What could Organizations, teams and board games have in common?
Starting a new job is like buying a board game. One you have never played to. One you might have heard about or you suddenly saw, read its description, liked and bought. This game, is the company, the organization.
You open the box and you find different stuff: A paper (or where to look at them on the internet) with the rules, indications to know how to get started, the game pieces you will need, and of course, the board.
Let’s talk about “rules”. Written Rules are the organization culture, how things are done, what you can and you can not do. If you want to play by the book,to fit, you need to learn and apply them.
What about the “unwritten rules”? Lots of time not everything is on a paper. At some point there was an agreement, what to do when… it was kept for that group of people, for every team they played. This is the team culture. How do we do things around here, what we didn’t know and what we adapted from the written ones. If you want to play, you will need to know them and apply.
When playing in a different group, questions need to be asked, you need observe how others behave, accept or refuse to play under different rules, use your usual strategy or completely change it. And… always have fun. If you don’t, if there is no fun at all, change your partners or play a different game.
Christmas time has been awesome, now we are back to work with new challenges and possibilities.
Enjoy everything that is ahead. Good stuff is just around the corner.