Building bench strength is one of the hallmarks of forward-looking organizations. Those organizations know that they have to build capacity and capabilities before they are needed. They explicitly recruit people into bench strength assignments, "deputy" roles, or training programs. These are great things to do. Unfortunately, they are not good enough.
The story is all too common. A rising star is hired into a "bench strength" role. She shows up and no one is ready for her because she doesn't have a specific assignment. So, not only does she have no office, no phone, no computer, no one has any sense of urgency around getting those for her. Within a couple of weeks our rising star is questioning whether she's made a mistake in joining this organization.
Shame on everyone.
Shame on the organization for not valuing it's bench players. Silly to invest the time and energy to identify and recruit them and then leave them to their own devices for their own onboarding.
Shame on the new bench players for not understanding what they are getting into. Shame on them for not taking charge of their own onboarding and their own careers. One of the primary jobs of a bench player is to be ready to go in whenever he or she is needed. Almost by definition, the coach or manager is going to be more focused on the players in the heat of the battle than on the bench players. Bench players need to understand that, get over that, and build their own strengths.
