Comments on: Joining the Team: What the New Guy Won’t Tell You

By: Ken Downer

Ken Downer — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 13:32:05 +0000

In reply to New Guy. Thanks for sharing your story! Instead of welcoming you and your talent to make the whole team better, it sounds like they were more concerned about their personal status - a sign of insecurity; they were focused on themselves andnot on the team. Glad you were able to rise above and use your experience to be a better leader for the new guys who joined the team while you were captain. Small things like that can make all the difference.

By: New Guy

New Guy — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 04:31:55 +0000

When I was a freshman in high school quite a few years back, I decided to join the soccer team. 75% of the team were seniors and had been on the team since freshman year. When I had made the team after tryouts I wasn’t welcomed with open arms. The first thing we did was scrimmage and I was put on the team opposite of the best players with big egos. After showing off my skills, humiliating them and scoring several times they were pretty butthurt. Theyre reaction wasn’t instantaneous and explosive, but rather slow and poisonous. They decided to tell everyone that I trash talk and play dirty. To this day I don’t understand why they’d do that, as I had told them that I respected them as players and simply wanted to play at my best and enjoy our teams chance at winning at the state level. If we weren’t at each other’s throats all the time we could’ve made it all the way. On multiple occasions they’d blow up at me for fouling them in practice accidentally or for making a bad pass in a game. The shit they gave me was unbelievable considering I never did anything to deserve it. I got oss multiple times for defending myself and after a while I got smart and just let them hit me and they got in trouble really bad. The second half of our season most of our players would get suspenfed including me so we couldnt win. That year we managed to lose every game when with the quality of our players we shouldve atleast qualified for the state competition. Oddly enough, although, seemingly being the center of all our teams problems, by the time I was a senior I was team captain. This was because we had the same coach the whole time I was there and he new I had experience dealing with shit that went on with new kids that played to “aggressive” (even though they dont cause real harm they play physical). I gave them the respect they deserved and if another team mate had a problem with it I made it clear that they shouldn’t take it personally. I know when I was a freshman and became competition for the other team members they took it quite personally. Probably didn’t help that I was dating the team captains little sister :/ (she was actually older than me) but if that made it worse but it certainly didn’t make it better. Pro tip; if the team has beef with you, don’t date their sister. Even weirder tho, I married her. I am now the brother in law of someone who hated me. Luckily were chill now and he realises that shit was stupid.

By: Ken Downer

Ken Downer — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 19:47:57 +0000

In reply to Alvin Sanders. I think it's part of getting past that initial insecurity and moving quickly to a higher level on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: belonging. When you give the person an opportunity to contribute or show value in some way they become more invested in the team and the team will more quickly accept him as a member. I did a brief video/blog about the hierarchy because it can be a good tool to guide a leader's actions. Completely agree that you don't want to overwhelm him, though, either! Thanks for the comment.

By: Alvin Sanders

Alvin Sanders — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:57:43 +0000

Excellent advice. Tips one and two are fairly well known and generally used, but tip three is an extremely important , if often neglected step. A new team member will generally just observe for the first little bit and have nothing to do other than watch. Putting him to work boosts his confidence in himself and lets him know that he is an integral part of the team. Do use good judgement when assigning tasks, if you swamp him with work, or give him a task that he is not trained to do or prepared for, you can end his enthusiasm for being a part of the team and/or make him feel inadequate.