Onboarding Succeeding in a New Job Before You Even Start

Anita Brick: Hi, I’m Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Ellen Romberg, and Ellen is the MacArthur Foundation's chief human resources officer and oversees the areas of employee relations, benefits compensation, talent management, and recruiting. She’s spent more than 25 years in human resources and recruiting, and has held lead human resource positions at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Booth. So welcome back.

Ellen Romberg: Hi, Anita. Good to see you again.

Anita Brick: Yes, it's good to have you here. People have lots of different definitions—let's just start with something so we're all on the same page. How would you define onboarding?

Ellen Romberg: I would define onboarding as the process of getting someone up to speed—of the organization getting to know the new person and of the person getting to know the organization. I really like to look at it in both the formal and the informal side. On the formal side, you have the programs that HR put together—who they talk to, the orientation side—but there's also a lot of informal things that are going on. Knowing colleagues, knowing people that there might be interactions with that aren't necessarily in the formal process.

Anita Brick: And so what responsibility, say, would I, as the new or the person who just received an offer, have? Like, what should I be doing?

Ellen Romberg: As someone just receiving an offer, I would look to learning as much as you possibly can about the context and the informal structure. There's lots of information out there about what they want to have done formally. You know what they hired you for. You know the job description, the roles, responsibilities. You know, probably, the faults of the person that you're following or whether it's a new position and what their hopes and dreams are.

But what are the interactions? What are the intersections between other parts of the organization where there might be competing resources? Where might there be people that want a part of that that aren't getting it? What's in it for everybody else? Learn that context and figure out where you fit in in the informal structure as well.

Anita Brick: How do I start that? The day I come to the office for the first time? Or do I start when you make me the offer?

Ellen Romberg: I would start while you're in the recruiting process. Learn what the context of the organization is. Are there blogs? What are people saying that work there? What are people saying who left there? I don't think you can have too much data.

Anita Brick: Well, that's a good point. There are a bunch of questions that came from alumni and students, but one of the people said they didn't preboard. They didn't do any onboarding. Now they're there. What do you do if you're already in the mix? You don't have that insight that you suggested. What are some things people can do to catch up?

Ellen Romberg: I don't know if you can necessarily catch up, but because I think you should always have your antenna out and be learning and figuring out what the context is. But I would talk to some people who did go through the process and find out what was most valuable to them. Find out who the people that you met or the concepts that were presented, and go ask questions.

Because one of the downsides to that is some of the people that were doing the onboarding presentation might feel slighted, might feel that you didn't think it was important. So I think showing those people and the people that set up the program that you thought it was important, as well as the information that you would have gotten from it. So even if it's a ways out, get it on the books now.

Anita Brick: So there were several questions about missteps, and I think one person said, Hi, Ellen, I know it may be too late for me. This is an alum, but perhaps my question will help someone else. Here goes. After starting my new job, I discovered I made a horrible mistake in negotiating salary and benefits and feel that further negotiation is needed. How do I handle that? Is that even possible?

Ellen Romberg: Depends on how cool your HR person is, right? In my case, if someone came in to tell me that, I would love it. I'm just saying I made a horrible mistake, you know, and I wish I could go back. What can we do now? Show me the facts. You know, what is it you know or think you know?

Because a lot of times when people have salary information, they have one piece of data. They don't have the whole thing. So it might be, OK, this is where I want to be. How do I get there? You know, I feel like I missed the boat in negotiating. Lesson learned. This is where I want to be. How much time would it take for me to get there? How do I do it? So if the HR person isn't as cool as I am, you know, check with the supervisor.

Anita Brick: I thought I negotiated OK. But I found out that the person sitting in the office next to me has maybe as much or maybe less experience than I do. And here she is, has a better deal. So my data point is kind of a confidential one. Is there any way around that?

Ellen Romberg: I wouldn't point to one other person because there's always going to be one. As soon as you catch up to that person, you're going to find out the person one more door down has even a better deal. You start chasing your tail with that stuff. You're not going to get your job done. Decide what you need, what you want, and find out how to get there. And there's someone else in the room next door to you that has a lesser deal than you do that's worried about what you're doing.

Anita Brick: That's true. That's true. I mean, an evening student said, what advice would you give a first-time manager taking over a team of individuals that are not strong performers and have been struggling for some time? It sounds like there's a challenge ahead, but depending on how you play it, maybe the expectations are that you're going to turn it around, but maybe you'll have a little lead time.

Ellen Romberg: Setting very, very clear expectations of the future state of what you want it to look for, letting the people in the team know exactly what it is you're looking for. Assess their talents and know that you might have to make some hard decisions. I would not jump to any conclusions at the beginning of somebody that you think is a poor performer, because you don't know the context of the previous supervisor and leadership, and someone might have some really strong skills if you can get those barriers out of their way.

