Respect for your new company’s history

Any time I have changed jobs, I have made it a priority to demonstrate my respect for my new company’s history and culture. What I mean by that, is that I believe it is very important to assimilate yourself into your new company, and to show respect for the successes that your new company has had to get it to where it is today. That respect for the company shows respect for the people who built it.

So often I have seen new employees, brimming with enthusiasm continually refer to their previous employer. How often have you heard someone say “well, where I used to work, we …”, or “at Acme Company, we would never…”. Everyone does that on occasion, as the experience gained at prior employers is what you probably got you the new gig. But, if you wear out the phrase “where I used to work”, you will begin to isolate yourself and irritate your co-workers. I have the co-workers mumble “well, if Acme is so great, why don’t you go back?”

Where I used to work, we did it this way!

If you need to refer to your past to make a point, a very innocuous, less insulting phrase is “it’s been my experience”. Yep, that little phrase demonstrates your authority on the subject without offending your new friends by name dropping your old friends. Remember, your new company has had to make many really good decisions over the years to get them where they are today, even if they seem to have been poor decisions by today’s standards. At the time, they were very good decisions based on the information or budget available to them at the time.

Another behavior that is important to break is to blame any predecessors. I took a job once where my predecessor was not held in high regard by many members of my team. The old guy still worked in the company in a different capacity, and my new team often blamed him for many of the challenges we were fighting today. It was some sort of blood sport.

After awhile, I got tired of it. I told my new team that I no longer wanted to hear them blaming him for anything. I wanted us to take responsibility for the work, and to take the high road no matter what the situation. I explained that by doing so, we would set ourselves apart from the drama and demonstrate high integrity to our staff and to our colleagues.

Without realizing it, I achieved a level of respect from my new team and created the start of our “gelling” into a solid, cohesive unit. As a leader, you should never blame your predecessors, or your staff for anything. I had a boss that said to me “you succeed, but WE fail.”

The basic point is that you need to demonstrate respect for your new company. The history of success and current culture is what created the opportunity for you.

Let me know what you think!

Mike

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