Position Filled, Again!
By Maria Forbes
November 8, 2013
The department head of a growing service organization has hired three new team members, for one position. The new final candidate, Sara wondered what had gone wrong in the past but she was not able to get a clear answer. The culture was just what Sara was looking for; authentic, professional and dynamic. The department head was approachable and would deliver hands-on orientation. Sara met the entire C-Suite team during interviews and was equally impressed. The role described to Sara was exactly the work Sara loves to do, and her career experience would enable her to make a measurable contribution to the organizational vision. The opportunity seemed like a perfect fit and Sara joined the firm.
Unfortunately within two days of starting work, Sara was already recognizing that the on-boarding plan was not in sync with her natural approach to her new role. Sara was introduced to parts of the operation but she was not shown how her efforts would help to fulfill the company vision. Sara needed to understand the sequence of her efforts both inside her department and across the organization. She needed to see how her role influences other departments, what made it successful in the past and what aspects can be continued or should change. The on- boarding process was for Sara, an unstructured array of processes that satisfy tactical aspects of her role, but she was not able to learn the details of departmental goals that she needed in order to engage her strengths.
Sara wondered if her predecessors were also unable to move beyond short term tactics. Feeling disoriented by the orientation plan is never a good start! We helped Sara to formulate strategies for communicating her problem solving needs during the on-boarding process and beyond. Maximizing productivity is a joint process, both supervisor and team members must create synergy of efforts that enables each of them to be productive. Ensure success by understanding who is on your team; know their natural method for working through new processes so you can design appropriate orientation or on-boarding and enjoy long term associations. Our goal is to help as you take the guess work out of performance. Consider validating the strengths of each team member then adopt simple strategies to engage their problem solving strengths and power mutual success.