Building Trust When Onboarding New Talent

One of my favorite parts of onboarding a new team member is seeing their User Manual.

Inspired by this user manual by Pete Vowles, we ask and share:

• What are some honest, unfiltered things about you?

• What drives you nuts?

• What are your quirks?

• What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify?

• What are you working on improving?

We receive candor by giving it first. Here’s the user manual I share on day 1.

2023 Word of the Year - Texture

Managing to energy and soul fulfillment rather than task achievement. 

What are some honest, unfiltered things about you?

• I am driven by exceeding our client’s expectations and I detest anything that feels “just ok”. I always want to be aiming towards (but I do understand it won’t always happen!) exceptional. I was the client once. We are not always smarter or better than them and that attitude is unproductive. 

• I care more about the results than the “how” but if the results aren’t there - I will be extremely directive on the “how”. 

• I know we can’t control everything about our results - I get upset when we’re not owning the parts that we do control. That’s how we win.

• I am open and frank, reflective of my own failings. Feedback is a 2 way street and I’m as open to hearing it as I am to giving it.

• I can be critical. This is not due to a negative attitude but the fact that when I see problems - I want to fix them right away.

• I am comfortable changing direction, shifting and adapting. I think of an established process as intended for  “most of the time” with room for good judgment. 

• I most enjoy working at a really really high pace, with lots going on. Conversely, I lose energy in long-turnaround times/ extended deadlines where there is no sense of urgency.

• I get energy from thinking about how we could do things differently. This can make me appear impatient. Sometimes I am just a raging combination of perfectionism & impatience - not a lovely combo and if you feel what I’m asking for is impossible - I definitely want to hear that from you!

What drives you nuts?

• People saying they’re going to do something and not doing it. I don’t care much about the intention to do it.

• People thinking one thing and saying another. For example, saying they like something and secretly thinking it’s awful. That’s unproductive and annoys me A LOT.

• People being territorial, putting their interests over our collective ones.

• People thinking only about what’s right in front of them -- I like thinking that includes steps 1, 2 & 3.

• Flakiness, tardiness.

• Making excuses or blaming others.

• Finding problems and not taking responsibility for finding solutions.

• People holding back ideas, trying to perfect things on their own, rather than engaging early for thoughts and feedback.

• Professional people acting like victims of change and not seeing & using their own power and agency to lead change. (FYI ← I never see this on this team and love that!)

What are your quirks?

• I thrive on challenge and discussion and love brainstorming ideas. 

• I like a clear and simple narrative, based on what things look like in practice. This is the best way to get me to understand things and grasp high-level concepts.

• I love trusting people to get on with things, but I do like to be involved at key points and kept up to speed, enabling me to increase my confidence and trust in people.

• Equally, I can lose confidence if I don’t hear about progress. When this happens I can start to get into details, which can feel disempowering for people.

• I worry about my reputation and brand in the industry. Sometimes too much.

• When I am pulled too deep into the weeds on delivery/recruitment, it makes me very cranky. Sometimes it’s very *necessary* for that to happen but it makes me feel stuck on my broader goals for the business and frustrates me.

What are some things that people might misunderstand about you that you should clarify?

• Sometimes I’m giving an idea and it comes off as a directive. Sometimes I’m giving a directive and it comes off as just an idea. 

• Despite seeming like an extrovert, I am an introvert and days of 10 hours of meetings drain me a lot. Sometimes I’m not irritated even though I sound like it - I’m just tired.

• When I challenge projects or ideas people can think I am challenging them or saying they’re doing a bad job — I don’t mean to; I am trying to provoke debate and discussion.

• I don’t want to hold people back: life and careers are more important than any task we have in front of us today; I will always support people to move upwards and onward.

• I genuinely want to know what people think and I can sometimes take silence from people as a sign of a lack of interest.

• I thrive off change at all levels. This even applies to even the most basic things like where I sit, how I take notes, my routines etc. Sometimes I need to be told to back down and let things settle in.

What are you working on improving?

• Not interrupting you all so much and waiting for the agreed upon touchpoints (ex - checking RF before firing off a slack message). This is a HARD habit to break and one that I really want to! This has nothing to do with you or your work -this is that I’m flying through doing stuff as it occurs to me but it’s disruptive and unhelpful. I must work on this. If I ask for something and you’re in a good state of flow - it’s ok & encouraged to tell me when you’ll follow up on it. You don’t have to stop everything!

• Showing you how to own the client/messaging vs. being a filter -- I’m here to support you and it needs to be done well but me checking all of the work all of the time isn’t sustainable or scalable. Since I am not a good trainer I tend to fall back into directing rather than teaching without meaning to. This is typically more about my feelings & habits than your work. CALL ME OUT ON THIS.

TEAM - I want to hear about you! Please reflect & share the following. Your user guide will be shared with the team. We won’t always be perfect about not driving each other nuts -- but we will try!

Use 1-2-4-All To Hear From Everyone In A Large Group.

Try: 1-2-4-All by Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz.

Ask your team a question, giving time for:

• 1 min of individual reflection 

• 2 mins to generate ideas in pairs, building on ideas from self-reflection

• 4 mins of four people looking for similarities and differences

• 5 min of idea share from each group

Three Elements For Stronger Meetings.

The 3 elements for meeting that don’t suck:

Novel: At least one part of this meeting is facilitated in a new or interesting way. This could range from a new brainstorming technique to unexpected snacks or just a big announcement.

Useful: The intended outcome of the meeting is clear and easy to understand. This purpose is clearly written for and said out loud. It’s clear that this should be a meeting (and not an email).

Reliable: An agenda is sent in advance including any context or supplemental info.

Align Incentives To Save Money.

Aligned incentives are a real thing of beauty.

For roles that don’t require daily coverage, consider what a position could look like at 80% of time, salary, benefits & responsibilities.

Many travelers, parents & side hustlers would gladly trade a 100k job for a 4-day week at 80k with benefits and a commensurate cut in responsibilities.

Is it right for everyone and every job?

Nope.

Is it a huge win/win when it’s right?

Yep.

Yeah, People Aren’t Going To Do That.

Why 70% of goals fail to happen.

Too many excellent goals fail because execution relies on people (aka fallible humans) to:

• work harder than they’re working now

• remember all of the things that they’ve never remembered before

The most important planning step is to plan for how we’ll make it:

1. easy for people to do what we want

   • automate

   • remove barriers

   • share information + wins

   • incentivize + remind

   • clear ownership + decision making responsibility

2. hard for people do what we don’t want

   • See: guide from 1944 CIA Field Guide for sabotaging Nazi organizations:

     • For organizations and Conferences

       • Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken to expedite decisions

       • Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length.

       • When possible, refer all matters to committees for “further study." Make the committees as large as possible.

       • Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible

       • Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, and resolutions

       • Re-open matters that were closed at the last meeting

       • Advocate “caution” and avoid haste which might result in difficulties later

       • Worry about propriety of any decision. Raise questions about jurisdiction and conflict with other policy

Cultivate vs. Control

This is a mindset shift for leaders.

You can’t control your way to an exceptional team. You can only cultivate, even if it means letting your team make a few mistakes.

Cultivating is a longer but ultimately more rewarding journey.