So setting the expectations, do a lot of one-on-ones to find out the hopes and dreams and find out what those barriers are between that person and success and whatever it is you want to achieve. So it might be that they don't want to show up one of their teammates. It'd be hard to believe that everyone on the team is weak, but sometimes there's someone in the leadership position who's weak and people have learned to not overshadow them. And so I've scaled down subconsciously to not, you know, step above that person for whatever reason.

Anita Brick: That's a really good point, because sometimes the struggle is the person who just left, not the team that's left behind.

Ellen Romberg: Right? Maybe they were never told what they had to do. Maybe they were never given a long enough leash to make decisions on their own. If you can't complete a decision or put together a proposal or speak your mind, over time, you stop doing it. So if input wasn't welcome or you got shut down or marginalized or diminished every time you tried to speak up, over time, you're not going to do it anymore. And the new manager comes in and says people won't speak up. Well, maybe they've been taught not to.

Anita Brick: It could be that this person has a great opportunity.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely, to help these people. And maybe they're in the wrong jobs.

Anita Brick: Could be. It's true. I mean, sometimes people are playing to their weaknesses just because that's what's needed at any particular point. It sounds like maybe part of the negotiation—I know this person is in the job now—while they were in the recruiting process, could be the leverage to move people around. Move people out of the company or move people around so they lose their jobs so they are better utilized.

Do you see that happening where someone says, look, if I'm going to go in and take over this team, obviously it's underperforming. I need to be able to have some latitude if you want to have certain things happen.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely. Even if they say yes and don't mean it, you can remind them of it.

Anita Brick: OK. Good point, good point.

Ellen Romberg: Not that, you know, “you said” is a really good leadership tool, but sometimes you have.

Anita Brick: You mentioned this before. This is an Executive MBA student: Dear Ellen, how can I become aware of the entrenched and often hidden power centers within the company’s divisions and departments quickly, so I'm not blindsided to their existence and in fact can utilize them to help me increase my knowledge and advantage?

Ellen Romberg: Pay lots of attention. Sometimes the social stuff can show you. Who's hanging out together? Figure out who's talking to whom. You know—who do you see chatting? Admins often know each other, so if there are executives who have admins, you know secretaries have meetings together a lot. Those admins know each other. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is ticking off the admin staff in the president's or the CEO's office.

They have a lot of power. Who has power over the schedules? Who's been there a long time? Who knows stuff, who seems to be speaking up at meetings and is heard when people listen? Who do other people go to for advice? Seek that out. There's an informal structure that is so key to how the culture works. Being able to tap into that is huge in getting to know a culture and succeeding in a culture. Ignoring it is usually sudden failure.

Anita Brick: Well, you're absolutely right. How does that play out in the virtual world, though? So if I see people hanging out in your office and it's not just people that ordinarily would work with you, I can sense that if I'm physically in a space. What if I'm halfway around the world? And most of that's happening through email or text or other things?

Ellen Romberg: Definitely make sure that everything that you write in an email or a text would be suitable for all eyes in the organization. People get in trouble with the informal by saying something flippant to someone that's meant for their eyes only. And there's one thing in there that gets passed on to somebody else, or forwarded, or is at the bottom of a long string, and that's the only image they have of you.

So you're always communicating, whether you realize you are or not. If in doubt, go up a click with formality, using a name, use thank you, citation. Complete sentences like the president is going to be seeing it and treat the admin staff and everyone in that same way the thank you's. The longer you're around the world and you're at a 12-hour difference, state that you know it's difficult. I'd rather be talking in person, add just a little bit of cushion into the communications to acknowledge that that's a little more difficult because you're developing the relationship.

Anita Brick: You're right. But how do you identify the informal power structures if you can't see them?

Ellen Romberg: It's more difficult. But read those emails, see who else was copied, see what's up there in a string of emails. Check to see who is there. Ask questions, even just shoot an email saying I see you in this group and we've never met. Oh, I'd love to know a little bit more about you.

Anita Brick: That's a very good idea. No one's ever said that before, but that's a very good idea. There was a weekend student who said, how can the new executive prevent the inevitable conflicts or misunderstandings that happen in the workplace, where change is constant and people are dealing with lots of ambiguity and professional risk? It's impossible to avoid, I mean, all conflicts because we're all so different.

Ellen Romberg: No conflict would be flat. There'd be no—it's like change management. What are you managing if there is no change?

Anita Brick: Very good point.

