3 Stages to Onboard Successfully: Assimilate and Integrate

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Introduction

“Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal.” — Cornelius Fichtner

In our last article, Know Your Company, we did a deep dive on understanding your company employing the 5C Role Onboard Framework. The 5Cs in the 5C Role Onboard Framework focus on the following areas:

• Company (Capabilities): Your company’s core competencies: human, operational, financial, technical, and infrastructure capabilities.
• Customer: Your customer — who they are, how they engage with your company, their pain points, and desired solution.
• Competition: Your competitors — who they are, their strengths, weaknesses, and perceived strategy/focus areas, and how they compete.
• Collaborators: Your company’s collaborators — their role in your value chain, status, behaviors and impact they have on your company, customers, and their business.
• Conditions: Lastly, consider the external forces and factors Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal, and Environmental.

Now that you have a clear understanding of your role (Stage 1) and gotten to know your company (Stage 2), in Stage 3, it’s time to integrate the learnings from the 2 stages and act.

Image: Integrate and Act

Let’s Do Some Inventory

But before we dive in, let’s take a step back and acknowledge what you have accomplished so far! In Stage 1 and Stage 2, you…

• finalized your role definition with key stakeholders;
• established your responsibilities and scorecard evaluating your performance;
• gained knowledge on your company;
• identified your customer (target market);
• increased your knowledge of your competition and your competitive differentiators;
• learned about your collaborators; and
• became well-versed on the conditions potentially impacting your business environment.

That’s a lot… even I’m exhausted. Take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Now, let’s get started on Stage 3.

Evaluate and Assimilate

To get started, revisit your work in the EOF_Worksheet and assess your role (Stage 1) in the context of the critical company elements gathered in the 5C Role Onboard Framework (Stage 2). Then map out, how you can or will address the key questions/concerns raised. Here are a few examples below.

• If you are in a customer-facing role (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Customer Support) or a strategy-focused role, drill down on the Competition steps in the framework and develop a Compete plan detailing your competitive differentiators and your strategy and plan to compete.
• If you are in an operations role (e.g. Manufacturing, Distribution, Logistics, Front and Back Office), do a deep dive on the Collaborator steps and determine how you can make a better use of your Collaborators to optimize your operations taking note of any gaps to be addressed.

For all roles, be sure to review and drill down into Company and Conditions given their underlying dynamics and application to your business area.

Utilize the 3_1_Evaluate tab in the EOF_Worksheet as a template for capturing your plans.

Calibrate Your Role and Responsibilities

Upon completing your evaluation, calibrate this with your role and responsibilities. And update where appropriate, denoting any additional responsibilities and/or gaps to be addressed along with their impact. Additionally, be sure to capture any responsibilities that were identified that are currently not assigned to anyone and the impact if a responsibility is not completed.

Lastly, review your calibrated role and responsibilities with your manager and determine if you should take on any responsibilities that have not been assigned. I realize it is not always advisable to take on additional work but if an activity is requisite to your ability to do your job, it’s better to identify the gap and assign responsibility.

Utilize the 3_2_RoleCalibrate tab in the EOF_Worksheet as a template for updating your role definition.

Revisit Your Scorecard

Revisit your scorecard based on your understanding of measures used to evaluate performance in the 5Cs. Update your scorecard, where applicable, adding, refining, or further defining any areas that are aligned and influential to corporate performance measures. Your goal is to highlight your impact on your company’s bottom line.

Utilize the 3_3_ScorecardCalibrate tab in the EOF_Worksheet as a template for capturing your updated metrics/KPIs.

Communicate with your Key Stakeholders

After you have calibrated your role, responsibilities, and scorecard, follow-up and share your updates with your key stakeholders. When you meet, share your learnings focusing on how they impact your role and potentially, your stakeholders.

Where applicable, also emphasize how updates align with your key stakeholder’s expectations. Your objective is to demonstrate your agile mindset in not only your thinking but your planning and actions as well.

Act

“Actions speak louder than words.” — Abraham Lincoln

It is extremely important to follow-up with action after your work. Not only does it demonstrate your intent, but further emphasizes your ability to follow-through and deliver.

I realize that this is a lot of work and it will take some time but there is no better time than now — before there are any bigger expectations of you. Additionally, this is the time to establish and bolster your new role to be most effective and impactful both in the short and long term.

Here are a few suggested actions.

30–60–90-Day Plan

Develop a 30–60–90-day plan to map out your planned activities and goals. The 30–60–90-day plan provides a nice roadmap for your activities, sets the tone early that you’re about business and getting things done, and provides clarity for your manager and stakeholders on your planned focus areas.

