First 1-on-1 Meeting for Smooth Onboarding
At the company, I am currently working for, LINE, starting new projects and transferring people are done very quickly. As a result, there are many opportunities to welcome new people to the team and projects.
I always have a 1-on-1 meeting at the beginning of the onboarding process before we welcome a new person and have them perform as a team. It can last up to an hour, or 30 minutes if you both know each other’s background.
It’s only an hour, but what you tell them and what you know in that hour will make a big difference in how you interact with the person afterward. This is based on my own experience, but I would like to summarize the effective and efficient way to do this.
Tell About Your Values
First, as a representative of the team, project, or product you are welcoming, talk about yourself. I’ll talk about my own vision, my work values, and what kind of culture I want to emphasize in the team or project. I’ll talk about my own basic thoughts about work.
In my case, I am not a good storyteller and it takes a lot of time for both the speaker and the listener if I start from scratch, so I put it in a blog beforehand. In my case, I mainly share the following two things when onboarding.
- Views on management
2. Vision for LINE AI Business
Once you have talked about your values, you can move on to the next step.
Ask About Their Values.
After telling them your values, ask them about their values. Ask questions about their life vision, what they want to achieve in this business or project, what skills they want to acquire, what experience they want to gain, etc.
However, when asking about someone’s values, I believe that the most important thing is not the question itself, but understanding and practicing the premise behind the question. If you follow those assumptions, you will most likely get a meaningful answer no matter what kind of question you ask.
So what is the premise? There are two important points.
1. Always talk about your values and then ask.
First is the order. Why should you tell them your values first? It is for the very obvious reason that if you want the other person to self-disclose, you should self-disclose first.
In addition to the obvious reasons, there is also the purpose of creating an atmosphere that makes it easier for the other person to self-disclose. It takes a lot of courage for people who do not usually disclose themselves to others to do so. Of course, you cannot force others to disclose, but you can encourage them to do so by doing so yourself.
If you want to get the other person’s thoughts, start with yourself. This may sound obvious when written in words, but not many people practice it. However, when you actually try it, the effect is very significant, so I highly recommend it.
And there is another very important assumption.
2. Convey the premise that a lack of values or a strong sense of values is not a bad thing
This premise is very important, but I feel that very few people communicate it properly (at least as far as I know).
For example, if you ask the question, “Do you have a vision for yourself?”, most people who are asked this question accept it with the added assumption that it is better to have a strong vision.
In other words, “(It’s better to have a strong vision, by the way) Do you have a vision?” In this way, people end up complementing the question with (). And people think the answer “no” will give a negative impression and will not be the answer you expect.
But in reality, having a strong vision is not always a good thing, right? This is because we work as a team, and even if all of us have a strong vision, it often does not go smoothly as a team. People who have a strong vision and people who agree with that vision and make it happen together are each important, and both are needed.
What is important from a management point of view is not to ask people to have a vision, but to find out whether they have a vision or not, and if they do, how strongly they feel about it.
It’s the same with work policies and career paths. The most important thing is not to judge the pros and cons of others based on whether they are there or not, but to know whether they are there or not, and once you know, to use them appropriately in team building.
On the other hand, it is not good to have a strong vision but not know it. If you have a strong vision, then it is important to know it and how to align the direction of the business with the vision that the person has.
To do this, after asking the question, “Do you have a vision?” and before the person starts thinking about it, tell them the premise, “Not having one is never a bad thing, but if you have, please tell me. This will help you to understand their values appropriately without forcing out what is not there.
In the End
For many companies, April is the time when transfers and new projects begin. I thought I’d write about what I’m doing to help smooth the onboarding process.
The figure as the summary is as follows.
The dotted line means listening to what is, rather than forcing out what is not there. In short, the following two points can be summarized in a sentence.
1. Expose your own values to the fullest extent before asking about the other person’s.
2. When asking about the other person’s values, do not deny that they don’t have any. Rather, ask questions based on the premise of affirming that there are none, and with an attitude of wanting to know if there are any.
These are just two points, but whether you practice them or not will make a huge difference in the depth of mutual understanding after the 30-minute to 1-hour 1-on-1 meeting is over. On the other hand, if you don’t do these two things, even after three months, you will tend to fall into a state of superficial understanding and keep asking for individual tasks based on that understanding.
Preparation is essential if you want to make your self-disclosure in a short time. Therefore, a lot of time is needed at the beginning. However, if you can conduct a 1-on-1 meeting with sufficient self-disclosure and appropriate assumptions, the subsequent onboarding will be much smoother.
Also, if you output your values that you have organized for preparation, you can implement them without spending much time next time. That way, you can really have a smooth dialogue for onboarding in just 30 minutes~1 hour of time.
If you try it once, you will feel the effect. Please give it a try!
