Ask The Person Who Just Joined

Image by @timmossholder from Unsplash

We've all heard the phrase, a fresh pair of eyes. We say it in meetings almost on reflex, whenever a project stalls or a decision feels foggy. Bring in someone new. Let them look at it.

There's some truth to that. A person who hasn't yet learned what's "just how we do things here" will notice what the rest of us stopped seeing months ago. The clunky process. The meeting that could've been an email. The question nobody's asked out loud in years, not because it's been answered, but because it's been quietly retired.

I write about this kind of freshness in If Humans Were Spaghetti, in the chapter on freshly made spaghetti. Before it's shaped, before it's tested by heat, it's soft, pliable, and full of possibility. That's the new joiner too. Not yet hardened by "how things are." Still asking the questions the rest of us have made peace with not asking.

But here's the part we skip over too quickly.

Before we celebrate the fresh pair of eyes, the question we actually need to ask is about us, not them. Are we prepared to hear what they have to say? And if we are, are we willing, and ready, to do something about it?

Because freshness is not just useful. It's vulnerable. In that same chapter, I write about how something newly formed is open to being shaped, and just as open to being dismissed. It doesn't take much. One "let's not rock the boat" in a meeting, one raised eyebrow, one "we tried that already" said a little too quickly, and the new joiner learns the real rule of the room: notice quietly, say nothing.

Picture it. Someone new asks, in their first fortnight, why a report takes three approvals when everyone privately agrees it should take one. There's a pause. Someone half-smiles and says, "that's just how it's done here." The moment passes. And so does the question. Not because it was wrong, but because nobody in the room was ready to sit with it.

That's the real cost. It's not that fresh eyes stop noticing things eventually, they do, that's natural, and it's not a flaw in them. The cost is what we lose every time we let a good question die in a room out of habit or discomfort, rather than meeting it with actual curiosity.

So the invitation isn't really "ask the person who just joined." Most of us already do that, at least once, usually in their first month, mostly out of politeness. The real invitation is quieter, and harder: when they answer, are we willing to let it change something?

Something to sit with this week: think of the last time someone newer than you asked a question that made you pause. What did you do with it? And what would it look like to actually be ready, not just to ask, but to receive the answer?