On Being the New Guy or Gal

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Over the last several weeks, and in the weeks to come, many people will fill one of the most dreaded positions in life – The New Guy or Gal.

From a college freshman’s or tranfer’s perspective, being the new guy or gal on campus is exciting and scary at the same time. For many, it’s the thrill of being on their own for the first time, and yet at the same time it seems daunting. Having worked many Move-In Days over my career in higher education, for the first time parents, their hearts are filled with pride, but also breaking as their child leaves home for the first time.

From the new hire’s perspective, it is also exciting and just a bit scary as well. Although they know they can do the job, and do it well, many wonder how easy it will be to absorb the organization’s culture quickly, and make new friends in the workplace. Let’s face it, identifying and deciding where you fit into the political climate in the organization without knowing all the back stories is one of the toughest choices you will have to make.

There are, however, many positives to being the New Guy or Gal. Here are just a few:

1. You walk in the door with a totally open perspective; one that isn't colored by all the back stories. You see possibilities where others see closed doors. While walking in the door and spouting all your “we shoulds” is not the best way to make a good impression, taking notes of ideas you have, and then sharing them with your supervisor or others once you have been in the position for some time – or better yet, are asked – shows creative thinking. Before sharing your wisdom, however, be sure to look at every situation from as many perspectives as possible and then determine if your idea truly has merit.
2. By truly embracing this new challenge with an open mind and excitement beating in your heart, you walk through the door and begin exploring all the possibilities, including new skills, knowledge, colleagues, experiences, and friends.  Who doesn't need these in life?
3. If you make a mistake early on (which you will, of course), people tend to pass it off as being – you guessed it – the New Guy or Gal. You learn from your mistakes, take steps to ensure you don’t make it again, and tuck that lesson into your portfolio of Life Lessons.
4. You have a front row seat to learn about yourself, how you react (or don’t) in new situations, and gain a better understanding of what is acceptable to you and what is not. While those around you also learn about you, the person who benefits the most is you. The more you know yourself, the better able you will be to make decisions, take chances, and enjoy the experiences life has to share with you.

While the list isn't all inclusive, I think you get the point. Starting a new phase in life, regardless of what it is, is always exciting and somewhat scary. It’s what you do with those feelings that determine how you use the opportunity of being the New Guy or Gal.

By the way, please feel free to add to the list and share with everyone.

Good Luck!

Editor’s Note: This post also appears on LinkedIn.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is a contributor on LinkedIn, the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

Missed Opportunities

Editor's Note: This blog post also appears on LinkedIn.

Conversation Overheard Between 2 Friends in December 1992

Bob: “I’m buying some stock in the Snapple Company. The company is doing really well, and I think it’s going to take over the market. Want to spend that $5,000 you have on $15 a share and join me?”

George: “I think the beverage market is really over-crowded, so I think I’ll pass. Thanks for thinking of me and asking though.”

Fast Forward to 2014

Today, the stock purchased for $5,000 in 1992 would have split several times and now be worth over $40,000. What a huge missed opportunity!

Many times over my life I have been presented with an opportunity and passed for one reason or another. Some decisions proved to be the right one, while others were later identified as a true missed opportunity.

Common business sense suggests significant research and data to support the options considered. After all, intelligent business decisions are made based on data, right?

What about gut feelings or intuition? Several times over my career, data suggested one action while my intuition suggested a totally different – and way out there – action. For the most part, the data-based decisions provided the expected results, but every once in a while, my gut reaction proved to be the better path instead.

So, how do you tell which opportunities are worth the effort and which ones aren’t? What if there is no data to support your intuition? As a business leader you have to make that call, taking both the credit if it works and the responsibility if it fails.

What happens if you don’t make a decision? Well, that’s a decision in and of itself.

There are several common reasons leaders choose to not make a decision or to do nothing about an opportunity:

• We don’t have enough capital right now
• There’s too much going on in the company/market place right now
• We don’t have the right people in place
• I’m the only one who wants to do it

What commonality do you see in each of those reasons?

They are all simply excuses for not leading.

So you don’t have the capital – get it. There’s too much going on – great! Your competition won’t expect you to do anything and you’ll gain a competitive edge. Don’t have the right people? Get them or hire contractors.

Last, but not least, no one else wants to do it. Really? Then refine the message of your vision and actively share that vision with your team. 

Just like Bob and his friend George above, perhaps they aren't buying the opportunity because you haven’t sold it well.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is a contributor on LinkedIn, the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

When All Hell Breaks Loose

“We have to make quick decisions or all Hell will continue to break loose. I can’t believe we didn’t see this coming!”

I suspect all of us have been in this situation more times than we care to admit, whether we were leading the effort or simply a cog in the decision-making wheel. 

You have been there a time or two. What did you do? 

Either way, the answer brings to mind two additional questions:

• How did you make your decisions?
• Did they turn out to be the right ones, or should you have done something else?

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of blogs and research articles on how the quality of leadership affects the decision-making process. I realize that it seems to be obvious that a good leader makes good decisions, while a poor leader makes poor decisions. One of the more interesting articles I have read on this topic lately, found in the Harvard Business Review, expands on this theory while exploring the question of how a poor leader affects his/her subordinates and vice versa.  

