Transition & poems

Three weeks into the transition into my new job, in a previously-unknown food manufacturing industry with unique processes which are complex, elegant and routine, with more than a few mundane protocols, I find comfort in two poems by the amazing Polish poet Janusz Szuber?(d. November, 2020) for his empathy….and applicability to people such as myself. If you also feel you are over your head in your new position, you are in good company and I hope these bring a familiar appreciation.

A Small Treatise on Analogy

In the car, before the synagogue in Lesko,

Waiting for Madame M.R.,

I watched a bee trying from the inside

To force the slanted windshield,

Its efforts composing a simple

Parable about existence in general.

I picked up the notebook in which now

I’m recording this incident, and with its help

I directed the insect toward the slightly open door,

Halfway believing that one day

Someone will treat me the same way.

Doing Inventory

Doing inventory, illuminating labyrinths with

The beam from a pocket flashlight. The one

Who speaks, within himself and to himself.

And who simultaneously hears behind the window the shrill

Sound of a drill furiously boring into wood.

The one who speaks within himself and to himself,

Illuminating labyrinths with a beam of light. Drawing

Energy from a small battery in a pocket

Flashlight to find, explain, and complete

The inventory within himself. And who speaks to himself.

Not as furiously as the shrill voice of the drill

Behind the window, beyond himself, outside.

Transitions are such critical times when small differences in our actions can have disproportionate impacts on results. We are vulnerable in our first few months in a new position because we lack detailed knowledge of challenges to face and what it will take to meet them. Leaders entering a new organization face different challenges from those who are promoted from within. In the offices around mine, I have supportive advisors and counselors in the experienced managers, and I believe my own boss has a solid transition acceleration roadmap for me which is anchored on hand’s-on as compared to focusing on mastering institutional process knowledge as top priority.

We appreciate the President of the United States gets 100 days to prove out, and?I think I have a few days less than that in a thankfully less-stressful and less taxing role! My goal is to reach the breakeven point where I contribute as much value to my employer as I have consumed from the organization all around me. A new first-time manager new to brewing and packaging beverages would need eight months to reach the breakeven point. For me, I think 80-95 days is my objective.

Daily meetings bring natural tensions...the tension is about the intersection of ideal and present realities and how those play out day to day. And I already had my ?“virus situation” in a daily meeting, but I think I recovered when I acknowledged my unfamiliarity. What I expressed stimulated a defensive reaction. So I activated a part of the team’s immune system and when you do that, the virus takes the risk of being attacked by white blood cells, getting encapsulated, and expelled. Life for the manager-virus is dismal.

Transition may be a powerful crucible for development, but a great poem is always...a great poem.