What is onboarding?

New job. New employer. And new headaches when staffers resist your new approaches.

More Americans will soon confront this challenge.  How can you champion enough change to justify your hiring -- without rocking the boat so much that you endanger your latest gig?

Failure to strike the right balance often derails newcomers. "They push too hard, too fast and do it in a nondiplomatic way," says Ben Dattner, a New York industrial psychologist.  Yet few corporate orientation programs help recruits "work through what's the best approach to get up to speed in the new job," reports Michael Watkins, a Harvard associate professor of business administration and author of the new book, "The First 90 Days."

It's up to you to manage your early days well, navigate a different business culture and win support for your game plan. For starters, make sure you understand what kind of workplace you joined. A troubled enterprise is more likely to welcome radical fixes than a successful one.

Freshly hired executives increasingly turn to an outside "onboarding" coach.

Source: Managing Your Career by Joann S. Lublin, The Wall Street Journal, Nov 25, 2003