A Letter to a Small Company’s New Hire — Part I
How to own your onboarding and win your freedom
Your Onboarding Is On You
Congratulations on the new job.
Good news: Nobody expects much in your first few weeks. Enjoy the low expectations. (They never last long.)
There’s also bad news. Statistically speaking, your new company probably won’t do that much to help you get acclimated.
One-third of U.S. companies don’t have an onboarding program for their new hires. I suspect the number is much higher among smaller businesses out there. I also suspect most of the companies who claim to onboard still don’t actually do the things that help new hires ramp. Many are just going through the HR motions. Very few take the time to build a program that delivers and drives home what actually matters:
- What the company does, how it makes money, and where it’s going
- What’s expected of them in their new role
- How to work with their manager and team
- Who they can lean on for support
I’m not trashing your new employer. I’m just a realist. Most small companies have a long list of important things they haven’t gotten to yet. Onboarding is almost always on that list.
But please, don’t let this bum you out. This is an opportunity. As Warren Ellis once wrote, “The best gifts are never given, but claimed.” Half-ass onboarding is the opening you need to gather the clarity and shape a work experience you want for yourself. But you can’t sit back and wait for it to happen. You have to earn it, and you have to start right away.
Owning your onboarding takes a little more work, but doing it right can help you get exactly what you want from your new job.
What we all want from a new job.
How to Get What You Want
Daniel Pink wrote the book “Drive” to deconstruct the ingredients of meaningful, motivating work. His answer? It’s all about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. We all want to own stuff, be good at stuff, and do work that matters. Think back to the highs and lows of your career. I’m betting your highs were the times you felt energized, in control, and connected to your job — when your work checked the box on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These three qualities feel universally good. Everyone enjoys being on a meaningful voyage, the freedom of steering their own ship, and the satisfaction of steering it well.
But, as Mr. Ellis hinted above, nobody just gives you mastery, purpose, and autonomy. They have to be claimed. Mastery is built through repetition, but you don’t get real-world reps until you prove your work is up to code. Autonomy is earned through delegation, but someone has to believe you can do the job before they’ll turn it over to you. And purpose is earned through work that makes a difference — but you have to nail the mundane before you take over the important stuff.
When you think about mastery, autonomy, and purpose in this way — not as ethereal qualities, but instead as trophies to be won — it’s easy to see what they have in common.
All three are given to you, but only after you prove yourself.
…So how do you prove yourself? By earning others’ trust.
Let’s review. We all want meaningful work. Meaningful work comes from a combination of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. All three of these qualities can be built over time. You build them through your work with other people. You build them by getting those people to trust you.
Seems pretty clear. The key to all of this — to a successful onboarding and to a fulfilling career — is learning how to build trust.
So how do you build trust?
Luckily, there’s a recipe.
The Trust Equation
The Trust Equation was introduced by David Maister in his book, The Trusted Advisor. Here it is:
Stare at that equation for a second. Both sides. You’ll notice a few things.
- Trust doesn’t “just happen.” Trust isn’t a function of time. It isn’t a measure of your inherent character. It’s a sort of accounting system. It’s a ledger of credits and debits, the running balance dictating how other people feel about you.
- You build trust by doing good work, keeping your word, and getting to know people. When you prove that you learn quickly and know what you’re talking about (credibility), you show you’re capable of solving problems. Good — here’s some trust. When you meet your deadlines (reliability), you show you can be counted on. Excellent — have a little more trust. And when you earnestly get to know the people you’re working with (intimacy), you prove that you want to be part of the group and that you’re committed to its collective wellbeing. Splendid — more trust for you. You earn trust by generating evidence of your credibility, reliability, and intimacy. More evidence means more trust. It’s that simple.
- You degrade trust by being self-oriented. It’s not an accident that self-orientation is in the denominator of the trust equation. Acting solely in your own self-interest undercuts all the other evidence that suggests you should be trusted. It erodes the good faith you’ve built up. It tells people that while you may be capable, you might also a threat. Not good. If you make it clear that it’s “all about you,” you will spend your career running to stand still. Don’t be self-oriented.
One more time: We all want freedom, a chance to hone our skills, and to spend our time doing meaningful work. But we have to earn it. Building trust is how you earn it. And the Trust Equation provides you with the step-by-step instructions.
This series will summarize the advice I share with friends embarking on a new career chapter. It’s a sort of roadmap for applying the Trust Equation in your first few weeks inside a smaller company — a startup, an investment firm, or just a great business that hasn’t quite gotten around to building a “real” onboarding program yet.
This roadmap will not only help you make a good first impression. It might just set you up for the most fulfilling chapter of your career.
You only get so many fresh starts in life. In the posts that follow, I hope to help you make the most of your next one.