Ellen Romberg: I think there's always going to be ambiguity. That's different for everyone. But in my position, and something that's worked well for me, it's putting a little bit of a pause. Don't be the first one to jump in with an idea. Wait and see what other people are saying and fill in the piece that's missing. Watch and see what other people are doing.

Listen, listen, listen, listen. The ambiguity—if you're worried something is going one way, you're really worried about it, if there's a lot of ambiguity, it's probably going to swing back the other way at some point, too. I've seen people get all caught up in an idea that was floated out there for some big change, you know, standing their ground and how horrible this is, and then used up all of that energy as being someone sort of negative, and then it didn't work out anyway. If they'd waited just a few days, no one would have to know that they were against it.

Kind of keeping track of when are you speaking up against? When are you cheerleading? How do you think other people may see you? Are you always against something, or do you always have to be the smartest one in the room? So pay attention to that. How much of those things are you using and how are you presenting yourself consistently, and how do you want to be perceived by the other people?

Anita Brick: Well, and I really like what you said, that if you add something, if you're new to an organization and you're the first one to jump in, you're going to lose credibility right away because you don't know everything.

Ellen Romberg: You don't know that it was tried before, and there's always a little bit of it. And people are always a little nervous when somebody comes in and they're going to show them up, or the standards are going to change, or you don't know who around you might have wanted the job that you got.

Anita Brick: It’s true. And if you add something, then you're there. If you're the person who fills in the final piece, then your value becomes much more obvious because they didn't have the answer before you got there.

Ellen Romberg: And you can also build on that by saying, I've been listening to all these really great points, and it's helped me to come to this last conclusion. Oh, give credit, give credit to the other people in the room.

Anita Brick: Very good point. This is an Executive MBA student who said, Dear Miss Romberg, I'm starting a new role in a new country, and I'm taking over a role from someone very senior to me by experience in age, who won't share key information with me. What are some techniques to get started without complaining? it's a little challenging if someone's not willing to hand over the reins, so to speak.

Ellen Romberg: Yeah, some people just won't be. But if you have a lot of contact with this person and still can, you know, utilize them, I would try to to schmooze as much as possible on how valuable their information is. Ask for advice, find out what it is that they're looking for. You know, try to figure out are they afraid of being shown up, or are they ticked off about something?

Are they insecure that what you're going to find might be something you'll be critical of? As much as you can, find what is that motivation point for them and speak to it. Boy, that sounds manipulative. But that's—management manipulation is kind of close sometimes.

Anita Brick: The point, though, is that there's a bigger goal in each of the individuals. There are organizational goals—and you’ve got a great point, because maybe they did the best they could, but they didn't do a, you know, a great job. It wasn't stellar. And as you go through the marketing plan or the financials or whatever, you're going to notice where the cracks are. It could be that that's one of the reasons why they're holding back. But listening—it all seems to go back to listening, doesn't it?

Ellen Romberg: Yeah.

Anita Brick: An alum said, Miss Romberg, many companies expect miracles these days. What are some concrete things to do immediately, or at least in the first few months, to have some clear successes?

Ellen Romberg: I would say prioritizing more than anything, paying as much attention to your supervisor or the leadership in your group, and keeping a top five priority list and double checking with them. Because I think one of the biggest problems people have in a new job, if it's been vacant or there's been these expectations—and I'm dealing with this right now, a year and a half into a new—I guess it's not really a new job anymore—that there's a list of 130 things.

So I continually go back to my boss and say, these are the top five. Is that still right? We have this new one added on. Does it fit in here? Yes, we're doing other things. Yes, there's lots of task stuff in there, smaller items, but I see these as the top five. Three is better, but if you have a greedy boss, sometimes you have to go to five and just even state what the next two are.

And that's how you're prioritizing your time. And I think paying really, really close attention to where you are spending all of your time, not necessarily having to do a full time and motion study—those can be pretty obnoxious. If 30% of your job is sales or is in increasing revenues, are you spending 30% of your time focused on that?

And if you have an internal report that takes a lot of time, or there's a computer program, you have to learn, or something that's a rabbit hole you're spending all your time and make sure that if 30% of your success is based on this, you're spending 30% of your efforts there, or at least that amount.

Anita Brick: Especially if it's the primary driver. So there was a follow-on question to that, which I think you sort of alluded to before, is you need to have a strong network in the company. So an Executive MBA student asked, based on your experience, what advice would you give to others starting a new role in terms of building a mutually beneficial network?

Ellen Romberg: Asking people for 15 minutes. That you'd like to learn more about what they do and their history there. Most people will give you 15 minutes. So a famous sales technique—yes, there's the coffees and the lunches, but everybody's schedules are so full. So find out first, you know, in a 15-minute meeting or ask somebody just to spend just ten minutes with them to learn more about what they do.