While the authors present some interesting conclusions to their research, I find that I need to delve a little deeper, and ask the elephant-in-the-room question: given the same information and resources, what causes a leader to make a good or bad decision when all Hell breaks loose?

Is it a lack of training or support from upper management or the Board? Is it a slight hesitation due to a fear of choosing the wrong option? Or, perhaps choosing to do what has worked before – although safer – did not adequately address the needs and requirements of the current situation.

Regardless, as you are putting out fires and salvaging what you can from the ruins, making good decisions require good leaders to:

• Identify and focus solely on the exact issue. There will be many other side issues that appear to be important, but are really only manifestations of the core challenge.
• Identify and evaluate your options, both inside and outside the proverbial box. Although your gut instinct will generally point you in the right direction, you need facts and figures to support your decision.
• Just do it. Do not hesitate; make the decision and let it go. The old saying, “timing is everything” is just as true in business as it is in life.

In short, good leaders focus on solving the actual problem and make fact-based decisions quickly when all Hell is breaking loose. Poor leaders hesitate and make decisions without adequate information to support their choice of fire companies to put out the flames.

 Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

What Makes a Leader Great?

All of the great leaders I have ever met or admired from afar have, are, or exhibit the following on a daily basis:

• An open and effective communicator
• Honest
• Integrity
• The respect of others
• Effective management skills

While all of these are necessary for success, what is it about a leader that makes them not good – but great? In their book, The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes & Posner attribute great leadership not to great personality, but simply and ONLY to the behavior of the individual.

Thinking once again about the great leaders that I have come across, they have also exhibited the following behaviors:

1. Having and sharing their unbridled passion for the organization they serve. Having a passion for the work you do every day is vital, not only to the success of the organization, but to yours and that of your team as well. Who wants to give their best for something they could care less about?
2. Articulating a clear vision for success. In a recent post, Intuit’s President and CEO, Brad Smith noted that thinking out loud, and openly sharing your vision for success with the entire organization and seeking feedback opens the door to dissenting opinions, which in turn can lead to fresh, new ideas and innovation. This also encourages others to do their best, and to succeed.
3. Recognizing and celebrating the success of others. Rather than taking the credit themselves, great leaders openly acknowledge and celebrate the success of those who make things happen. There is no better example of what not to do than to compare the end of the NFL championship game interviews of the Bronco’s Payton Manning and the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman. One focused on the team effort, while the other made a spectacle of himself by touting his "greatness."
4. Finally, while there are others I could mention, I’ll conclude this post with my favorite behavior of great leaders: Words are ALWAYS followed by action to support them. After all, if you can’t walk the talk, who will follow?

The answer? No one.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.

What Do You Mean, "Happy Festivus?"

“Happy Festivus!” Those were my words to a group of Millennials last night as I was leaving to go home.

Their response – “what’s Festivus?”

“Really?” I asked, and then followed with, “In the words of George Takei, ‘Oh myyyyy.’” 

Their response – you guessed it – who is George Takai?

At that moment I felt really old. Then I realized that it was an excellent example of the differences between the Baby Boomer generation – of which I am a part, and the Millennials – which they represent. The Seinfeld television episode where Frank Costanza explains how the holiday came to be first aired in 1997, when the Millennials were just babies. Of course they won’t understand!

Similarly, in talking with a nephew recently the subject of Lucille Ball was raised. He listened for a few minutes to the adults around him talking, and then bravely asked, “Who is Lucile Ball?”

Again – really? Sigh…this generation really missed a LOT!

Over the last few years, academic and business researchers have been writing more and more often about the challenges of working with and managing employees from four separate generations: the Greatest Generation (born before 1946), Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964), Generation X (1965 – 1980), and Gen Y or Millennials (1981 – 2000).

The challenges facing management today include not only in developing a good working relationship with individuals from separate eras, but also recognizing that there are also significant differences in how they communicate, view their time with your company in both length and purpose, compensation, motivation, collaboration and training, just to name a few.

Each generation grew up with different experiences and values, while witnessing different world events as children rather than adults, and entered a world completely different from their parents from a technology perspective. 

The challenge, then, is to learn to not only understand the differences, but to manage in a way that meets the needs of each generation. Without meeting them where they are, and in a manner in which they can understand and respond appropriately, chaos will eventually ensue, and you will be looking for another new employee – again.

There are several books, published studies and other materials available to help you make the best decision for your specific situation. One of the better articles I have found was written by Jan Ferri-Reed in the April 2012 issue of the Journal for Quality and Participation.  In this piece, Jan focuses on ways to work proactively and effectively with Millennials by helping the reader understand why they think so differently, and place higher or lower values on things other generations deem non-negotiable or unacceptable.

There are other bodies of work describing the differences, and how to effectively manage them, but I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you work best with the different generations? What works, what doesn’t, and if you know – why?

As you are considering your response, please also take a moment to celebrate the differences, and celebrate Festivus – a Festivus for the rest of us!

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected management professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is also a published author on the topic of childfree living.