Bringing New Leaders Onto the Team

The remaking of a team can be exciting with the addition of new voices, ideas, and experiences to add to the mix. However, new team members are also jumping into existing projects, ideas, names and special vocabulary, inside jokes, and long established routines with little to no knowledge of the background that led to all of those situations. The on-boarding is critical, but has to be done in a way that recognizes what the new people are offering, and catches them up to speed on existing circumstances without talking down to them.

It is important when bringing in new people to try and avoid using special vocabulary or acronyms that leave the new person confused. This can even happen to veteran people who have not been involved in an ongoing project, but the people who have been come to report out. Just this week we had two people talking in depth about the CCRI, and things I needed to do related to those letters. I could reason through that the CCR stood for College Career Readiness, but I had to stop them and ask what the I stood for. Since I have worked with these people for years, I had no concern in showing my vulnerability to ask what the "I" stood for (Indicators), and we could move on. But had I been the new person on the team, not knowing anyone and not wanting to appear ignorant of something that I maybe should be familiar with, I would not have asked. I would have smiled and nodded, taken notes, and then after looked up the term to be able to apply meaning to what was said. 

At the same time, as a newer person I would not want someone to constantly be explaining everything to me since I probably have some familiarity and I also don't want them to be wasting their valuable time. The happy medium there is for specialized terms, define the acronym and refer to it in the acronym form moving forward. Sometimes slip back and forth between them to help build familiarity. Also, simply ask what background the new person may or may not have with this term. If they have been in your field, they probably have a very close reference to the same concept in a different name.

When bringing someone new in, I have always found it better to ask questions and make minor clarifications, then spend a lot of time explaining something that didn't need to be explained. Also, the new person should have a mentor that is with them at meetings, can quickly help bring the new person up to speed. The mentor can also check in with them after meetings to make sure that the new person is clear on what was discussed, what their action steps are, and provide any resources that may help the new person acclimate faster and start offering more to the team they were hired to be a part of.