Supernova Advisor Teams

CHAPTER 12Onboarding and Mentoring a New Team Member

“If you cannot see where you are going, ask someone who has been there before.”

—J. Loren Norris

Onboarding is the process of acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new team members, whether they come from outside or inside the organization.¹

We want to highlight how important onboarding and mentoring a new team member is for team growth, productivity improvement, and filling out team gaps. Let me share a story. A manager had recently recruited a competitive hire from another firm. This new hire previously had been a very successful producer, close to a million dollars, when he decided to go back and get a master of business administration (MBA) from an Ivy League school. On returning to his firm, he was awarded with an international assignment.

When the assignment was over, he didn't have another one, so he decided to go back into production at another, smaller firm. He knew under the “new reality,” a team approach was the way to go. After working in that office for more than a year, there wasn't a suitable team arrangement forthcoming, so he was recruited and hired by another well‐known firm. The branch manager at that firm positioned him to interview with a few teams, and there were a couple of teams that really showed an interest and wanted to work with him.

Both teams were interested in having him focus exclusively on bringing in new clients while they helped bring on these new relationships and assist ...