This can cause a conflict if you are the business leader because, consciously or not, you created the culture that already exists in your company. There in a battle can ensue that pits the new team member against the current culture; culture always wins. So how do you make an impact on culture without causing so many waves that people get lost at sea or worse yet sea sick?
When anyone is entering a new business it is like merging onto a highway. If you are moving too fast or too slow relative to the rest of the traffic, there’s gonna be a wreck. The on-boarding process of a new team member is imperative to both their success in the company as well as the growth of the company. As many us of know divorces even in the business world cost money too.Companies that want to make a cultural impact need to be daring enough to hire the right people; change agents, forward thinkers, visionaries. Business leaders have to be crystal clear about the latitude that these team members will have. As well, making it clear to the rest of the organization that the new person is there to help the company change and grow. This will be a little uncomfortable for many employees.
I think of an exercise I walked through with a sales team once. Close your hands together, interlacing your fingers like you would normally. Now switch the hand on top. Maybe now it is the left hand on top. It feels odd, awkward, strange - but after awhile it will not feel so abnormal. It's just different and soon enough you can have your hands clasped either way and it doesn't seem to be such a big deal. Just as with my sales team learning new tools to use with customers, employees can also learn new techniques and skill sets that will after awhile feel like the norm.
With proactive communication in a company, change can be empowering and grow sometime stagnant employees into very innovative team members. The fear of change, is what can hold many companies and employees back. How do you take away that fear?We could all be reminded of the movie Office Space and cringe thinking of the two yahoos coming into the office to make things more productive - to make change. It the movie, leadership did not transparently communicate with the employees why they were there. Whether good or bad communication has to transpire for current team members to understand why things even need to change.
The connotation that change is bad has to instead be replaced with the vision of an opportunity to improve, an ability to shift current initiatives and make those necessary tweaks to make a company better for employees and customers alike.Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. ~Robert C. Gallagher