Always recruit people that are better than you…

Ever since I was a young lad playing Rugby League in Yorkshire I have always held the view that it is better to pick people to play with that are better than you. Back then the logic was the best team wins and I suppose a bit of my thinking was that if I was in a team where people were as good or better than me then I wouldn't have to do quite as much of the work. Reflecting on this I was kidding myself really, because when you surround yourself with players who are better than you, they expect more of you and indeed you have the up your game and prove yourself to the people around you.

Sticking with sport in relation to this subject, history is littered with examples of when superstars have been brought into teams and they have had a significant positive impact. Christiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid for example, although he was surrounded by many other superstars, or Lebron James with his various moves from Miami to Cleveland to Los Angeles, each time he lifts those around him and creates champion teams. But these are generally examples of phenomenal sports people joining teams who have other stars and those stars are lifted by the presence of such talent. There have also been a number of examples where superstars have joined mediocre teams and have had no success at all. Being a Rugby League fan I recall the many Australian stars who have joined the French teams that have played over the years and what you see is not a lifting of the skill level of the team, but often a deskilling or drop in drive of the superstar. Instead of the talent lifting all around them, everyone around the talent pulls them down to the general level.

When I started my career back in the 1990's I quickly realised that the same principles I used in my rugby days applied in business. If you surround yourself with people that are not as good as you, don't have the passion to improve and will probably never challenge you, then you will not grow as a person or a leader. If you will continually be told you are doing the right thing or a good job by those around you, then you will do all the thinking and you will miss out on the opportunities to make the idea even better drawing on a multitude of inputs and perspectives. You might look good in comparison to the people around you and perhaps you will never feel threatened by them either. But, will you be that superstar who is being deskilled, as opposed to the star who is lifting all those around you?  On the other hand, if you have the confidence to surround yourself with people who will constantly challenge you in terms of offering an alternative perspective and being prepared to do some of the heavy lifting, to allow you to focus on your job and other areas that will benefit the team, the department, the organisation. Then you are creating the environment where not only can you shine but those around you will too. Your team can bask in the reflected glory of each other's achievements and know that you have succeeded together.

It sounds easy doesn't it? But it isn't, there are a number of things that you need to think about in order to succeed.

