Someone I work with had a similar experience to Alan’s in Wardle’s study. She joined the manager team a with professional skills from her old job and was sure of how she would do things and talk to people. But her new position had specific rules about how to document and work together, which she at first didn’t want to follow because she thought they weren’t important for her job, since she had just came from the cashier position in the cafeteria.
Her not wanting to change her strategies caused problems with the general manager and coworkers, who thought her way of doing things didn’t fit with the restaurants values of working together. Over time, she realized how important it was to adjust to these norms and started to use the restaurants ways of communicating. By doing this, she slowly gained more respect within the servers and general manager, but it also showed her how hard it can be to balance her personal identity with the expectations of the workplace. Her journey, like Alan’s, showed how refusing to change can get in the way of professional success and fitting in at a new job. She is a lovely manager now!
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