Integrating with your environment is a basic human behavior.  I had an interesting discussion today about new entrants to an organizational  culture.

Checking at the door

When you are bringing someone new into your organization the first step is usually to check their fit.  Through a variety of techniques (interviews, references, resumes, aptitude tests) the potenial candidate is vetted.

The entry level question is does the person possess the skills to do whatever tasks the organization needs to be performed.  Another key focus is usually on attitude.  Will they fit in with the behavioral expectations.

To exaggerate a point, if the organization expects members to regularly swear at each other you would want to confirm this behavior is not considered abnormal or offensive by the candidate.

What if you miss?

Given it’s impossible to fully confirm a persons fit to an organizations attitudinal and behavioral norms its not unknown for mismatches to occur.

When the new entrant recognizes this, usually within the first three to six months, there are generally three options:

• Adopt the attitudes and values of the organization
• Work from within to create change (they view this as cultural improvements) that align better with their own value system.  in some cases this can be a real benefit to the organization
• Exit.  In this case the person believes they can ‘t change , or there is such a mismatch to their personal values (most likely the case) they don’t want to change.

If new blood has been recruited to your organization with the specific goal of intiating change, it is important to support them and monitor the situation carefully so the first or third options do not occur, unless of course you want them to.

Alternatively if you see the newbie is not fitting in but their skills are valued and you don’t want them to exit it could be of value to encourage them to adopt the organizations existing norms.

The key idea for consideration in this post is the importance of being aware of potential effects of attitudinal mismatches that could be incurred by new members of  a group so you can consciously and proactively influence which of the three options will result. You can then influence events to go in the direction best for the organization.