Teams Come and Go: Relationships Never Die
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage - Jack Welch
Churn is a part of startup life. Even so, it’s not something many of your colleagues will handle well. But you, the aspiring former fed working in BD, know how to cross these choppy waters.
There will be some great working relationships that come to an end. You move on to a new role. Or your teammate gets a great job at a new company. Then it’s time to learn to work with someone else.
Use these times of change to quickly form new partnerships. Do not wait and expect things to work themselves out. Avoid assumptions your new counterpart understands your strategy and goals.
Doing this well prevents avoidable problems like silent resentment, unhealthy competition and feelings of being left out.
Follow these steps:
Introduction
Take time to get to know your colleague. You don’t have to overwhelm them with the challenges of the new account in the first five minutes.
What is their background? Why did they get assigned to your team?
Clarify Communication
Help your new teammate understand the preferred internal and external communication method. Is there a weekly cadence with the customer? How does the team share internal updates?
Are they Slack channels, WhatsApp groups or other messaging forums the new team member needs to be invited to? Integrate them ASAP.
Knowledge Transfer
Point your colleague to where they can read in. For example, an internal strategy document, which provides a historical overview of the customer journey. This could be in Salesforce as well.
Explain how this information is maintained and updated. How will the new teammate be expected to contribute?
Encourage them to read everything and then ask questions. This avoids explaining details already well documented.
These initial three steps maintain the strategic integrity of your customer accounts while quickly onboarding a new teammate. Once they feel included, know how to communicate and have a background, it will be smoother for them to comprehend the core principles and objectives of your team’s GTM strategy.
They will buy in on the rationale behind existing procedures and decisions. They will feel comfortable offering their ideas and engaging in constructive discourse.
Applying this approach works just as well when you are joining a new team. Ask for these three steps and you’ll be how quickly a new team integrates you into their workflow.
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