Speaking from experience, in a lot of cases — no matter how big the organization — your early days in a new group or organization can be quite nebulous and disorganized. Once you are onboard, everyone is trying to figure out what to do with you — What materials should you review? Who should you meet with? What deliverables can you complete? This can be extremely frustrating.

The 30–60–90-day plan averts this frustration with a plan designed by you and endorsed by your manager and stakeholders. Just the same, having a plan can also help everyone narrow in on your area of focus in the near term.

Utilize the 3_4_Plan tab in the EOF_Worksheet as a template for capturing your plans.

Pick Your “Dragon(s)”

Some of the best advice I received came during a review of my 30–60–90-day plan with my Executive VP (EVP) when he remarked, “I like your areas of focus, but you need to pick your dragons.” Translation: My EVP liked the plan but was concerned that I was taking on too much. By “picking my dragons” my EVP wanted me to narrow in and focus on just one or two things that: 1) can be accomplished quickly, 2) people cared about, and 3) are consequential.

The reality is that when you are in a new role, there is a lot to learn, and oftentimes given your newness your area of impact is limited. Therefore, you should identify one or two things that you can wrap your arms around and address them.

The objective of the “pick your dragon” exercise is two-fold. First, it allows you the opportunity to knock out some consequential tasks. Second, it enables you to establish your springboard in your new role with an early win. This will bolster your role and allow you to learn more about your new domain.

Additionally, this will enable you to learn more about your organization’s priorities — so utilize this as a time to put together a prioritized list of critical issues to be addressed in the future.

Utilize the 3_5_Dragons tab in the EOF_Worksheet as a template for capturing your plans.

Coffee Breaks

The other critical piece of advice that I would leave you with is to keep talking and engaging with your key stakeholders and team members. This can be accomplished via a coffee/tea break. I learned this during my time in Chile when one of my managers pulled me aside and said, “if you want them (the managers) to listen, you need more coffee breaks.”

Nothing is more effective to engage with team members than one-on-one time. And what better way than to schedule a quick break during the day and grab a coffee or tea for a one-on-one? It’s an excuse to get out of the office, it’s personal, it’s quick and direct, and it can be very productive. Not only do the breaks serve as a chance for others to get to know you in a non-office setting, but you get to know them, as well. And as it concerns all things business, you will also learn their specific areas of interests and true perspectives on what matters at your company (something that you cannot get from an email).

Refer to the 1_1_StakeholderMap tab in the EOF_Worksheet for a list of team members to engage.

Image: Coffee Breaks

After Dinner Mints

As is our custom, enclosed are a few after-dinner mints to help inspire and drive your thoughts and actions:

• Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds: A great story about a truly, remarkable individual, David Goggins. David went through Navy Seal Camp three times, went to Army Ranger school, holds the world record in pull-ups, and is an ultramarathoner. What more can I say? You won’t be able to put this book down, and your definition of defying the impossible will be redefined.
• Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work: A great read detailing the psychology on decision-making and a strategy/framework to make better decisions — as an individual and in a group. You will want to read this and take notes.
• Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline: Coupled with Atomic Habits, Finish What You Start provides a great guide on taking action and following through. This book dives into the psychology of why we don’t complete things and provides step-by-step solutions to finish what you start. There are plenty of people who start an action but significantly fewer who finish.

Conclusion

The Eastan Onboarding Framework (EOF) seeks to help you address the challenges of onboarding to a new role or function. In this article, we focused on Stage 3 by evaluating and integrating the learnings from Stage 1 and Stage 2 to develop an action plan to address opportunities and identified gaps.

Our goal in Stage 3 in conjunction with Stages 1 and 2 is clear — to develop a roadmap in your new role onboarding to be most impactful both in the short and long term. You will achieve this through an improved understanding of 1) your role and responsibilities; and 2) the elements external to your company. It is with this increased understanding that you will be able to perform your duties in an informed and meaningful and impactful way.

As a reminder, be sure to utilize the EOF_Worksheet. The goal of the worksheet is to provide you with a template to jump start your efforts and assist you as you complete the recommended actions in each of the sections. Please download the template and edit it as you see fit. If you have any further questions, or would like a free initial consultation, please contact Ron at: Ron@EastanConsulting.com

About the author

Ronald (Ron) Berry is an international executive with extensive global experience and success in the B2B and B2C digital transformation space in a variety of industries and for multiple companies.