One of the readings at church this past weekend included the story from Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9:26-30) where Paul wants to talk to the disciples after his dramatic conversion experience. The disciples were understandably weary, recalling Paul's zeal against them earlier. One of the disciples, Barnabas, knew Paul and understood that his conversion was for real. He understood that they no longer needed to fear Paul, but could actually learn from him. So, Barnabas talks to he fellow disciples about Paul. He introduces Paul around to the different disciples and gives him a vote of confidence. This goes a long way with the other disciples and they come to accept him as a true disciple of Christ.
I like this story because it provides a useful example of how we might help others, especially people who might be new to our company or industry. If you know someone who is largely unknown to the larger group, take the time to introduce the new personaround to the established members of the group. Network on his or her behalf. If you know someone's work to be excellent, tell others about it so they can eventually benefit from that work themselves. Barnabas is good at networking and he used his skill to help out a colleague.
Furthermore, Barnabas was probably a pretty good evangelist in his own right, but it turns out his most important job in history was to help make the way for perhaps the greatest evangelist ever. Barnabas probably understood Paul's potential; he knew Paul would probably go on to much greater success than Barnabas ever had himself, yet he still helped Paul. He didn't allow his ego or pride or jealousy to hold him back. He showed Paul around, got him the "in" he needed to get started, and let Paul go from there. This is a good model for us at work. When someone new joins the company, we can show them around, help them get started, give them every advantage we can to help them succeed, and then let them do the rest.
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