On a new hire's first day, we have them do which of the following:

(a) peer through a database to get familiarized to write a report.

(b) read through a stack of documentation to get familiarized with techniques.

(c) sit through HR and compliance policy training.

(d) introduce themselves to the team meetings.

(e) let them fend for themselves.

First impressions are lasting impressions.  They set the stage for what is to come.  And happily - or sadly - they tend to be consistent with the everyday.  The new hire's first day is likely to be repeated the next day.  And the next and so on.  The ideal day depends on what our expectations are for the employee's role with the team.   So what do we want the new employee to do?

There is a fun scene in the movie, Slumdog Millionaire, obviously to impress on audiences the different cultural values.  The hero sneaks into the gangster boss's home to rescue his friend.  The gangster walks in and surprises the hero.  But the gangster is confused - expecting his new dishwasher to arrive at his house that day, he asks if the hero knows about the new appliance.  The hero thinks rapidly and replies, "Yes, I am your dishwasher."  The timing is perfect.  For the span of a heartbeat, the audience can digest and inwardly giggle at such a blatantly incredible claim of a person posing as a Maytag or a Whirlpool porcelain dishwasher.   Then the gangster readily accedes and orders the hero - now disguised as a dishwasher - to his place in the kitchen.  The bad guy antagonist of a gangster readily sees people as mindless appliances, as slaves even.  The employee is there to do a specific task as a specific named job role - "dishwasher" - until no longer needed.  Should any other need arise, say to wash the dog, or to automatically cook the toast, or to automatically mix the dough, it concerns the dishwasher not at all.  The dishwasher washes dishes.  A good dishwasher washes dishes very well.  All activities revolve around getting the dishwasher to wash dishes very well.

In contrast, there is a recurring motif in HBO's Band of Brothers about growth and leadership.  A new soldier arrives with the company.  The soldier carries a rifle and needs to operate it accurately.  But that is not the definition of a soldier.  The soldier needs to follow orders quickly and without hesitation, but that is not the definition of a soldier either.  Rather, the new soldier connects with the experienced soldiers - the corporals, the sergeants, the officers - to understand them, connect with them, to form a team with them, and one day to be capable of replacing them should the need arise.  If the team leader can no longer lead, the former new recruit has already grown into a seasoned veteran able to continue the leadership at a similar level and in a similar manner precisely because the former new recruit has spent time understanding, connecting, and forming a team.  A soldier is not there to do a specific named job role.  In technical terms, a soldier is there to absorb and pass on the company's skills in the face of high levels of attrition.  All activities revolve around team work and growth.  Should any other need arise, it necessarily concerns the soldier.

In the first case, we would be using the employee.  In the second case, we would be making full use of the employee. 

In the first case, we have hired services to check off a business requirement and maintained our business.  In the second case, we have incorporated new material to grow our lead over the competition. 

Whichever direction an institution chooses (or is forced) to go, it is not enough to simply say so.  We must also walk the walk.  What mechanism allows us to leverage our institutional culture?

In the 1920's and 1930's, a Russian researcher named Vygotsky developed the SocioCultural learning model of cognition.  Learning was both intramental (relying on factors inside the individual brain) and extramental (relying on factors outside the individual brain, or between multiple brains).  The classic example is of a child reaching to grab a tasty treat. A nearby, caring adult helps by picking up the treat and handing it to the child.  The child thus learns that attempting to reach a target - i.e. pointing - communicates a desired action to a nearby, caring adult.  The act of reaching becomes a shared symbol between adult and child.  The child alone might be unable to achieve his goal. But by connecting with an adult, the child can access and leverage more skills and abilities.  This both provides early practice using adult skills they would one day possess, and provides a more general conceptual framework of expanding skill impact and scale by connecting with others.  The means and biases and idiosyncrasies in these viable connections forms the cultural, psychological, and technological tools.

For example, Hatano, Miyake, & Binks (1977) and Stigler (1984) proposed that the mathematical calculators that students use may predispose them towards problem solving approaches consistent with the calculator, even when performing calculations later by hand.  Stigler tested this hypothesis with 11-year old students expert with the abacus.  When testing without the abacus, students' error patterns suggested they continued mentalizing abacus operations.  For instance, their errors were often off by exactly five, a common abacus operational error not appearing elsewhere.  It will not escape the astute observer that abacus use is predominant in east Asia.  Abacus operations, pros, and cons were customized to fit a certain need.  Users are in turn customized by the abacus in addressing that need.

