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You got the job, which means you are on the cusp of a new, and hopefully, long-term relationship. Education, experience, intelligence, and hard work got you through the door, but now it’s a brand-new game with uncharted pathways to success.
To thrive, you must navigate and master your new employer’s corporate culture, office politics, cross-functional organization dynamics, talent management, and the ability to influence people. An acclimation period is to be expected, so prior planning reduces the length and uncertainty of the learning curve.
To help you ease into your new job, break down your orientation into three areas:
1. Get to Know Your Employer
2. Talent Management
3. Learn to Influence
Get to Know Your New Employer
Organizations are more complex than ever. Org charts and subsequent workflows, responsibilities, and key performance indicators have changed over the past 40 years.
There are diverse internal and external stakeholders, constantly evolving reporting structures, traditional work hierarchies working in collaboration with specialized outside consultants, and project-based workgroups – just to name a few possible features of your new job.
Throw in work-from-home or hybrid work models, virtual meetings with participants scattered around the world, and the novel pressures of corporate responsibility (think Disney in Florida), and it is easy to visualize a new job as a labyrinth that is equal parts opportunity and dead ends.
During your interview process, you never saw past the entrance to the maze. Here is a checklist that can be the ball of string that helps you move through the labyrinth.
· Learn the organization. On day one request an org chart. If there isn’t one available, make your own.
· Introduce yourself to your manager(s). Yes, you may have met your manager, or managers, during the interview process. However, they are busy and they barely know you. Take the first step.
· Introduce yourself to clients/customers. Once again, take the initiative. Be your friendliest and most helpful self and get them on Team You.
· Understand your job scope. Ask as many questions as you need to get a thorough understanding of what is expected of you. Understand the administrative processes involved to successfully do your job. At the same time, know where your responsibilities end and others begin. Don’t be blindly aggressive or you may start a turf war you will lose.
Talent Management
The good news is that YOU are the talent! The bad news is that you’re being watched and evaluated. The other good news is you can influence the process to your advantage. The bad news is that it is a lot of work that you, and you alone, must do.
So, what is talent management? It’s ongoing reviews and performance appraisals. Every business has its way of evaluating its employees. Speak to your immediate supervisor about the process and be proactive:
· Align performance expectations and document them.
· Keep your manager informed.
· Demonstrate independence in action and thought.
· Identify and adopt modeled behaviors.
· Track your wins, challenges, and metrics.
· Want additional challenges? Ask for more.
· Put in place an individual development plan.
· Know that you’re not just being evaluated by your manager.
Learn to Influence
What is influence? The Merriam-Webster definition is “(n): 1. the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways. 2. The act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.”
The knee-jerk corporate definition is getting what you want. The more enlightened definition is to work both inside and outside organizational structures to get the job done. Influencing is not individual behavior. It’s a toolbox and mindset, and career progress and success are increasingly reliant upon it.
Do not confuse influence with:
· Bossing (command & control)
· Requesting
· Asking
· Begging
· Cajoling
We’ve all been there – people with less experience, who do less, somehow advance, but workhorses who make everything happen are passed over. That’s because you’re not the only one in the labyrinth. There are trails of string everywhere and together they make a web of relationships with a common goal – to find the exit and fly toward the sun (don’t get too close!). Consider the following when you think about the elements required to achieve your professional goals:
· Emotional intelligence/people agility gets rewarded.
· Technical expertise alone is not always the ticket to advancement
· Learn to project manage. Bonus tip: project management is a combination of intelligence and three-dimensional thinking. Project Management does not necessarily require training (but it doesn’t hurt) or fancy software (but it doesn’t hurt). The Great Pyramids, which have lasted 5000 years, were not designed or built by anyone with PMI certification or using MS Project.
· Be an active contributor
· Build effective partnerships.
· Offer alternative solutions.
· Don’t miss the opportunity to “own” pieces of the business.
· Know when to lead and when to follow. When to give. When to take. You got to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.
