Building Your Team
“If we get the right people on the bus… in the right seats and the wrong people off the bus… we will figure out how to take it to someplace great”
— Jim Collins, Good to Great
First who then what. Picking the right team members.
Having the right people on your team is critical to your success. We cannot emphasize this enough. It is not only finding talent with the right skills and experience. You must build an effective, high-performing team. Besides the technical knowledge and experience each member needs to do their jobs, they must be a good fit for you, your values, your purpose and the business you are running.
When assessing talent to join your team:
- Think about how much that person shares your top values.
- Have trusted colleagues participate in the selection process to gain objective feedback about the candidate.
- Ask yourself if the person’s behaviors will contribute to the desired team environment.
- Be clear about your expectations with the candidate before making an offer.
“An effective team increases the productivity, satisfaction, and growth of each of its team members, the team itself, and the rest of the organization.”
— Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization.