

Now, let’s get back to ‘how’ question.

 

You could use 2 different approaches to ‘hack culture’.

 

On one hand, you could get a large group of diverse people in a room – and ask them to throw caution to wind and come up with innovative ideas. In this approach, you are providing no structure/tools to think innovatively.

 

On other hand, you could provide people in room some structure/tools to help them start thinking differently.

 

First approach may work in a situation where team itself brings very diverse perspectives to table –probably because of their diverse backgrounds. Secondly team members are accustomed to a lot of change – and hence will not be too wedded on to the current culture.

 

Second approach may work in a situation where people in room might have very similar thoughts/ideas - probably because of similar backgrounds. Secondly team members might have a seen a long period of certainty – and so are probably emotionally attached to the current culture.

 

-

Sourav

Outcomes

The other day I was reading a book by Peter Drucker. He made a point about ‘efforts’ v/s ‘outcomes’. ‘Efforts’ are only thing that exist within an organization. On other hand, 'outcomes' lie outside organization.  Outcomes matter and we need to hold people accountable for outcomes.

 

Ensuring focus on ‘outcomes’ is easier said than done. Every outcome can be seen as a mean to some other outcome/end. So how do you decide a particular 'outcome' is actually an outcome and not just a mean?

 

I think you can’t decide this post facto. The only way to ensure that correct outcomes are being targeted and met is through ‘goal setting’ rout – ensuring goal setting focuses on outcomes and performance progress is assessed against agreed upon outcomes.

 

Similarly, there needs to be a very definite linkage between outcome achievement and reward allocation.

 

-

Sourav