How do you onboard new talent onto a team--and get everyone to go in the same direction?

What’s the right balance between people who can grow with you and new people who bring in fresh ideas? Assuming you should be working with both, how do you make them part of the same team, moving in the same direction?

-Founder in Mexico City

Dear Founder,

This is a great question. You are right, the answer is that you need both.

While it’s great to promote from within, you can’t simply promote your way to a high growth company because the math doesn’t work.

It’s fantastic if you have people who can grow with you, but it will not be enough. If you have 5 people right now and you are expecting to be 100 people in 2 years, you have to build competency around hiring and onboarding. Beyond being a numbers game, this is a way to expand your effort with new and diverse people and ideas.

You should be talking about this with your people from the beginning, which will help changes go over more smoothly. You want to do everything possible so that people know they are valued and have a bright future. When you can, promote from within and show other team members what’s possible with those examples. Explain that it is not about choosing either current talent or new talent, but growth is about needing both. People understand better when they have more context.

Companies that are able to scale are great at welcoming new people and making them feel appreciated. Onboarding should be a core competency. That means embedding the culture and values into the interview process. Once new hires start, spend time training people, setting them up right and taking care of them. Find ways to welcome people. Match them with someone who will invest time in supporting them and can share more about the company culture.

A winning recruiting and onboarding strategy entails a lot of dialogue for alignment around:

• What does success look like?
• What is expected of the new hire?
• What authority level does the new hire have? (What authority do they have to hire? What input should they get before they fire anyone?)
• What are the expected behaviors? What is the appropriate style for the culture?
• What do the first ninety days look like?
• What problems will they want to tackle right away? What should be put on hold?
• What is the cadence around check-ins? (I’m a fan of weekly 1:1s with direct reports.)

If something does go wrong, don’t shy away from articulating your worries, but try to do so in a way that’s constructive and truth seeking, rather than blaming. It’s all about ensuring both the new people and existing people feel like a valued part of the company and understand the culture. That will help alleviate any potential “organ rejection.”

The better you onboard and acclimate someone, the faster they will deliver impact and the faster you will all earn the results you are striving to achieve. Before you know it, the new person becomes an established part of team, and understands there will be more new people and is committed to successfully bringing them on.

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