Who is in charge of onboarding?

Do not try to get line managers to focus on onboarding

It is futile to try to get line managers to care about onboarding.  They do not think they have time for it.  They think it is HR’s responsibility.  If pushed they oppose the effort either directly or with passive-aggressive behaviors.  They just don’t care.  And that’s OK.  So, stop trying to get line managers to focus on onboarding.

Focus on business results

Instead, support their focus on delivering business results.  Now, it just so happens that delivering those busienss results generally requires them to have strong team.  Guess what.  The first step of building an ADEPT team is Acquiring talent (ADEPT: Acquire, Develop, Encourage, Plan, Transition).  And a critical piece of Acquiring talent is onboarding those new team members.  Here’s the rub, focusing on onboarding is a distraction from delivering results, but focusing on business results, requires onboarding well.  Onboarding is a tool, not a result.

The hiring manager is in charge

This is why the hiring manager should be in charge of onboarding their new team members.  Not because they are the process experts.  (Process ownership should rest with HR.)  But because onboarding new team members well is a critical input into building the team required to deliver the desired business results.  The hiring manager does not have to do all the steps of onboarding.  Recruiters should recruit.  Logistics managers should manage the logistical side of accommodation.  Orientation managers should orient.  But the hiring manager has ultimate responsibility for the success of their new employees and, therefore, for everything that goes into it.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onbaording and Transition Acceleration

Contextual Onboarding

In many ways, all onboarding is contextual.  It’s about acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating a new team member into the context of the organization.  PrimeGenesis’ three core onboarding ideas must be considered in context.

Get a head start

Aligning the organization before starting recruiting defines the context of the role for the new team member.  Get this wrong and the new team member doesn’t have a chance.

Then, new team members that start building relationships and jump-start learning before day one have far better control of the context for those early meetings and far better understanding of the context for their early days.

Manage the message

Hiring managers that manage their message make it much easier for new team members to understand the context of what they are getting into.

New team members must manage their message in the context of the organization they are joining.  Peter Guber’s Four Truths of the Story Teller (Harvard Business Review, January 2008) is all about context – truth to the teller, audience, mission and moment.  It’s not about the message delivered.  It’s about the message received – in context.

Help others deliver

The others are the most important context to consider.  The only thing a new team member can do all by themselves is fail.  Delivering almost anything important requires inspiring and enabling others.  This is why hiring managers and new team members must consider all the stakeholders to get the context right.

Bottom line, whether you’re helping someone onboard into a new role or moving into a new role yourself.  Keep the context in mind for everything you say and do.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding

Communication Blockages in Onboarding

I was in China last week where internet access to anything related to PrimeGenesis is completely blocked.  Couldn’t use PrimeGenesis email.  Couldn’t look at PrimeGenesis websites.  And, as I’m sure, you all noticed, couldn’t post anything on the PrimeGenesis blog.

People joining almost any new organization face the same issue.  Their communication is blocked – in different ways at different stages.

Communication blockages during acquisition

Of course no organization is going to give people they are recruiting access to company intranets and emails.  But, organizations should be mindful of the message they are communicating on the websites and emails that candidates do see.  And, organizations should have a process in place to give candidates even more access while they are doing their own due diligence between offer and acceptance.

Communication blockages during accommodation

Things change once the offer is accepted.  At this point, the more access to intranets and emails soon-to-be employees can have, the easier it is for them to get a head start on relationships and learning.  Think hard about creating ways to give these people more access rather than less.

Communication blockages during assimilation

You are probably thinking that walls come down once the employee starts and the communication blockages go away.  You are wrong.  There are two ways to keep someone in the dark: give them too little information or too much.  New employees get flooded with some much communication in their early days that it is almost impossible to sort through it.  This is why they need mentors, coaches, buddies, touchstones or the like to help them decipher what is important and what is not.

Communication blockages during acceleration

I’m told it takes a full day to adjust to each hour of time change.  So, coming from China to California, I won’t be fully adjusted for eight days.  After a couple of days, no one will notice (including me), but I still won’t be 100%.  The same thing is true for people in new jobs.  They may look like they understand the communication channels and the new culture after a couple of months, but they are still adjusting.  Give your new employees more help for more time than you think they need.  The downside of letting them swim on their own too soon is far greater than the cost of the extra help.

Everything Communicates

Everything communicates – including what communication you allow to be blocked, however it’s blocked.  In general, more communication is better.  Find ways to remove the blockages.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

Onboarding the Bus-Move on People with All Due Speed

Few question the wisdom of Jim Collins’ prescription to “get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus.”  (Good to Great, Harper Business, 2001). The debate is about timing and emphasis in moving on the people.

Almost every experienced CEO that has addressed the CEO Connection’s CEO Boot Camps since 2005 has answered the question, “What do you wish you’d done differently?” with “I wish I’d moved faster on people.” As people onboard into new roles, they need to evaluate people on their teams and move on them with all due speed. It may be useful to think about people in five buckets those you should:

1) Keep on the bus in the same seats

2) Move to different seats on the bus

3) Move to a different bus

4) Get off any bus

5) Run over with the bus

Keep on the bus in the same seats

These are the “A” players with the right strengths, motivation and fit for the seats they’re in. Feed these people. Keep them motivated to continue doing the good things they’re doing.

Move to different seats on the bus

Often good people are in the wrong seats. Moving them to better positions can free them up to become the “A” players they should be.

Move to a different bus

This is the first of three ways to get people off the bus. Moving people to a different bus is appropriate when they can make a contribution – just not on the bus they’re on. Help them get to a good place for themselves and for the organization.

Get off any bus

This move is appropriate for people that cannot make a contribution to the industry they’re in. They need to find a different mode of transportation.  (Think spacecraft with a one-way ticket to some place very far away.)

Run over with the bus

Obviously, this is the harshest prescription, reserved for people that not only cannot make a contribution in their seats, on the bus, on different busses, or on any bus, but do harm. These people need to be made to go away in a way that they won’t come back, ever.

If you’re the leader onboarding into a new job, figure out and move on your people with all due speed.  If you’re helping someone onboard into a new job, help them figure this out and move with all due speed.

(Note this was originally published by the Human Capital Institute.  I cut and pasted it here.  Since I’m the original author, I authorized myself to plagiarize it.  That’s Ok.  Isn’t it?)

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

Haiti and Crisis Management

What’s happening as a result of the earthquake in Haiti is so overwhelming that no amount of preparation could have mitigated the worst of the disaster.  Yet, the basics of crisis management could have and still can make a meaningful difference: preparation, planning, implementing, reviewing. (1)  These basics are useful in almost any crisis management situation whether its origin is natural, man-made, or competitor-made.

Prepare

Have an incident/crisis management team and process in place and ready to go in advance.

Pause for a moment to figure out what you know and don’t know, but need to know.

Plan

Decide what you want to happen, what you need to do to make that happen and what you’ll communicate.

Implement

Contain and control the incident; implement your plan, adjusting and communicating along the way.

Review and Prepare

Debrief what worked and what could go better as the start of preparing for the next crisis.

George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration

(1) Adapted from the crisis management section of The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan – Bradt, Check, Pedraza – Wiley, 2009