In the last few months, I’ve been talking with more and more corporate leaders about onboarding of executives.  Astonishingly, the majority of these folks are unfamiliar with the concept of onboarding (effectively assimilating a leader into a corporate culture) — rather, their method of bringing on a new leader  is more orientation (processing their HR paperwork, giving them a password for their PC,  and showing them where the water cooler is.)

Back in my day as a professional search consultant there was a common saying among my colleagues.  It went like this:  “people are hired for what they know, but they’re fired or who they are.”  I stumbled on this article that describes very clearly what NOT onboarding meant to a few successfully hired executives who didn’t “stick.”

http://www.coachingtip.com/2010/11/where-are-they-now-without-executive-onboarding-coaching-.html