Go back to when you were told, “say your hospital name, age, FNG” at your first workout. We likely can all recall that exact moment. You were probably like most of us, “now what happens, AND, what just happened”…aside from likely knowing you were going to be sore the next day. Maybe someone was in your ear during the workout encouraging you, maybe asking you questions when you’re just trying your best not to merlot, or maybe no one really said much to you (or you zoned them out) because you were just trying to follow along with the exercises or the lingo. Whatever your experience was, how long was it until you started understanding the small things like: “oh, that’s what an AO is”, or “now I get why I shouldn’t look up merkin on the internet”, or “there’s someone that schedules people to lead a workout?”…or pick your question.
The bigger question is, when did you start to feel like one of the PAX and you belong.
As we continue to pick up FNGs weekly (good work here!), the question this group of 6 that developed the “Jump Program” asked each other is: “how can we get these guys plugged in to F3 faster, how do we answer some of these basic questions we all now take for granted, how do we make them feel welcome and that they belong, how do we not leave this man behind”.
Since none of had the one silver bullet answer to this question, this is where the “stuff worth trying” mindset really came into play and the Jump Program was willing to try, fail, try, fail…rinse and repeat, with a mission to be intentional about making FNGs feel included, drive relationships early, and provide an F3 overview within 1 month of 1st post.
We started with looking at day 1 for an FNG and came up with this acronym SINCK (sounds like sync) which we want to share and have you apply it as best you can. Yes take liberties of course as these aren’t rules or core principles; hence the “worth trying” application.
- S – Selfless
- I – Impression
- N – Naming
- C – Connection
- K – Knowing (as in get to know)
Selfless: Todays workout isn’t about you (non-FNG Pax reading this now)
Inclusion: Give some space, but make sure FNG has a guy with him from beginning to end outside of the EH Pax and Site Q – give him a sense of inclusion
Naming: Be mindful of body language as he’s being named – we want him to come back out and his name shouldn’t take away from that (we know names don’t matter but he doesn’t)
Connection: Remember, you’re his first impression of F3 so try and connect with him, or listen for clues on who he may connect and relate to
Knowing: Get to know him and gather some background (who EH’d, how’d you hear about F3, where do you live?)
Once the FNG has been named, this is where the Jump Program kicks off. We have been gathering FNGs and their contact information and have a goal in offering monthly off-the-books (OTB) workouts. We’ve kept this OTB in an effort to remove the intimidation FNGs tend to feel in the beginning when working out with guys who have been working out a lot longer than them and/or they’re still trying to figure out what a Carolina dry dock is. The Jump Program team has been co-Q’ing a 30 minute workout, very Q-school 101’esq, along with a coffeeteria intro to F3 Q&A following the workout. Having co-Qs allows the newer PAX to ask questions, allows the co-Qs to answer questions and/or address basic “when I was new, this is what I remember having questions about, or not finding out about ‘x’ until I was a year into F3”. We all have these stories of course, but the idea is that the new PAX outnumber the co-Qs with the goal that they are surrounded by PAX on the same F3 knowledge base (i.e. they feel like one of the guys b/c the guy standing next to them knows just as much as they do!).
Certainly more to come as this evolves, and would love your help with FNGs encouraging them to attend the monthly OTB Jump Program workouts. If they miss one, they’re invited to come to the next one and more than once if they’d like. If you can help apply the SINCK, maybe this is something that makes the FNG think “I could see myself working out with this group”, which we all know is the first bite of the apple we all took when someone pulled us aside and said, “remember, you need to say your hospital name, age, FNG”.