Anita Brick: When you're new in an organization, though, how can you provide benefit to them? Because it's great. They're telling you stuff. They're giving you stuff. What can you do? Ultimately, it has to be an exchange of some kind. So how do I, as a new employee, benefit you when you've been there a year and a half or five years or however long someone might be?

Ellen Romberg: Ask them. Say I'd really like to benefit the organization or benefit what you do in your job. Can you think of anything? These are the things. These are the places I've come from. I'm happy to share best practices that I saw. Or are there any areas from places I've been that my experience would be helpful to you? I wouldn't just drop it without telling them what great thing someone did without the invitation. I think that's part of the courtship.

Anita Brick: I've heard people having conversations where a new employee is very eager, wants to learn everything, and then that's kind of it. And then, well, this person was then coached. Their onboarding was not too smooth, shall we say. And he was told, you have lots of knowledge. Even if they ask nothing of you, ask them at the end, like you said, what can I do for you? Rather than you being a baby bird being fed over and over again, you're also doing some feeding too.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: These questions obviously all sort of connect with one another. This is an alum. Dear Miss Romberg, thank you again for answering this in advance. How can a new executive create a reputation for being trusted, especially in times when the expectation to dive in and make decisions and changes is very high?

Ellen Romberg: It's a tough one. I would say the key ways people lose trust is by not doing what they say, by not keeping confidence, by being different personalities to different people. When your staff sees you all smiley and friendly and, you know, all over the place when you're with people at your own level and up, and then you turn around and are nasty to people that aren't part of that group, they don't know which one to trust.

And even people, your colleagues, when they see you acting different ways to different people, take note of it. I think where you're spending your time, how you treat all levels of staff, and are you doing what you say you're going to do? We talked earlier about a person inheriting a weak group of people. How are you setting the example? How are you modeling?

I think another way trust is broken is just not following through with what you said you were going to do, but then coming down hard on people when you don't feel like they've come through with what you asked them to do. So modeling.

Anita Brick: Modeling. So consistency and authenticity, too.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: Yeah. When you see people behaving in different ways to different people, you're like, OK, I want to run in the other direction.

Ellen Romberg: Who are you?

Anita Brick: Will the real person stand up. The other part that goes along with that is, an evening student says, how can I brand myself and set expectations in the eyes of people who are already there, of existing employees?

Ellen Romberg: Consistency. And decide what you want that brand to be. Those people that know you well: ask them how they see you as a brand.

Anita Brick: Even if they're not in your company. Oh, that's an interesting point, because who we are is pretty apparent to the people who know us well. And being something that's fake eventually will come out. That's why, you know, it's so funny to me when people in an interview process pretend to be something to get the job because when they onboard, everybody's going to learn who they really are.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely, I know. That’s why recruiting is so much fun.

Anita Brick: So you're cool and you have fun with recruiting. So there you go.

Ellen Romberg: There you go.

Anita Brick: Do you have time for a few more questions? Okay. Then this goes back to something you said before. This weekend student said, what's the best way to quickly understand the state of the business? What should I look at to know that it is the right time to start making changes? So I guess the question is, how do you know what the state is right now?

And then it sounds like this person has already decided to make changes. When can you actually start implementing changes?

Ellen Romberg: Depends on what kind of change. What's been the budget history in your area or the whole organization, either annual reports or whatever budgeting mechanism you use? What has been the pattern long term? You know, know your economic trends within the last couple of years. What have been the big events? When have other changes successfully happened? You know, if you can tap into the network and find out changes that failed and why.

And sometimes you just have to leap forward. Find out, you know, from your supervisor and others what are the consequences if this fails and go for it. Fix something that isn't going to be a big difference. And if you're going to fail forward and learn from it, you know, maybe get a few people that are on board to say, we're going for this, and it may fail, but my gosh, we're going to learn.

Anita Brick: And it sounds like something you said earlier would apply here to go and see through your informal network, finding out things. I mean, I would probably want to do that before I accepted the job.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: You certainly don't want to wait and find out things that maybe would make it not such a desirable job after the fact.

Ellen Romberg: And again, you want to do the formal stuff in the, you know, in the Hoovers and the, you know, the cranes and what the stories have been over the years, but also the informal stuff. I think Glassdoor has something in reviews from former employees. I think there's other ones like that. Check out your LinkedIn, find out who used to be there and just what advice they would have. Or is there anything they can tell you about what it's like to work there?

