Making sure the new team member feels included and understands the role
1. Set a culture of rich pictures in well-crafted stories.
When the shape of a team changes, nothing progresses a smooth transition like a good story. Stories can break ice among strangers to create shared experience and camaraderie. Stories can set the stage for working creatively, welcoming differences, and they can help people relax, share talents and keep calm when times get tough. So make it a way of life to offer rich pictures in well-crafted stories.
A rich picture is one with lots of detail. It’s as if you were looking closely and then showing others what’s in your mind’s eye. Use words about colour, shape, size, the mood and feel of rooms, interplay and relationships. Here’s an example.
What a first day for Steve. Poor guy came in drenched after running from the parking lot under the kind of sudden darkness and torrential downpour we tend to get at this time of the year. But, since it happens a lot, Ben brought out the big towel and a steaming cup of fresh coffee and Barbara told Steve her own first-day story, which everyone found pretty funny, and Steve agreed that after all he’d look back on this morning with a big smile.
The richer your pictures, the more powerful and lasting the shared experience listeners take away. So don’t wait until you have a new team member to start your work with rich pictures. You’ll want to be ready when someone new comes onboard.
2. Advertise the new role as a team / context story.
The more you can control the responses to an ad, the more cost effective the ad and the more likely you are to draw qualified candidates who will integrate quickly. Making the ad a bit of a story can communicate both the job and the culture. Here’s an example.
We started as two in 1987 and now we’re eleven, looking to make an even dozen who delight our clients with the most attractive interactive customer-friendly sites on the web and enjoy the pleasure of collaborative working in a warm, friendly environment. Home working a definite possibility some of the time.
Tell stories at interview, too. They offer a portrait of the cast, a twilight experience of the culture and some sense of the unwritten behaviour codes.
3. Before the new team member comes on board, let everyone know the new person’s credentials and at least one story about her or his prior work.
Even if the organisation is small and typically you all speak face-to-face, it is useful to send an email, perhaps including the new team member’s CV/Resume but certainly including an introduction that is a rich picture. Your aim is bringing the new person to life as an individual with a personality and a style, a sense of humour -- someone who will be a little bit familiar to everyone even before they all meet.
Day One
4. Wherever possible, bring the whole team together, whether remotely or in person.
Use VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that allows everyone to see one another using web cam. Welcome the new team member with some company stories that leave no doubt about what it’s like to work on the team - roses and warts and all. In fact, if it’s convenient, you might start at hiring time by involving some team members who’ll tell a story or two.
5. Promote collaboration by setting respect, compassion, openness, and integrity as the ground rules, and tell stories to show why.
Since there’s no time for politics, you’ll need to set the stage for collaboration. You want the new team member to feel collaborative and believe that the others will welcome, accept and trust her or him. Tell a rich-picture story about collaborating at difficult times. State openly that you live by respect, compassion, openness and integrity, and then tell a short story about each one.
6. Ask some team members to tell a story about what the team will accomplish.
Remind that every team member is a key protagonist in the story of how the whole team will meet the challenge. Some people find it useful to compile the ideas, pictures, key players and anticipated futures into a document or even a drawing. It may seem a bit naff or artificial. However, the result is that the new person quickly knows the others as individuals, and the getting-to-know-you time goes down by orders of magnitude.
Nuts and bolts
7. Assign a mentor who’s a natural storyteller and who is primed to tell company stories with a point.
You need a short learning curve, so either take the role yourself or identify one team member as mentor who tells stories that make points fast. If the team is ongoing, make the rotating mentor role part of what’s great about being on this team.
8. Regularly ask about how things are going.
You want to pick up issues before they become problems. You want to know whether a new person is adjusting quickly and whether any of the team see issues with the new person’s manner or work product. Telling a story about something difficult is easier than making a complaint. Use stories about how things are going for you to model the kind of stories you wish people to tell.
9. If you find there are issues or problems, bring the team together and tell the story of the issue or problem as you understand it.
Include in the story some ways you see to resolve the problem. Your aim is to depersonalise the problem. Here’s a snippet of an example.
You know, every time someone forgets that deadlines are responsibilities, not goals, customers call to remind us about how it is to deliver on time. Remember? ABC said they would buy from us even though our prices are higher because they can count on us to have the goods when they need them.
You want to present mistakes and problems as opportunities for development, and team members as sources of support for one another and ideas for solutions. Telling a story with a problem and a good solution leading to a positive ending inspires people to work together with that story form as a model.
Inclusion complete
10. Is the new team member trusting, decisive, committed, self-confident and perhaps ready to mentor someone new? Look for clues in the stories people tell.
The more people are trusting, decisive, committed and self-confident, the more productive they will be. The more you foster these qualities right from the start, the more quickly a new team member will work hard, learn from mistakes, develop a loyalty to the team and a determination to do a quality job.
You might tell a story on the first day illustrating how trust, decisiveness, commitment and self-confidence can quickly see the new team member a happy, productive team colleague.
These tips reflect ideas in a paper by Dr. Madelyn Blair & Robert Clymire at Pelerei, Inc. a Washington DC area storytelling and consultancy firm. [email protected] . The article is taken from our Development Academy. For more information on team development and team building training visit our website.
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