In my last post, I explained how frustrating it can be for new people to hear, “this is the way we’ve always done it.” There’s another side to that issue—there may be logical reasons why you’ve always done it this way. Giving new people enough freedom to fail may seem like “setting them up,” but it can teach valuable lessons. I was just talking to someone who’s been in a job for a while and was working on a project with a recently hired employee. This new employee has come in with lots of energy and lots of new ideas. As I was talking to my friend who had been in the job for a while, he was describing how he had resisted explaining why their company had always done a particular task in a certain way. When the new employee tried to do things differently, it didn’t work out, but my friend was there to help out (with a good attitude). The result: the new employee learned an important lesson about integrating new ideas with experienced wisdom and relying on team knowledge rather than going it alone.
Filed under: Organizational Change, Organizational Culture | Tagged: Business Lessons, Communicating When You're New to the Company, Dealing with New People, New Employees, New Jobs, Teamwork
