Photo courtesy of gordonflood.com
What do you consider to be the right ingredients for a great team? That is a question occupies my thoughts frequently. Many of the corporate IT departments and their related HR teams that I have seen typically want a standard set of skills, experience, capabilities often with a particular technology set to differentiate them from others in the IT department.
For a long time I have been uncomfortable with this approach and it is not just because I have an unconventional background. It is because I have a fundamental belief that building teams doesn’t happen by standardising but requires variety. So here are the top three things I look for when building a great team:
1. Diversity of thought: In the mix of my team I want a varied education and business background. Not everyone needs to have a computer science degree and not everyone has to have worked in the industry that the team is occupying. I want perspectives that come from different ways of seeing the world and not through the same lens. I can’t imagine a football team full of Wayne Rooney’s; on so many levels, but not least because it simply won’t work. A team built like that would have answers that tend to be the same and predictable. The results of which are not always the best and most creative. I want some people with an Arts or Humanities background from different walks of life that won’t always follow the same path as everyone else. I also need people that will complement my own thinking, and keep me in check because as much as I like to think I always see things clearly, and get decisions right the truth is I don’t always, and I need the input of the team.
2. Commitment to the team: I need team players not just star performers. It is vital that people do work as a team rather than a collection of talented individuals. They must demonstrate hard work and commitment to each other not just their own individual role. Being in a team can be tough, things won’t always go your way and that is especially true in IT but I am looking for those that will keep going, and keep committed to the team through thick and thin, and also know who to celebrate the successes when it does come. Along with this comes consistency, loyalty and ultimately results.
3. Flexibility: Things change it is a fact of life, I look for people that are comfortable with that and the reality that sometimes things will be uncertain and woolly. On occasions people will be asked to play out of position for the good of the team, and I respect and reward those that will do that for a time even if it is not always playing to their strengths. Flexibility is also about covering another person when they have had to step into an area of the field that is not their natural position but is helping the team achieve its goals, and another team member has taken on the accountability to protect their colleagues position albeit temporarily.
These are the things I look for in a team not necessarily every individual and people have varying abilities in these three. Obviously once you have the right people in the team then there is a whole bunch of things that need to follow such as having a clear goal, but that is more about what you are going to make with the ingredients than the individual ingredients themselves. My job as the leader is to blend these ingredients into something that is valuable. The other stuff that might be on a standardised recruitment check list very much comes secondary for me.
I am sure you may have a different list, so please comment below and let me know your thoughts…
