By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
A young manager talked with me about an experience that she had in her new organization. She had just assumed a nurse manager role and relocated to take the position. Because she had leadership experience, her onboarding was limited to hospital and nursing orientation. Barely three weeks into the position, she attended a meeting with senior leadership staff and candidly gave an assessment of the changes she would need to make in her department. This type of briefing would have been routine in her previous organization where there was a high level of transparency and open debate. But her assessment was not well received in her new organization. She was slowly and painfully learning that the culture and patterns of communication were much different in her new organization. No one had given her guidance about this and she had failed to ask any questions.
This experience is not unusual. Tye and Dent in their work talk Building a Culture of Ownership in Healthcare discuss how culture is the invisible architecture in organizations. Culture is made up of a complex web of ideas, values, and practices that are both the expression of individual and group behavior in a specific community and an influence on shaping that behavior. Culture is frequently deeply routed and may not be immediately transparent. The boundaries of an organization can and should be understood before you cross them. For a new leader, learning these behavioral norms is a critical success factor but one that is not given much attention when onboarding. Knowing how decisions are made, the values that guide the organization and how communication flows matters. Just as a new staff member needs a preceptor to provide a road map to understand the policies and practices of an organization so too must they been given a road map to the culture.
This young manager could have benefited from the guidance of an organizational cultural navigator. The most effective cultural navigators are those who have been in the organization for a relatively long period of time, are well connected and highly respected. Some good questions that organizational navigators can help to answer for new leaders include the following:
- How are decisions really made in the organization?
- Who are the power brokers?
- Is open communication encouraged in meetings?
- How is conflict managed?
- Who are my key stakeholders?
- How are budget decisions made?
- How quickly are changes adapted?
- What are expectations around attending meetings, social events and community events?
- What are some unspoken beliefs and values in the organization?
- How does one gain credibility in the organization?
When onboarding new leaders, it is as important to consider cultural navigation as it is to focus on key business skills. When leaders derail, it is usually not an issue of competency but rather one of cultural adaption.
Read Rose Sherman’s new book available now – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave
Read to Lead
Tye, J. & Dent, B. (2017). Building a culture of ownership in healthcare: The invisible architecture of core values, attitude and self-empowerment. Indianapolis: Sigma Theta Tau.
© emergingrnleader.com 2019
LinkedIn
Instagram