Although most of my clients are leaders in professional roles that they expect to hold for the foreseeable future, it's not uncommon for me to work with someone as they navigate a transition and join a new organization. In that context it's often useful to remind my client they possess a uniquely valuable asset that will eventually disappear: newbie goggles.
For most of us, most of the time, the various cultures that surround us are nearly undetectable. Behavioral norms, ways of working and communicating, the explanatory narratives that help us interpret and make sense of the world--these are generally taken for granted and rarely subject to interrogation and analysis. We're like fish in water, as the late writer David Foster Wallace once remarked:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?" [1]
But when we're in a new role, in a new environment--even one that we've opted into because we believe it to be compatible with our needs and values--we are the proverbial fish out of water. Because we haven't fully internalized the surrounding culture, we don't yet take it for granted. Because we're wearing newbie goggles, we can suddenly see it in ways that the current members cannot.
In most cases, we'll join them shortly, and that's a good thing. The new member--and especially the new leader--who's unable to integrate with a new culture rarely gains sufficient traction to be effective, as management professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones note:
Leaders must conform enough if they are to make the connections necessary to deliver change. Leaders who succeed in changing organizations challenge the norms--but rarely all of them, all at once... To change an organization, the leader must first gain at least minimal acceptance as a member. [2]
And in the process our newbie goggles inevitably lose their efficacy. As we adopt the norms and narratives of the surrounding culture, and as they lose their novelty and become familiar to us, we can no longer see them and hold them up for examination. Instead, we absorb them and exist within them. What the hell is water, indeed.
So if you've recently embarked upon a new professional role or entered a new environment that you hope to occupy long-term, note that whenever something seems strange or different to you, that's a precious opportunity that won't last forever. Your newbie goggles are in working order, allowing you to see things that the people around you probably can't.
The key is determining what to do with these observations, even--and especially--if your intention isn't merely to integrate with this new culture but to improve it. You may have been invited to join this organization for the express purpose of serving as a change agent, bringing new skills and expertise to bear on a culture in need of evolution. And even then, when your newbie goggles detect something that catches your attention, I suspect you'll be most effective by saying, "How interesting! Please tell me more about this."
Footnotes
[1] This Is Water (David Foster Wallace, 2005)
[2] Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?, pages 109-110 (Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, 2006 / 2nd edition 2015)
For Further Reading
Hammering Eggs (Leadership and Problem-Solving)
Who Needs to Know? How Will They Feel? (On Change)
Conform to the Culture Just Enough
Photo by Thomas Hawk.
