Taking Time & Making an Impact (#43)

New hires bring an inherent super power to an organization. Because they lack the history and context of a company's journey the lens with which they view the company is not colored by previous decisions, personalities, and procedures. In essence, they are free to apply a fresh perspective to the business and to probe in ways that the incumbent staff no longer does.

New hires go through a range of emotions in their first weeks on the job. Being new is filled with the competing needs of wanting to make an impact and allowing time to become educated. In time our corners get rounded, our "outsider" perspective get's less clear, the energy from being new gets tamed. This is when we can draw energy from the most recent round of new hires, for as long as we remain open-minded they provide us with an important, updated perspective on our work.

• When you're new you want to make a good first impression
• When you're new you need to learn how to operate in this environment
• When you're new you have the freshest lens on business problems
• When you're new you don't know who holds the data you may need
• When you're new the experience you bring is all from elsewhere
• When you're new you can ask any question
• When you're new you don't know why previous decisions were made
• When you're new you want to get engaged

When we're new we should hold on to our outsider perspective for as long as possible — it's a superpower.

See the whole series by using the Paradox Pairs Index