In the first few months of joining a new company, you may experience the excitement for a new adventure and apprehension about whether it will be a good fit. So, it can be disconcerting to notice that certain colleagues are not welcoming — and may even seek to undermine you. Not only can their behavior distract you from performing at your best, but their view can jeopardize your brand, especially if they are influential in the company.
The dilemma of fitting in with new colleagues is a widespread problem. Half of all senior-level outside hires fail within the first 18 months, mainly due to an inability to acclimate to the company culture and often due to poor onboarding. And for the newly appointed leader, harmony with coworkers is so desired that as much as 58% of men and 74% of women would refuse a high paying job if it meant not getting along with colleagues.
There are lots of variables that could cause your colleagues to subvert you early in your arrival, and many of those are out of your control. But here are a few strategies you can use to make sure their perceptions don’t diminish your motivation or hinder your success.
Consider that it’s not you they resent, but rather what you represent.
If you find out that certain colleagues are badmouthing you behind your back or making it difficult to collaborate early on, it’s fair to say they haven’t had much time to get to know you, so there may be factors at play that preceded your arrival.
For instance, one newly appointed senior vice president I coached could tell that many on her inherited team acted in passive-aggressive ways, telling her what she wanted to hear while being inaccessible and unresponsive to agreed-upon actions. In a conversation with her boss, she found that almost half of the team had applied for her job. Her coworkers were not just upset about not being selected but also dismayed that the company chose to hire a leader from the outside rather than promote from within. Unfortunately, this SVP became the unintentional face of a long-standing grievance in that department.
In some cases, you may also find your colleagues alienating you because of how your impending arrival was talked about before joining. I coached a marketing director at a renowned Fortune 100 global company who left to take a VP role at a smaller, regional firm. Despite carrying herself with humility and warmth, she found several colleagues unwilling to engage with her.
After a few months, a friendly colleague explained that her boss — one of the few SVPs at the company — had been so effusive in vocalizing how pedigreed and experienced she was before she joined that people began to form opinions about her immediately. The SVP was so proud that he was the one who “landed” someone from a global brand, who could have essentially “written her own ticket,” but his desire to take credit for poaching a star hire set the VP up for a hostile onboarding.
Create your own advisory board.
As a new external hire, you may be hesitant to run to your boss or colleagues with every question or concern you have about assimilating within the company culture, in case that comes across as incompetent. But the vast majority of companies practice poor onboarding, and up to 20% of new hires leave within the first 45 days of joining. So you would be doing the company and yourself a favor by being proactive in learning how to avoid potential landmines and missteps as you navigate the company culture.
To prevent the mistake of shattering norms and acceptable work styles in your organization before developing your brand, create a personal board of directors for honest insight and advice. Ask some of the more difficult people around you for ongoing feedback, not only to show a willingness to grow yourself but also to protect yourself against any potential sabotage.
Your boss is your best advocate early on, having made a bet on hiring you, so ask to spend significant one-on-one time with them during the onboarding stage. They can help you align on workflow expectations and learn which key stakeholders you need to influence for success. Then enlist some peers who also report to your boss and your direct reports and coworkers in other departments for ongoing advice. The idea is to spend just as much time learning about “how” work gets successfully done there as “what” work to do in your role.
Co-opt your enemies.
Some resentful colleagues will actively undermine you, whether by withholding information, delaying collaboration, or attacking your ideas in public. In every case, it’s vital to protect your positive intention to do good work for the benefit of your leadership brand and the performance of the company.
Their behavior likely has less to do with you than with their insecurities, so consider them as “enemies” worth cultivating influence with, because they may evolve to become useful allies in the future. For instance, you may surprise a colleague who criticizes you behind your back by asking them for their advice and expertise on a work issue. Perhaps publicly compliment them, showing that you are secure enough to raise them and share the spotlight. Such gestures may not only warm them up to you but encourage them to reciprocate in time.
With the most serious offenders, it may be a tall order to generate a feeling of goodwill for them. But no matter how much they aggravate you, it’s worth remembering a fact of human nature: Actively liking people gets them closer to like you.
Research shows that when you expect acceptance by someone, you tend to offer warmth to them, leading them to accept you. The opposite is also true: When you expect your colleague to reject you, you will likely approach them with a coldness that leads them to reject you. So, you don’t have to become their fan, but if you mentally generate even the slightest thing to like about them and expect them to come around eventually, your nonverbal behavior will shift. And that change in your presence disrupts their negative expectation of acceptance from you, allowing them to develop a fondness for you slowly.
Own your part.
While your colleagues’ resentment toward you early on is often rooted in factors related to their insecurities and organizational dynamics that preceded you, it’s wise to reflect on what you may be doing to contribute to or exacerbate the negativity.
Consider reaching out to a colleague who is particularly non-responsive or even actively undermining you and initiate a heart-to-heart conversation. The result can be quite powerful. You might say to them, “Look, I know a lot of people aren’t too excited about me being here, and I get it. Some of their concerns are rooted in things outside of my control, but I don’t want to make excuses if I’m playing a part in being challenging to work with. I value your advice in succeeding at this company. Can you tell me if I’m doing something wrong and offer me some ideas on fitting in better?
In addition to asking for feedback, take an honest inventory of your approach through introspection. One of my clients, a VP of IT, had joined his third new employer in the past decade. After several experiences of not assimilating well at other companies, he realized he came across as arrogant and excessively authoritative, often seen as a brazen “empire builder” by colleagues. So, upon joining this new company, he decided to be more modest and less dominant in interactions. But after a few months, he was shocked to find people avoiding him because they found him to be too indecisive, unclear in his intentions when meeting, and asking so many questions that they felt they had to do his work for them. It seemed his efforts not to ruffle any feathers actually did.
In this case, the VP had to find the proper balance between how he used to be and how he thought he should be, often without anyone’s direct guidance. But by observing their response to him and staying self-aware, he could find hidden lessons on the company culture, the speed of decision-making, and how information flowed relative to his prior employers. And the more he worked to adapt his approach based on experimentation and calibrating to the response, the better he could succeed even in the absence of direct feedback.
Not everyone will be a fan of yours when you join a new company, and some may even actively undermine you despite your efforts to assimilate. But by following these strategies, you will be able to build your influence where it counts and slowly open the door for initial naysayers to believe in you.
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December 16, 2020 at 09:07PM
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Are You Worried That Your New Colleagues Resent You? - Harvard Business Review
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