We’ve been in our new job for a month, a few months, maybe six months. We’re listening and learning and building relationships.
And the last thing we want to do is to step on toes. We’ve built up so much good will in such a ‘short time’. When we get home at night we’re proud to report that, “It’s taken a lot of work but I think I’m being accepted!”
But maybe we’ve been noticing that things aren’t moving as quickly as people would like. Projects are running behind schedule or haven’t even begun. And we’re beginning to hear the complaints: Not enough resources or money or time or institutional support or whatever the excuse du jour might be that keeps programs and projects edging forward at safe, manageable and uncontroversial speeds.
We would like to step in and try strategies and tactics that worked so well in our last company. But we’re still ‘the new person’ and we don’t want to step on toes and undo all of the bridge building we’ve accomplished since our first day on the job.
Except we weren’t hired to build bridges, and then comfortably fit in and not step on toes or make waves. If that’s what management had wanted, then they would have transferred or promoted someone — a known quantity — instead of taking a risk and going outside the company to find a person with a fresh set of eyes, who isn’t weighed down by the excess baggage of “Well, that’s the culture here and that’s the way things have always been done and if we move too fast then mistakes will be made and then what will we do?”
So what’s the remedy?
What if we start behaving and doing with an ‘As if’ mindset?
As if we belong here. As if we own this role. As if they hired someone to be creative and take risks and make significant contributions and move the damn needle.
As if we’re here to lead.