First published 12 August 2019 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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I set a timer for this one, because culture could easily fill an hour and we try to keep these to about 12 minutes. Nigel started with something two friends of his talk about a lot. UGRs, or unwritten ground rules. Steve Simpson and Steph du Plessis came up with the idea. It's the stuff nobody ever says out loud but everyone goes along with, like turning up late, or never doing what was agreed in the meeting. Let it happen enough and that's your culture.
Nigel's view is that the rules need to be clear from day one. On a building site everyone knows there are three things you have to wear, and break one and you're thrown off site. No debate. Superman underpants are allowed, though (I suggested over the overalls). At his house on a Friday night it's no phones at the table until dessert. The kids all know Uncle Nigel's strict on it. To be fair, the dinner only lasts about 26 minutes because he wants to get to his ice cream.
His sessions for the unemployed started at 9:59 and 59 seconds. People were told more than once to be there for quarter to ten, and if you weren't in by then, the doors shut. The way I've heard it put is you get what you tolerate. If people don't know where your boundaries are, they can't respect them.
Then we got onto onboarding. I told the story of my first day at a smallish family business near Gatwick, after coming from a FTSE 100 company where you were a number on a spreadsheet. One of the two brothers who ran it was on holiday. About ten minutes after I got in, he phoned the meeting room from halfway through his holiday to welcome me. That call did more for me than the laptop and phone waiting for me. Nigel's point was that the new starter has taken the bigger risk by leaving the security they had, so trust them fully from the start. Most firms wait for them to prove themselves first.
And yes, the bromance got a mention. Nigel told me to stop it.
Worth remembering
- Watch what you let slide. Let it go twice and it's an unwritten ground rule.
- If something's non-negotiable, say so on day one.
- Get the CEO or founder to do the induction, so new people hear why the rules matter.
- A new starter has taken more risk than you. Trust them from the start.
- A phone call on someone's first day can mean more than the kit on their desk.
If you don't set the ground rules with people, they'll constantly tell you their ground rules
Nigel Risner
Whether it's day one or it's just today, today is always day one for the future, right?
Neil Martin
