You can't get very far in your career without taking new jobs, joining new organizations, transferring to new locations, and meeting and building relationships with new contacts. But surprisingly, many professionals stumble in these situations because they haven't mastered three basic yet critical getting-to-know-you skills: introducing themselves, remembering names, and asking questions. Fortunately, it's fairly easy to get better at them. In this article, a Babson professor who has spent 20 years counseling executives and MBAs offers tactics that will help you navigate new situations more confidently. For instance, introductions tend to go more smoothly if you've practiced your opening lines--and you know how to make the other person feel valued. Names are easier to remember if you repeat and rehearse them and link them to vivid mental images. And you're more likely to get the answers you need if you figure out the right person to approach--and the right time--and ask short, to-the-point questions. By paying attention and applying simple but practical strategies like these, you can set yourself up for success with new challenges.

How do you get your organization to start using social technologies to become more innovative and productive? Where and with whom should you begin? We interviewed over 70 managers across 30 companies and found that the most successful firms employ one of three jumpstart strategies, depending on the organization's mission, work processes, culture, and industry. Some start at the bottom of the organization, finding and enabling 'young experimenters' to use social technologies to enhance their individual productivity. Others start in the middle, finding and helping 'corporate entrepreneurs' in middle management to use social technologies to improve collaboration on teams and projects. Others begin at the top, finding 'enlightened executives' who are open to new technology and the potential of social tools to strengthen their organizational culture. We combine our research with concepts from change management, technology adoption, and social networks to suggest ways managers can best introduce social collaboration tools into their organizations.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How do managers and companies quickly transform new hires into productive employees, a process called "rapid on-boarding"? Contends that companies that are more successful at rapid on-boarding tend to use a relational approach, helping newcomers to establish rapidly a broad network of relationships with coworkers that they can tap into to obtain the information they need to become productive. Most organizations realize the importance of integrating new employees, but many fail in this regard, often because of pervasive myths about the process. Because of those misconceptions, managers frequently rely on practices that can actually hinder new employees from becoming productive.

Montgomery Watson Harza (MWH) was striving to become a global leader in water/environment, energy, and infrastructure sectors through an expanding set of services, products, and construction capabilities by leveraging its global position and knowledge management concepts. MWH executives wanted to continue to expand knowledge management usage across geographic and business divisions. The protagonist, Vic Gulas, had recently expanded his responsibilities to include leading the human resources and information technology groups. By leading the IT, HR, and knowledge management groups, it was possible to devise strategies that addressed both the technology and social aspects of knowledge management. However, limited resources and time pressure to continue to show results presented Gulas with several potentially competing strategies to pursue. His decision on which course of action to take would determine the future role of knowledge management at MWH.