The Newcomer’s Advantage, and Why you Shouldn’t Leave it to the Newcomers

Today is my six year anniversary at Logitech, five of those years as CEO. And that has had me thinking about beginning my next five years as CEO.  

I will start by recognizing the incredible power of experience. The learning people in companies extract through experience, as individuals or collectively, is irreplaceable. So please don’t think that I do NOT value experience. It’s tremendous.

But there is a power to being new.

I’ve appreciated that a lot since about my second or third year here at Logitech...around the same time I started to lose my newcomer’s advantage. When I realized that, I made a commitment to try and talk to every new employee in the company within the first month or two, usually in small groups. I describe our strategy and the culture we are trying to create. Then at the end of the session I ask new people, practically beg them, to do us all a favor: Write me a note sometime while you’re still new (first 90 days or so) of the one to twenty things you would change about Logitech. I read every word of every email as if I were panning for gold; it’s a wonderful treasure hunt. And there is some real treasure in these notes.

Some of the ideas I’ve gotten from these informal emails made me think, I don’t want to be a victim of my own longevity in the job. I don’t want to be blind to the stupid things I do, the wasted time and effort, the bureaucracy and the silly.

So I’ve decided I’m only the right person for the years ahead if I can bring ‘the newcomer’s advantage’ with me to the job. But how can I have my experience here and elsewhere that IS valuable, yet regain the newcomer’s advantage?  

I fired myself.  I really saw no alternative.

You read that right. I fired myself. I shook my hand; thanked myself; wished myself luck; we parted ways. That guy at Logitech for six years? He’s gone.

And then I hired the new me.

It’s been so fun to be new again. As is always the case when you enter a new job, you see all the dumb things that the prior man or woman did or didn’t do. That prior guy in my job did some really dumb things (with the best intentions). He was probably too married to them because he started them; maybe he was on auto pilot because he stopped challenging them. He stopped looking objectively at areas he should have. He did some smart things, but he stuck with them or others too long. He started things that were good but stopped pushing them. He started others that he should have stopped.  

I love following that guy. He left me so many opportunities to do better. I’m not criticizing him. I’m just lucky he missed so many opportunities to make Logitech better!

The power of being new is an incredible gift.

Maybe you don’t need what I did. But if this resonates a little bit, then I challenge you to imagine you left your current role in your current company, and then came right back into it.

When you are new you will see obvious things to prioritize, improve and execute on. And when you’re new and naive you won’t realize what ‘can’t be done.’ ‘We tried that’ won’t be a powerful line to you. You’ll listen and learn but fearlessly go forward, try the new, find the opportunities. And that never worked will sound like an excuse for not questioning the status quo.  

If you can’t completely get to being a newcomer again, there is an even better way. Ask people to challenge you and what you’re doing. And do this regularly. Invite challengers and listen to them completely and openly. But I’ll save that for another blog because it’s even more important!

So if you’re a veteran where you are, try becoming a newcomer as you start your new year whenever that is. Fire yourself and hire a new you.