Monday morning, I watched a powerful and very inspirational talk from Emilie Wapnick. In her allotted 12-minutes, she talks about the concept of multipotentiality and how one’s true purpose might actually be a collection of several different passions that storm in and fade out instead of a singularity. These passions come together to ultimately define one’s experience and view point (I’ll apologize now to Emilie, for oversimplifying her message).

There are many great takeaways for people like me; people that have seen their career shift in seemingly random movements. It’s hard for many people – especially my family – to understand how I went from my Chemistry degree to IT to textbook publishing to tech writing to instructional design to learning to HR to cultural consulting with little to no additional training (not to mention freelance web design, writing and running a music blog for over a decade), but the reality is each experience help form my understanding of organizational behaviour and what people are searching for in a career.

But what really resonated with me was Wapnick’s belief that the alignment of multipotential employees that bring unique viewpoints to a problem with a specialist that possesses a detailed understanding of issues, potential risks and past attempts will ultimately help solve the problem.

This symbiotic relationship, one that I explored in a post about team captains and distributed leadership, is the exact change mechanism I suggested for refocusing how employees are onboarded into new organizations.

So much of the onboarding process is to make sure new hires learn about “our culture”, hear “our stories” and understand how to succeed in “our environment”, instead of opening an avenue for the organization to celebrate fresh viewpoints to potential solutions and existing culture. I understand that onboarding is the only time most organizations get to talk about core values, successfully introduce collaborative tools and key business processes, but the first few months on a job is also the best time to encourage new hires to share freely, without fear.  

On Day One, people are excited to make a difference and to solve challenges. They are happy to be part of something new. But that excitement only lasts for so long if it’s not nurtured and encouraged. Successful onboarding, like any first date, shouldn’t just be about one person telling their story. It should be about two people figuring out when they share similar interests, experiences and how they can learn from each other and grow together.

Essentially, once you show an employee how they are expected to act and how things are done within your organization, you begin influencing ideas, creativity and output. You lose the unbiased knowledge that person can offer to a solution.  To go back to my snowboarding days – yeah, I took some time away from working to live that life too - a mountain of fresh snow has countless paths, but once people ride on it for a few hours and the groomer lays out paths, we are left to simply follow the path in front of us unless we want to break the rules and go out of bounds.

Changing how we onboard

So why do I think catering to the concept of multipotential during onboarding is the key to solving critical problems? Well, there are a few key reasons:

1. Actual innovation

Without question, the longer you are part of an organization the more likely you are to fall into group think. I’m not trying to offer another ham fisted take on drinking the corporate Kool-Aid. It’s simply that when we work with the same people over a time, we inherently understand which ideas will gain support, what processes will never evolve and sadly, what teams / people are aligned politically and unwilling to change.

A new hire, one full of energy and excitement, won’t have political alliances or be frustrated by the defeatist notion of “that’s how things have always been done around here.” Because they don’t know the box, they are often left to think outside it without repercussion.  They can bring their unique skill set and experience to a problem and propose new solutions.

As Wapnick alluded to, pairing that fresh set of eyes with an expert that understands the history of the problem, what has failed in the past and also a deep understanding of the organization’s readiness to explore and implement potential solutions will help pressure test the idea for validity.

Innovation is a core value of almost every organization in the world. It’s tucked into the mission statement and splashed on the wall, but innovation usually comes from the defined “smart people” and is handed down for implementation.

I don’t subscribe to that philosophy.

If you work with me, you’ll probably say I’m hard on new ideas – Hey Paul! I’d 100% agree with that assessment, but not because I think an idea is bad or mine would be better. It’s because I feel that asking different questions and challenging assumptions could be the difference between a good idea that stagnates and a great idea that works. My past experiences are not going to be the same as yours, and together we have the chance to come up with an idea that we couldn’t develop in solitude.

Plain and simple; if we start approaching problems from different viewpoints, we will be able to come up with better solutions.

1. Develop trust and self-confidence

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, one of the most fundamental short-term outcomes of an onboarding program is the development self-confidence and clarity of role.

Learning the basics (i.e., policies, legal, benefits, payroll, org chart) will always be a part of onboarding, but understanding how to get paid and where to find career maps is not going to help a new hire develop confidence. Instead of letting a new hire believe they aren’t experienced enough to help, we can encourage new hires to contribute on key projects by actively soliciting their feedback on problems that are impacting the organization.

That’s how real trust is developed. From the minute someone is hired we can demonstrate we see value in that person. There is a reason we hired you and we need your help.

This type of meaningful interaction will help develop confidence.  Once a person believes that the organization trusts them, wants their opinion and insight and doesn’t need them to be someone different than who they are, that person will be engaged in both the work and the organization.

The missing piece is that they shouldn’t have to wait until they do something fantastic to earn that acknowledgement and recognition. They earned that the day they were hired.

1. Form real connections

Onboarding cohorts are commonly trumpeted as a way to develop a network on Day One. Sadly, trying to form bonds based on a start date is no different than forming bonds because we went to grade school together because we grew up on the same street. Why would a sales person connect with a network engineer or HR professional simply because they attended the same orientation session? Truth be told, I can't remember one person in my onboarding session.

We develop bonds when we succeed or fail together. We connect through shared experiences and shared interests. No matter how popular Tinder may be, authentic working relationships can’t be developed by proximity, surface level appeal and simply swiping right.

Introducing real challenges during the onboarding period lets new hires work side by side with both tenured employees and other new hires. Working on a problem until you come up with a valid solution (or you learn from failing) allows us to actually develop meaningful working relationships, mentor each other and develop the trust and appreciation needed to form a bond.  

In most organizations (despite what the org chart shows), we aren’t bound to our team mates. We usually network and learn from the cross-functional teams that form as a result of project based work. To paraphrase that old proverb, we learn not from being told, but by being involved.

By embracing the notion that we all have unique viewpoints and different backgrounds, we start seeing overlaps and similarities (who doesn’t love Venn diagrams) that aren’t based on working in the same office or being on the same team. They are based on tangible results.

1. Change from traditional to future state

To me, this is the biggest opportunity for organizations. Ideas and change are continually dismissed because that’s not “how we operate” or "people will never buy into that." Processes are too rigid to change. Hierarchy is too defined.  

That type of thinking is a death sentence. The life expectancy of organizations is drastically shrinking. According to Ellen de Rooij of the Stratix Group in Amsterdam, the average life expectancy of all firms, regardless of size, measured in Japan and much of Europe, is only 12.5 years.

Put more directly, what worked 5 years ago won’t work 5 years from now. In reality, it’s probably not even working right now and if you can’t admit change is coming – and more importantly – needed, your organization won’t continue to exist.

Bottom line, as Wapnick points wisely points out, is that multipotentials are often more adaptable than employees with a singular focus. This is because change doesn’t scare them. Multipotentials spend their entire life starting over, because they need to explore new passions.

In today’s ever changing world, the ability to start over and being able to reinvent is what will save organizations.  In the past, people tried to solve this problem by simply hiring from outside. While in theory this does provide a chance to shake things up by implementing new ideas or practices, it’s still a top down directive.

Embracing new ideas at the employee level is going to promote adaptability and change. If we can instill that behaviour on Day One, almost anything will be possible.