Continuing with numbers, Miller, Smith, Zhang, & Wu, (1995) examined counting abilities among children using English and Chinese.  In English, counting from 1-10 involves memorizing ten distinct verbal codes. (e.g. one, two, three).  Counting from 11-20 involves memorizing four additional distinct overriding rules in alternating orders (eleven, twelve, thirteen, four-teen, then back to fifteen, then reverse again to six-teen).  In Chinese, counting 1-10 involves ten distinct verbal codes (e.g. yi, er, san).  But counting from 11-20 involves one consistent building rule (shi-yi, shi-er, shi-san).  As with ancient Greek, the pattern builds up consistently, as if we were saying ten-one, ten-two, and ten-three instead of eleven, twelve, and thirteen.  The authors suggest that the differences in rule complexity should cause a divergence in counting ability upon reaching values greater than 10.  See below.

The results showed a strong similarity in performance to age 3, or when both groups count to 10.  Afterwards, the growth rate in counting accelerates with the consistent patterned Chinese with numbers 11-100 by age 5.  English speakers exhibited slower growth in counting accuracy, likely in part due to the idiosyncracies in numbering beyond 10. 

The above two examples show the quantified effects of technology and language tools on groups and institutions.  Goncu & Rogoff (1998) explore the social learning effects of guided mentor-ships.  Specifically, they investigated how and how much expert guidance assisted skills learning.  Four groups of children were tasked with categorizing images by such topics as animals, plants, or objects.  Group 1 had expert assistance specifically stating the categories and correct practice samples.  Group 2 had expert assistance provide nothing specific but only leading, provoking questions. Group 3 had experts providing a mixture of statements and leading reinforcements.  Group 4 had no expert assistance.  The resulting individual post test results were as follows.

The results showed that all forms of expert interaction significantly enhanced subsequent performance.  There was no difference among the types and approaches of expert guidance so long as it was present. 

The SocioCultural model with these findings can prescribe specific courses of action.  First, take an institutional cultural inventory.  What are our core strengths and needs?  What equipment or tools are standard and what effects might they have on the users in meeting our needs?  This entails not simply complexity and process steps required to complete a task, but also what biases are included.  Are our tools forcing us to harvest more and more data on bigger and faster processors?  Do they highlight regional or time sensitive trends?  How would we meet this need if we used a different approach?  How would we do this if we had the staffing resources?

Second, the core of the institution and its culture is the people.  Institutions are legally and technically immortal. But this is not due to the stone buildings or soaring marble office lobbies or cloud databases or proprietary code.  They are immortal because the flow of policies and procedures flows into the people who are flowing into the institution.  And just as with good parenting, a good manager / leader / coach focuses on good quantity time.  It matters not whether the leadership style uses gentle hints and leading questions or relies on blunt directives.  There is no bad leadership.  There is just whether leadership is missing.  That is the quantitative conclusion from Goncu & Rogoff (1998). 

A leader is an expert who can accomplish the task and is available to assist skills (tech) transfer of the existing cultural, technological, and psychological tools.  This transfer ensures continuity and prevents needlessly reinventing existing capabilities. 

Some organizations name joining members as, "new hires."  The integration phase may be called, "onboarding," or "training," or even "probation."  The very use of such terms includes a language bias - that the joining member is not like everyone else and that there is a temporary phase or transition.  To repeat, as with good parenting, there is no transition as there is no end to transitioning. A good parent would not call the toddler a "probationary member of the family."  A good parent never considers his job as parent and leader finished. The leadership presence never ends.  An army private is always in contact with his corporal, who is in contact with his sergeant, who is in contact with his lieutenant, and so on.  When the private becomes a sergeant, he still stays in contact with his lieutenant. And he still fosters contacts with his corporals.  Should the lieutenant leave, the sergeant can carry on as the new lieutenant.  He has incorporated much of the skills and teachings of his lieutenant.  He can have his corporal carry on as the replacement sergeant since he has passed his skills and teachings on.  This comes naturally from keeping in constant contact.  This is the immortality of the institution.  And no, sitting in a cozy office with the door open is not staying in contact.