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When It Is Just Not A Fit!

4001829_sSometimes things don’t fit. Over the past three weeks, I have been in an experience that I will not trade for anything. I decided about a month ago to come out of semi-retirement and applied for a couple of positions. I was lucky enough to get interviewed and hired. I was excited about starting, wrote about that first week back. Frankly, I doubted my decision. With everything that I do, I reflect and look inward to figure out what I could have done better.

What I learned during the interview/hiring process:

  • Do your due diligence. Maybe I was blinded by the fact that this position could be one in which I could help an organization with my skills and experiences. I normally do a much better job of gathering all information before I say yes. I did some investigation. Not enough though. More investigation will happen in the future.
  • Trust your gut instincts. I call it gut instincts because I don’t know any other way to explain it. When I was interviewing, there was a few things that I heard and felt that just did not sit well. I just told myself that you had not interviewed in quite some time and I was out of practice. I decided that the job was something that I believed that I wanted to tackle anyways.

As mentioned above, I was excited and ready to get started. As a new supervisor and a new member of the organizations leadership team I was in the observation mode to start. I was learning at a quick rate. By mid week of week one, I had most of the tools for doing my job. I was jumping in after week one. Working on making changes to help my team meet SLA expectations, handling clients, customers and key stakeholders; and seeing some pretty good feedback from them. Still in the back of head wondering, just like anyone in a new job – “is this really right for me?”  “Am I making a difference?” Not everything was perfect. I know I was not doing everything right. 3 weeks in, is just enough time to make some mistakes. My manager highlighted a few items for me to do at the end of week 3 (don’t change policies without first discussing them, remember to give me a heads up and keep rotating people in and out of the NOC). I am open to feedback and was attempting to work on it. First day of week 4 – rotation is starting to happen, lunch break policy change was asked if we could modify due to number of personnel in NOC that day (I got a go ahead). Then comes the, “we are just not working out message.”

As I look back on my experience and look at the positives.

  • I met some pretty incredible people. They are smart and really want to do a good job. Many of them helped me when I was struggling with everything hitting me so fast. They took the time to show me how to do things.
  • I got to experience a different job, one that I had worked in before. I was enjoying learning systems, procedures and actually writing a few of my own.
  • Dealing with the difficult clients and helping to make the overall experience better was exciting to me. There were 3 in particular in those weeks that really standout in my mind. Their thanks via email or a phone call were good enough for me.

There were small hints from the start that this was going to be a difficult road.

  • I was given a list of people to manage. They were never assigned to me to approve time-off, adjust the hours or anything within the company processes.
  • New personnel, I would end up as their supervisor, were hired without any input from me. I was later surprised by them showing up the day of their start or a couple of days before they started.
  • 2:1 meeting to review the first week ended up sounding alarm bells in my gut again.

Key takeaway’s:

  • I came from big corporate and went to a small company that wants to grow. My experiences are different. I may have compared my experiences from the past too much. It is a different place. I need to adapt better next time.
  • Organization culture is important to me. A lot more than I thought. Part of that due diligence needs to be understanding the organization culture. Network and find out as much as you can ahead of time.
  • Leaders have to demonstrate what they want in their organizations. Make sure to set the example for excellence, listen and work with your people and usually good things start to help.
  • Leadership style’s differ. I was always under the impression that differing style’s can help each person learn and grow. I know my style is very adaptable, but maybe it clashed with others. Be aware of those situations and communicate.

I wish the company and organization nothing but the best. I hope that the team continues to work hard on exceeding expectations in the future. You just never know when our paths may cross again.

Photo via Copyright: viktorus / 123RF Stock Photo

Published inObservations

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