If you’re bringing in a player wherein you get your top 20 people or top 10% to 15% people of your company, what you cannot do is have a short meeting or circular event where you introduce this person to your team and then you introduce the team to this person and then begin on-boarding. If the guy you’re bringing in is a major player who you’ve probably spent a ton of money and time in finding out that he is the perfect person to come into your company, if you want an explosive on-boarding to take place, you cannot bypass rapport, building value, building know, like, and trust, and put them right into the company. Realize that you are not adding a person to your team. You are putting this person into a room and you are mixing up puzzle pieces and you are creating a brand new team.
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Explosive On-Boarding
We’re at 120 plus employees. I learned something after 25 years in business from a gentleman named Patrick. He is the Founder of Rhythm Software. We are bringing Patrick and his team into our corporate office to train our top folks on what I believe is one of the greatest software out there to run a company through. When we went to a one-day of beginner training, we flew out to Patrick’s office. It wasn’t even about a software, but he is training so many major companies through his software that he’s learning a ton on all different fronts of business. We were talking about some of the major changes in management that have happened this past year or this coming next few months.
He said something stunning. He said, “I got to tell you something, if you’re bringing in a player that is in top 10% of your company, even maybe even top 15%, what you cannot do is have a meeting where you introduce this person to your team and you introduce the team to this person.” Maybe the person’s name is Bob. He said, “There cannot be an event. You cannot let it happen in which people get into a room, your top twenty people, and you have a fifteen-minute coffee cake, coffee cup circular event where you introduce Bob to the team and you begin onboarding.” He said, “Promise me that doesn’t happen.” Kerri and I are looking each other and we’re like, “That’s what we’ve done for 25 years.”
First and foremost, you have to build rapport. Click To Tweet
I might’ve even said that to him, “If you don’t do that, what do you do?” He said, “Let me ask you this. When you’re selling something and you meet a potential client for the very first time, what goes through your mind immediately?” I said, “First and foremost, you have to build rapport.” He goes, “Exactly. What’s next?” I said, “You have to build value.” He goes, “Exactly. What’s next?” I said, “I guess you go down the path of know, like, and trust.” He said, “Exactly. Why would you throw a new person who you’ve probably spent a ton of money and time finding out that he is the perfect person to come into your company, why would you bypass rapport-building, value-building, know, like and trust-building, and put them right into the company and then expect him to sell the company on him and the company to sell the company to him?”
I’m like, “What are you saying? What do you recommend?” He goes, “If it’s me, if this guy is a major, major player, I would have one or two days of fun and games, rapport building. I would get it to the point where 48 hours in, this guy knows the five main people he’s going to be working with social security number, kids names, size of their bathtub, what wine they drink, where their wives shop and their husbands shop. They better know in two days the jokes that make them crack up, the best book they’ve ever read, what motivates them, what scares the crap out of them? Their greatest accomplishment to date outside of relationships. He went off and I said, “Would that be profound?”
He goes, “Here’s the way you realize it” This is the key statement, “You are not adding a person to your team. You are putting this person into a room, you are mixing up puzzle pieces, and you are creating a brand new team.” It was stunning. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. We have another major person coming in. We’ve already set in motion two days of game-type of events on-site and off-site so that this person gets mixed into a new team. This information is powerful. I hope this helps. Take care.
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