In Part I of this short series on "newbies," we explored how it feels to be in the role, and how to be more comfortable in it. In this part, we look for ways to build relationships with your colleagues and others in the workplace.
- Build rapport with peers
- You probably aren't alone in being a newbie. Help others when they ask, but don't foist help on those who haven't asked for it. Learn from others how to be a leader at your own level.
- Build rapport with superiors
- There are no quick ways to build rapport with superiors. It takes time and it takes care. Stay out of their way, learn what you're supposed to learn, practice humility, and be a leader among your peers.
- Establish credibility opportunistically
- Credibility comes when two things are in place: (a) you must be expected to have answers, and (b) you have those answers. Supplying answers when you aren't expected to have them risks seeming arrogant; not supplying them when you are expected to have them risks seeming incompetent. Wait for the right opportunities, and then deliver.
- Seek professional advice from the bottom up
- If you have questions, ask the lowest ranking person who might have the answer, then work your way up until you get what you need. Aiming too high might be seen as currying favor. See "Currying Favor," Point Lookout for June 8, 2005, for more.
- Seek personal advice elsewhere
- Don't seek personal advice in the workplace. It's a bad idea for most, but for anyone of low status, such as the newbie, it's especially risky.
- Find a true mentor
- Wait for the right opportunities,
and then deliver - Mentoring has been fashionable for some time, but budgets for mentoring programs have been cut in many organizations. Find a mentor truly interested in your career, even if it means going outside the formal mechanism.
- Learn how to handle newbies
- Someday, one of your responsibilities will be developing newbies like yourself. Watch how people handle you. You now have an opportunity to see what works and what doesn't. Few people take this opportunity; most tend to focus only on the content of the work.
- Learn how to connect with people in other professions
- Most workplaces contain a mix of professionals. Notice how your superiors relate to people in these other professions, and learn from their successes and failures.
- Learn about ethics
- Most of us would benefit from additional training in professional ethics. Pay special attention to the ethical choices of those more experienced than you are. Learn from their mistakes; learn from their deftness.
Someday, you'll be where your superiors are now. Notice who is succeeding and who isn't, and try to understand why. Their trials and successes are lessons to them and to you. Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? Send me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Approval Ploys
- If you approve or evaluate proposals or requests made by others, you've probably noticed patterns approval
seekers use to enhance their success rates. Here are some tactics approval seekers use.
- Pumpers
- In workplace politics, some people always seem to be seeking information about others, but they give
very little in return. They're pumpers. What can you do to deal with pumpers?
- What Do You Need?
- When working issues jointly with others, especially with one other, we sometimes hear, "What do
you need to make this work?" Your answers can doom your effort — or make it a smashing success.
- Incompetence: Traps and Snares
- Sometimes people judge as incompetent colleagues who are unprepared to carry out their responsibilities.
Some of these "incompetents" are trapped or ensnared in incompetence, unable to acquire the
ability to do their jobs.
- Fractures in Virtual Teams
- Virtual teams — teams not co-located — do sometimes encounter difficulties maintaining unity
of direction, or even unity of purpose. When they fracture, they do so in particular ways. Bone fractures
provide a metaphor useful for guiding interventions.
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming January 15: The Storming Puzzle: Patterns and Antipatterns
- Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing," applies to today's task-oriented work groups, if we understand the six principles that govern transitions from one stage to another. Here are some examples. Available here and by RSS on January 15.
- And on January 22: Storming: Obstacle or Pathway?
- The Storming stage of Tuckman's model of small group development is widely misunderstood. Fighting the storms, denying they exist, or bypassing them doesn't work. Letting them blow themselves out in a somewhat-controlled manner is the path to Norming and Performing. Available here and by RSS on January 22.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenner@ChacoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, USD 11.95)
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, USD 28.99)
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group