Who is who
What an Introduction Is Worth
An introduction gives you a name and permission to write to somebody. Everything after that has to be built out of ordinary working contact, and often is not.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
Who signs off a schema change
you asked4Three people were asked before the right one
That two people on the team do not speak to each other
worked out11Worked out from who was never on the same call
two things you had to know · nobody told you any of them · the median arrived in week 11 · all two you went and got
Two facts about the shape of a team, neither of which appears on any chart and neither of which anybody would have said out loud.
To keep remote-work decisions transparent, teams can review this product overview and agree together how the resulting information will be used during onboarding and review.
The wider workplace question can also be checked against resources from SEEK.
Nine people and what the introduction, or its absence, actually bought
Introduced, and never needed · 3
- The head of people — met in week 1
- A director from another division — met in week 1
- A finance manager — met in week 1
Introduced, and needed · 3
- Your own manager — met in before you started; needed in week 1
- The two others on your team — met in week 1; needed in week 1
- The designer on the adjacent product — met in week 2; needed in week 6
Needed, and never introduced · 3
- The person who runs the release — needed in week 2. Found by reading the channel history
- Whoever owns the billing dashboard — needed in week 3. Found by asking in a channel
- The person who approves schema changes — needed in week 4. Found on the fourth attempt
nine people · six you were introduced to · six you actually needed · three you had to find yourself
Six people were introduced to you and three of those six remained names. Three people were never introduced and two of the three became working relationships. The introduction was not what made the difference. One person's own twelve weeks.
An introduction buys two things: a name, and permission to write to that person without explaining yourself.
Both are real and both are small. Everything else has to be built, and with most introductions nothing ever is.
The pattern
Of six people formally introduced to a new joiner in the panel above, three remained names for the whole quarter. Of three people never introduced, two became working relationships.
This is the usual shape, and it is not a criticism of whoever arranged the introductions. They introduced you to the people they know. The people you need are determined by the work, which nobody could have predicted in week one — including you.
What actually builds a relationship
One exchange in which somebody helped you and it went well.
That is the whole mechanism. Not a meeting, not a welcome call, not being on the same team. A question asked clearly, answered usefully, and acknowledged specifically.
Which means the thing that builds your working relationships in a first quarter is the quality of your questions, and the section on asking is really a section about this.
What to do with a name
When you are introduced to somebody you will not obviously need, two minutes of work makes the name retrievable later.
Write down who they are and what they do, in your own words, in your own list. Not their title — what you understood their job to be. In month three you will have a question about pricing policy and the only way the finance manager becomes available to you is if "pricing policy" appears next to their name somewhere you can find.
Then do nothing else. There is no obligation to maintain a relationship with somebody you do not work with, and the attempt is awkward for both sides.
Writing to somebody you have not met
The case the introduction was supposed to cover, and it is more available than new people think.
I have not met you — I joined last month and I am working on the pricing side. Your name is on the last few changes to the rate table. Could I ask you two quick questions about it?
Three sentences: who you are, why them specifically, and a small ask. The second sentence is the one that matters. "Your name is on the last few changes" explains why you are writing to this person rather than anybody else, and it is far more effective than any introduction would have been.
What an introduction cannot do
It cannot make somebody available. A person introduced to you in week one who is busy in week six is busy; the introduction does not create an obligation.
It cannot tell you what they know. Most introductions name a role, and roles do not describe knowledge.
And it cannot survive disuse. A name introduced and not contacted for three months is, for practical purposes, a stranger again — which is why the twenty-minute conversations in the previous note are worth more than any number of group welcome calls.
Asking for one anyway
There is one case where asking for an introduction is clearly worth it: when you need something from somebody senior who has no reason to answer a stranger.
Would you mind introducing me to whoever owns the billing side? I have a question I cannot find an answer to and I do not want to arrive out of nowhere.
Short, specific, and it names the reason. Your manager will usually do it in one message, and that one message is worth considerably more than the welcome call in week one was.
The introduction worth making yourself
Introducing two other people is the fastest way to stop being new.
In the second month you will notice that somebody in your team is looking for exactly the thing somebody in another team told you about in week three. Two sentences in a channel connects them.
It costs nothing, it is the first thing you will do that is possible only because you have been here a few weeks, and it changes how both people think of you — from somebody who is new to somebody who knows the place.
It is also the beginning of the map being yours rather than borrowed. Up to that point you have been collecting names from other people. The first time you supply one, the collecting has produced something.
Who to ask for one from
Your manager, almost always, and not the person you want to meet.
A request to a stranger asking them to meet you is a request. The same request made by your manager on your behalf is an instruction with a smile on it, and it takes them one line.
The exception is anybody obviously adjacent to your own work, where going directly is both faster and better received, for the reasons in the note on meeting people.
The rule of thumb: if they would have to ask who you are, ask your manager. If they would recognise your name from the channel, write to them yourself.