Fitting In at the New Gig - Even If You Are Smarter Than Everyone...

If you have had at least two or three stops in your career, you know the importance of getting off to a running start at your new job.   In addition to the importance of a running start and some "early wins" in your new position, you also face the burden of "fitting in" and showing that you can deliver unique results while fitting in with the culture and overall value structure of your new employer.  Ignore the "fitting in" part, and you can count on a lot of hurt feelings and outright backlash from the incumbents you work with and rely on for assistance.

Business Week recently focused on one such cautionary tale - WalMart's Julie Roehm.  A high-profile veteran of the upscale marketing department at Chrysler, Roehm was recruited to WalMart as a marketing executive (part of the Marketing team, not the lead Marketing Officer, a key point) to shake up the mix and modernize ad campaigns.  As the article notes, she went in viewing herself as a change agent (not a bad thing) and undervaluing the culture at WalMart (smart change agents never undervalue the need to understand this), and within ten months she was bounced out after Bentonville determined her approach didn't match the value structure at the retail giant. 

Lots of other factors involved in this one, but its clear when you make a transition to a new company, you have to be focused not only on delivering results and the change you were hired to create, but also keep an eye on how your communication/delivery is being perceived.  A nice summary of the obligation of both sides appears in this open letter from David Kiley.

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