Fitting In

When starting a new job, showing your skills is obviously critical but as important or even more important is learning how to fit in. You'll have to adapt to the company's way of doing things and interviews do not indicate how much adapting you will have to do.

Your new colleagues will probably give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have the right skills to do the job but they will wait and make their own judgments about how capable you are to fit into the company culture. Basically they will try to figure out if they will like working with you. If you do not fit in the time it takes for you to feel welcome and knowledgeable will take longer than necessary.

To fit in you will have to learn how to work with your boss. You will have to pick up on hints, subtle queues and discern what you should be doing and what the priorities are. You will have to learn what is expected from you and what you can expect others to do for you if you ask. You will want to figure out who is competent and who will perform as asked but not strive for too much more. You'll have to figure out what you can learn on your own so you don't waste colleague's time unnecessarily.

You will need to figure out who can become an ally and teach you the ropes and where the bathroom is. You will need to learn from a friendly face the politics that everyone else understands but may be reluctant to share with you. You'll want to develop relationships with the people best suited to your personality and best suited to help you in your work. You will have to read body language or even harder, discern a person's tone on a telephone if you do not interact face to face. Since you are the new guy or gal, people will be a little more formal with you at first.

Building a Reputation

When you meet your colleagues they will want to label you or size you up so they can feel they know what to expect of you in future work situations. This will be the start of your reputation. It is also a great opportunity to establish a long lasting positive reputation. If your reputation does not start out well it will take a long time to get it where you want it to be.

Once people develop a reputation of you they may unconsciously look to reinforce it. So if your reputation is one of someone who says something and does another, every time you miss a deadline even if just by a day or if you get back to someone later than planned, your 'bad' reputation will be more cemented. If someone hears about your reputation before meeting or working with you, one slip and your reputation will now have been extended to one more colleague. However, if you have a good reputation the error may be perceived as just a one-time occurrence and quickly forgotten.

So after a time you will probably have a reputation but you can never be sure just what it is because you will be lucky if you get feedback on your reputation once or twice a year, even if it is a good one. Regardless, it is helpful from a professional point of view to know what your reputation is not to mention from just being curios about it. To find out what it is, you'll have to keep your antennae up.

But if you had a choice, what should your reputation be? Maybe you will want a reputation of someone who says what they mean and means what they say or of someone who says if they are going to do something, they do it. Maybe you want a reputation of someone who always does high quality work but that might conflict with a reputation of handing everything in on time so tradeoffs may have to be made. Maybe you want a reputation of someone who quickly gets to the point? But can you quickly get to the point, or can you get others to make a point quickly without appearing rude?

If you want a reputation of someone who is easy to get along with you may have to talk with colleagues a lot and cut down on your work time or work later to make up for it. Maybe you want a reputation as a hard worker, but does this mean you are willing to stay late or work weekends? Does it mean you will cut people off if they waste your time and start talking about non-work related issues? Do you want to be seen as the problem solver, the go to guy? Maybe so but expect a lot of problems to come your way that take time away from you solving the problems your boss is expecting you to solve. For each type of reputation you want to actively pursue there are others you will not be able to pursue.

Take time in your new role to figure out what reputation is best suited to your skills and what the company needs.

Pick up on what your colleagues perceive to be good or not so good skills and personality traits. The stories from others about current or former colleagues, advice and suggestions are subtle queues as to what the company culture is. Often a company culture is hard to define or articulate but like a judge once said about pornography, "You know it when you see it".

One way to help decide what your reputation should be is to figure out who has a good reputation and why. Once you know why, perhaps you can replicate those skills or even better, ask those people to mentor you. Even if you cannot directly pick up the same skills, some of it may rub off on you because I think a great skill is more about knowing how to do something than having an innate ability. And if you pay attention, most anyone can learn the 'how' part. Either way, understanding why some are successful at the company and why others are not will give you a basis to make decisions that will lead to your success.

After some time look for constructive criticism, suggestions and then go back looking for more. If you become defensive or do not react well the suggestions and advice may stop coming and you will not be able to tell for certain what you are doing well and not doing well. And if you act on the suggestions people will notice and admire you for it.

You can also build a good reputation by not worrying about it on a day to day basis. Instead, rely on guiding principles that can guide all of your decisions. By thinking about what you want to stand for can form a basis for making decisions. Once you can break a problem down and relate it to two or three principles you want to be known for, making the correct decision will become easy. Then having made a decision, you will not stress as much about the outcomes. This will give you a foundation to confidently make decisions when the right choice is not readily apparent.