When entering a new position that has an established team, how would you best approach the team to gather info about each member, find out their strong and weak points, find out “what they do” and what makes them tick? I know this could come off as a “bad thing” day one, so I am trying to see how best to go about this to get good feedback and input without coming off as negative?
The Team Doc Says…
This is a really good thing to do when you first join a team. It’s a good way to get acclimated to the style of each team member and to learn about what the team is doing. If your team leader hasn’t set this up for you (they should!), you need to suggest it in the spirit of “onboarding” to the team.
A good way to accomplish this is to jot down a few questions ahead of time that will help you achieve what you are trying to find out. Plan on spending about an hour with each team member. Create your question template, put together an interview plan and then discuss it with your team leader.
Once approved by your team leader, coordinate with your teammates to develop a workable schedule of interviews. You may find during the discussion that you want to spend more time with one member or another. If that’s the case, set that up before the time with them ends.
By the time you are done with your interviews, you should have a good handle on what’s going on with the team, what team members are working on and a bit about their style of working. The biggest value you will get out of this is the relationships you will be starting to build with others on your team. That’s something that will help you for a long time to come.
What about you reader? Do you have other suggestions? Please leave a comment.
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Denise,
What you said makes a lot of sense. A couple of things for new team members to keep in mind: 1) get a head start, 2) manage the message, and 3) help others deliver results.
GET A HEAD START
Sometimes you can start these conversations before day one. It’s a particularly good idea to do this with team members you’re going to have to work especially closely with. Day one is always crazy. And after day one, you start to lose control of your schedule. Before day one, you can generally carve out some quiet time to get to know people.
MANAGE THE MESSAGE
Everything communicates – including the questions you ask. So think about what you’re trying to communicate in advance and factor that into your question template and interview plan.
HELP OTHERS DELIVER
The best teams understand that they can deliver better results as a team than they can as individuals. Keep that in mind as you’re implementing your interview plans. You’re not trying to learn about the others so you can be more successful. You’re trying to learn about them so you can help the team be more successful.
George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration
What you’re saying really is true and it can be exceptionally hard as the ‘new one’ coming into a unit.
As someone in a very similar situation (I’ve only joined my company about a month now), we need to realize that we are being scrutinized under a microscope. No one starts off really liking or trusting their new supervisor – because we are, to them, there to ’supervise’.
We need to be very cognizant that there are (and will always be) ‘cliques’ in the workplace and we should never give the impression of favouritism, even unintentionally. By nature, we are attracted and are more likey to talk to people who come up and talk to us, however something as simple as being a little friendlier with some over others, simply because that employee is by nature a more amiable person, can be viewed as potential bias.
This is especially true coming into a team in a leadership role. I ran an arts studio once where there was a lot of negative energy. The teachers only came in to the studio now and then and there were a lot of decisions that needed to be made before we could meet as a team. I ended up alienating one of the senior teachers with a scheduling choice that he didn’t like and that was bad news. I was only working with the information that was brought to me by those teachers who had come in to talk with me. So interviewing everyone individually before making any changes would have been smarter.
In the pure teamaholic spirit I believe that any new member of a team should be helped to integrate, and what a better way to achieve this than have the member join the rest of the team in some leisure activities or social meeting, if there is not such thins like a team building being planned in the near future.
These are all excellent points. The work doesn’t stop after you get the job. It’s just the beginning. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to add your thoughts.