October 8, 2008	Volume 8, Issue 41
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When You're the Least of the Best:
Part I

by Rick Brenner

The path to the pinnacle of many professions leads through an initiate or intern stage in which the new professional plays a role designed to facilitate learning, especially from those more experienced. For some, this role is frustrating and difficult. Comfort in the role makes learning its lessons easier.

he Internet has given us many new words: one is newbie. It means newcomer or initiate. Many professions have formalized status for newbies: doctors begin as interns, attorneys as associates, pilots as co-pilots, and more. Typically, newbie rank is a way to continue your education in an environment uniquely suited to teaching important lessons. You do become a part of a team, but your main contribution is your own education.

For many, it's a difficult role. Achieving a goal so long desired, only to discover that the path leads through positions of such low status, can be frustrating indeed. Being the least of the best — even when it is also the best of the least — can be a painful reality. Here is Part I of a set of guidelines for newbies, emphasizing the inner experience of the role.

Enter gently

Jumping in with both feet probably won't work. Assume that you'll have to earn the respect of all, and that you'll fail with some. Easing in gently, listening and observing, helps you avoid the blunders that can harden impressions of you prematurely.

Accept your station

However frustrated you feel about being a newbie, accept the reality. Don't try to prove that you're better than people seem to think. Everyone knows you have talent — if you didn't, you wouldn't have been accepted for the position.

Know the value you bring to the team

The value you offer is a channel for investment. Since the team is investing in you for the future, rather than the present, your main job is learning. Demonstrate that you can learn, and learn fast, and you'll impress the people who are responsible for making your learning possible.

Recognize your mistakes and ignorance

See your mistakes and ignorance for what they are: emblems of your newness and humanity, rather than proof of defect. Accept their existence, and do what it takes to plug the holes in your knowledge and prevent repetitions of mistakes. All the competent stars around you went through much the same thing you're going through now. Jumping in with both feet
probably won't work. Assume
that you'll have to earn
the respect of all.

Learn how to handle feeling ignorant

Distinguish stupidity from ignorance. Is making mistakes upsetting to you? If so, why? If errors upset you, learning will be painful, because much of what we learn comes from errors. If you have trouble dealing with your own mistakes, fix it.

Most important, remember that this stint at being a newbie won't be your last. There will be a first time for you in many possible roles: spouse, parent, Nobel Laureate, nursing home resident, and on and on. Learning how to be a successful newbie might just be the most valuable lesson of all.

In Part II, we'll examine how the role connects to others in the workplace.  Top    Next Issue

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Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. Order Now!

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More articles on Workplace Politics:

When All Your Options Are Bad

When you have several options, and all seem politically risky, what can you do? Here are two guidelines to finding your way to a good outcome.

Devious Political Tactics: The Three-Legged Race

The Three-Legged Race is a tactic that some managers use to avoid giving one person new authority. Some of the more cynical among us use it to sabotage projects or even careers. How can you survive a three-legged race?

Plopping

When we offer a contribution to a discussion, and everyone ignores it and moves on, we sometimes feel that our contribution has "plopped." We feel devalued. Rarely is this interpretation correct. What is going on?

Patterns of Everyday Conversation

Many conversations follow identifiable patterns. Recognizing those patterns, and preparing yourself to deal with them, can keep you out of trouble and make you more effective and influential.

When Leaders Fight

Organizations often pretend that feuds between leaders do not exist. But when the two most powerful people in your organization go head-to-head, everyone in the organization suffers. How can you survive a feud between people above you in the org chart?

See also Workplace Politics and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.

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Public seminars

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (South Side): March 17, Southside Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarRichmond, VA (West End): March 18, West End Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarWherever you are: it's a webinar: August 3, Monthly Meeting Webinar, Memphis Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Fort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Overland Park Convention Center, Overland Park, KS: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarMITRE, in Bedford, MA: February 15, 2011, Monthly Meeting, Boston SPIN.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarKitchener, Ontario: May 19, Dinner Meeting, PMI Canada's Technology Triangle Chapter.