11 Skills Your Team Needs

Businesses too no longer rely on the genius of one person. The diverse skills in a team all contribute towards its success. The lone genius is ineffective in a complex business environment that relies on bringing together a variety of business verticals and service lines to create a unique product or service.

Hence, collaboration and the ability to work with a group of specialists is making today’s businesses look more and more like what goes into producing a great film. Every business needs to be viable, feasible and desirable.

Here is my list of 11 skills that makes a team achieve all three objectives:

1. The dreamer: Oscar award winner Ed Catmull and his team at Pixar worked for nearly 20 years to create the first full-length computer-generated movie - Ratatouille. The dreamer can vividly see possibilities that will be viewed as unachievable or impractical by many.

2. The challenger: This person evaluates if the idea is viable. Will it succeed? Will it be worthwhile? Challengers are practical, hard headed and not swayed by emotions. They just look for data and evidence.

3. User experience designer: This person represents the voice and silence of the customer. Does the product or service make life simpler for the customer? This team member knows the unarticulated need of the customer.

4. The sketch artist: This person is a visualizer who takes the grand vision of the dreamer and turns it into a visual that can inspire others. The sketch artist is a visual storyteller. Anyone who needs to raise funds or influence the powers that be needs a sketch artist in the team.

5. The prototype creator: Rapid prototyping is a skill required to get an early feedback of the user or the potential customer. This person can help narrow down the choices that get generated during the brainstorming sessions.

6. Technical expert: This person evaluates if the prototype can be turned into a product or service within the limits of technology available and within the budget and time allocated.

7. Project manager: Project managers help build a plan around key activities, milestones, and timelines for achieving them. Above all, they can help build dependencies in the project.

8. Talent visualizer: The talent scout knows where the most relevant and talented people hangout. They have the ability to judge not only what the person has done but also what else the person could possibly do.

9. Talent evaluator: While the talent visualizer helps to identify who is capable of doing the task, often the fit with the team culture and values is a reason why some people do not succeed. Talent evaluators focus on finding a fit because most skills can be learned. It is what cannot be taught that affects a team.

10. Master communicator: This person needs to be skilled at articulating the team’s challenges and achievements to different stakeholders. The person has the ability to customize the message and the medium completely to suit the needs of the audience.

11. The finisher and integrator: Every team needs a leader who acts as the “human glue” – the integrator who stitches all disparate ideas together. Someone who keeps the team together and can help the team to complete the task as committed. Invisible for most parts but always available to do what is needed.

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Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri

First written for TimesJobs.com dated 26 March 2015 <click here>

Download a high resolution version of the graphic <click here>