• Have confidence - You have to have the confidence in your own capability and not be jealous when others get the credit for the work they have done. I'd probably go further and say that you need to be prepared to acknowledge the work of others ahead of your own contribution. For me this shows two attributes of a great leader, it shows you are supportive to your colleagues and it shows humility and humbleness. Now not everyone is the same and some bosses will listen to the people who shouts the most, but I think in general as humans we tend to realise who is all mouth and who is actually contributing.
• Have clarity - You need a clarity of vision, you need to be able to understand the goals of your organisation, where the barriers to achieving those goals are and have a clear idea of what needs to be done to break those barriers down. This takes time, I would never advise anyone to go in and decide immediately what the issues are, take your time to speak to people, gain everyone's perspective and build your impressions for yourself. What sometimes seems the obvious answer is actually a manufactured situation that if addressed will do more harm than good.
• Build your team - Once you have a clear idea of what needs doing and how you want to go about it, then it's time to put the building blocks in place and you must start with your team. In the process of developing your thinking around the second point above you will have an opportunity to assess those around you. Work out where you have strengths and where you have weaknesses, in terms of your teams capability. Once you have done this assessment you have two basic options:
• Simply remove the weaknesses and replace them with a stronger person. If you take this option then be sure when you are recruiting that you are looking for people who have the right skill sets and crucially find someone that is better than you in that particular area. What is the point of not having someone with a better skill set than you, you will become a bottle neck for advancement and the only person learning will be the new hire. Use this as an opportunity to advance your organisation and yourself, if you are a good leader you will be able to harness that persons capability for the wider good of the organisation and be their achievements will only reflect positively on you.
• Give the weaknesses a chance to develop themselves and step up to the mark. Often the talent is right there in front of you, but they just haven't been given the support and the opportunity to shine previously. Of course sometimes there is just not going to be a meeting of minds and so you have to do what is right for the organisation and remove people if they are not reacting to the opportunity you are giving them.
• It is important to remember though that you cannot change everyone immediately, it is preferable to make changes as you go along, but identify where the most urgent changes are required and work on them first and once that is resolved you move onto the next challenge.
• Create the environment - Without an environment which is supportive and safe it will be much more difficult to get the best out of your team. You have to understand your role in the team and also be clear with your team what their roles are as well. The most productive teams flourish in an environment where the internal competition is consistently driving each other on, but where sharing of ideas and challenge is encouraged in a constructive way. Provide psychological safety to your team, create an environment where people are not afraid to put ideas forward and ask questions about others ideas. Be careful how you frame your questions and suggestions, avoid the trend of conformity and encourage different perspectives. It is also important to avoid the tendency of leaders to get too involved, you need to be able to understand when intervention is required and also when to stand back and allow your team to blossom and sometimes make small mistakes from which they will grow in terms of experience.
• Provide feedback and praise - As a leader you need to be at the forefront of driving the feedback loop and providing praise, not just to the colleague in front of you, but to promote them to other people within the organisation as the contributor to their work. When I hear leaders saying I did this and under my leadership this has been achieved I tend to cringe. For me a true leader is able to showcase their team as being the sum of all the parts and not a set of individuals reporting into the leader. When you give credit to people for what they have done, in most instances that will earn you their respect and loyalty and together you will continue to develop.
• Let your team grow - Sometimes leaders become so reliant on people in their team that they fear them leaving and this fear leads them to make errors in their judgement. They might talk them down to others in order that they are not seen as stars, they might put them down when giving feedback or they may well hide them away out of site, but what is this doing? Well first of all it is undermining your relationship with them, any respect you had will be quickly eroded and you'll be seen as disingenuous as a leader; it will also make the person less loyal to you and want to leave, you will actually be doing exactly what you don't want and driving them away; and you will definitely not get the best out of them. My advice, make sure all your staff grow and if growth means them moving on (either within the organisation or outside it) then support that. As a leader you should have the capability to find the next star and bring them into the team, a certain amount of attrition is good for fresh thinking and trust me if you support someone in this way you will have an ally for life.

I have always tried to recruit people that add to my credibility and for them to do that they have to be better than me at what they do, I am not saying I have always been successful. My current team is excellent, each of them brings different things to the table, two of them have been here longer than me, two of them have been international secondments, turned permanent, from our head office another was a local hire and the last one was from a totally different industry sector, but had the skills we required to totally revolutionise one area of our business. Each one is better than I am at their given area, each one has made a huge difference to the organisation in their various areas and each one has grown in terms of responsibility and capability over the last 5 years. Between us we have worked out how we operate best, we work collaboratively and we have a supportive environment. So what do I do then…I facilitate, I support, I direct, I feedback, I protect, I represent, I promote…I Lead.

Summarising my key take away points from this reflection

1. Be secure enough in your own capability that you allow your team to flourish, if they look good, you look good. This is much easier than it sounds, our ego often takes over and we feel that because someone has done an amazing job then we perhaps don't look as good…but think to yourself, would they have been able to have done that amazing job, taken the credit and plaudits, had it not been for you providing them with the platform, environment and support that they needed to do it?
2. People work for people, not brands. Truly great performance is achieved because your team want to work for you and know that you want the best for them. People might be attracted to brands, but the brand reputation is based on the leadership within, there are many examples of changes in leadership ending up in drops or increases in performance - check out Microsoft, Lego, The British Museum (All case studies in the PG Dip I have just done). The examples I gave of sports stars are also exactly the same.
3. Try to avoid recruiting in your own image. It is a trap many fall into, but the reality is with diversity comes innovation and fresh ideas, you have to take that diversity and bring it together. I don't particularly socialise with my team, and they don't socialise with each other too much, but we have great fun at work together and appreciate each other's differences. The fact we don't spend much time together outside of work actually keeps the working relationship fresh and alive.

Note I'd like to thank Gary Brady for helping me with this reflection, he is an amazing HR professional and someone I know will always give me honest feedback and I relish working with him.