Anita Brick: That's a great tool. And obviously to take it with a grain of salt if someone's just complaining, complaining there. But sometimes people leave for a whole variety of reasons. They hated to leave, but they had to move cross-country with their spouse or something else.

Before, you said that there are small things that you can do, and then there are big things, and obviously change on the small things is easier to implement. That takes less resources, probably less consensus and all of that. An MBA student said, what advice could you please provide on how to balance completing the small day to day tasks while not losing sight of the higher-level strategic goals and ambitions? What proportion of time should be spent on small stuff versus the big stuff early in one's tenure?

Ellen Romberg: Oh, it really depends on the job. But I think there's—I think you're already on the right track with carving out specific time for the big stuff. I tend to even make a meeting with myself, you know, set it up in Outlook and block off an hour and a half of planning time, clear everything else off the desk, put my phone on DND, and I'm just working on planning and setting that up and really watching your time, because it's easy to let the daily stuff take over. And probably your job description doesn't say that your main job is to empty your inbox right now.

Anita Brick: It's true. And most of the people listening, at least a portion of their job is strategic in nature.

Ellen Romberg: Another thing is to not overpromise when people are asking you for little stuff. Yes, it can be done tomorrow, but at what expense? So asking someone, when do you absolutely have to have this? What is the date? And keeping track of that and setting time on your calendar that comes after you've done the most important things in your job.

Anita Brick: How do you manage the expectations before you say yes to the job at all?

Ellen Romberg: Oh, that's a tough one because when you're in the interview process, you want to say you can do it all.

Anita Brick: You've offered. Now you've made the offer to me. Before I accept, are there some things I can do to manage expectations? So I know, at least to the best of my ability, I know what I'm getting into?

Ellen Romberg: I think ask someone, what is a day in the life like in this job? Or what have other people told you about what are the competing priorities, you know, in the interview process? Ask them how they handle competing priorities. That's part of the culture, too: is it acceptable to say, no, you can't have this. I'm telling you some things, paper covers rock. You know, when the president asks me for something, I'm not going to say no, I'm planning today. You have to leave some contingency in there for when that stuff happens. And use your best judgment. But having the time set aside. Something eats into it, reschedule it.

Anita Brick: I mean, if you don't do it, you'll never have open space to do that.

Ellen Romberg: Nope. You have to clear it.

Anita Brick: You have to clear. Good point. All right. So let's think back to a year and a half ago when you were starting your new job or when you received the offer. And if I remember correctly, you had about four or 5 or 6 weeks between the time you started. What are three things that you would recommend that someone who has an offer or is thinking about the onboarding process should start right away?

Ellen Romberg: I would say not being loaded with all the stuff that you learned that you're going to either in school or in your previous job, that all these things you're going to do in the new job without understanding the context. What are the key ideas of things that you learn? What is the knowledge you can carry with you without it being an exact reaction to what you learned before?

So make sure that the context fits with where you're going. Let's say in your old job you spent way too much time, you know, babysitting staff, and you realized you probably should have made some changes earlier on. You go in loaded for bear on the next one. You see something wrong. You're going to make all those changes. So I think learning what are your own values? You don't learn them, but really examining your values or what is the stuff you really want to take with you? And do a lot of soul searching.

And what is context-specific that you're not going to try to cram it down their throats because it's something that you believe in and you're good at? Find out if it fits, see if it makes sense. If it does fit, how are you going to use it? So utilize your skills and your education in those experiences. And what are those—think through is it going to fit in the next context. So travel light.

Anita Brick: So that's one. What's number two?

Ellen Romberg: If you've got the time off, go in as relaxed as possible. Feeling good? I'd start planning out some of the schedule items. You know, how much time you want to spend on each thing and do some research on other people. You could also, it's just a golden time to relax a little bit.

Anita Brick: Maybe as a third point, how much time would you suggest someone spend actually having those conversations, having some—getting to know people before you walk in the door?

Ellen Romberg: It's really personal preference and access, and I would even talk to a few people first, whether that's going to seem as if people are going to be put off by that.

Anita Brick: Oh good point. Yeah.

Ellen Romberg: You know, so I would test the water a little bit saying, you know, I'm just so anxious. I want to start getting to know people. Do you have any cautionary words? Or especially if the supervisor, the hiring supervisor, if they find out that you've had lunch with everybody else in the staff, it might not be taken so well.

Anita Brick: It goes back to context.

Ellen Romberg: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: And to really, really listen. Any other final words of wisdom?

Ellen Romberg: Just to have fun, pay attention, and definitely the listening piece. If in doubt, just don't say it. Nobody got themselves, you know, really listened themselves out of a job.

Anita Brick: Thank you very much. And thank you for listening. Keep advancing.