Answering the Interviewer: How do you build high-performing teams?

One of the top questions, of not the top question I hear in interviews is: "tell me about how you build and nurture high-performing teams. As with many interview questions, I am inwardly conflicted between saying what I think the interviewer wants to hear, and what the data actually shows. However, this is a good way for me to evaluate potential projects as well. Is a company really "data-driven" or is it just a buzz word? Let's start on common ground.

Pretty much everyone agrees that building and nurturing high-performing teams is a crucial aspect of organizational success. So, here is an immediate place to interject your first question as an applicant: "How does this organization define 'high performing'?" This should give you some insights into how the company philosophically measures success at that specific moment. It could be growth. It could be revenue. It could be profit. These are not always (or even often) the same thing.

• Companies in the early phases of scale often sacrifice efficiency for speed so they are often looking for growth.
• Companies who are post-seed but maybe looking at round A of funding usually want to show some revenue flow, even if it is not profitable yet. This tells investors you are making some money and have the potential to make even more.
• Later stage companies will expect the fundamentals of growth and revenue funnels to be in place. Now stakeholders are asking, "when are we going to start making profit?"

High performing teams will look different at each phase but you can be prepared with a data-driven approach that always works. First, identify the problem. Companies may not even know they have a problem, but if they are asking about building high-performing teams, it means they have some friction there.

The problem is often a misunderstanding of "culture fit." This one-size fits all approach afflicts companies of all sizes. If you ask about it, you'll usually get an answer that goes back to something like, "they understand our company culture" or "they understand our industry." We see this in phrases like "digital native." Again, look for common ground. Reid Hoffman writes in his book, The Start-Up of You:

No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you're playing a solo game, you'll always lose out to a team.

What is a good team? It's not just about finding people who communicate the same or behave the same, it is about people who share the value of giving. Organizational Psychologist Dr. Adam Grant writes:

People tend to have one of three 'styles' of interaction. There are takers, who are always trying to serve themselves; matchers, who are always trying to get equal benefit for themselves and others; and givers, who are always trying to help people.

Look around at any workplace and you'll immediately see who is who. The takers are focused on their bonus, their promotion, their prestige. They are often considered very successful because their raw numbers look good. But now much did they cost the company in other ways? Grant goes on:

This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them. Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Many mega-corps will demand in interviews to "tell me what you did, "what did you contribute?" They don't want to even hear words like "we," or "collaborated," or "contributed." That doesn't sound like a team pulling together.

The Pitfalls of "Culture Fit"

When people hear the word "diversity," some get triggered and start shouting the word "WOKE." Here's what I mean by diversity: differences and divergences in work styles, backgrounds, and personalities.

Why? Because differences fosters innovation, creativity, and better decision-making within teams. Divergence allows us to capitalize on complementary strengths.

The concept of "culture fit" has been widely used in hiring practices, with the aim of finding candidates who align with an organization's existing culture. However, this approach can inadvertently perpetuate biases and limit the diversity of perspectives within teams. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that companies that prioritized "culture fit" over "culture add" were more likely to hire individuals from similar backgrounds, leading to a lack of diversity and potential groupthink.

Inclusion of divergence is important at every phase because, again to paraphrase Hoffman (who I think we quoting someone else) "What go you here, won't get you there."

The Power of Diver$ity

Is diversity just a "feel good," or is it actually good business? Numerous studies have demonstrated the benefits of diverse teams. A report by McKinsey & Company revealed that companies in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity were 35% more likely to outperform their industry peers in terms of profitability. A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that companies with above-average diversity scores reported 19% higher innovation revenues.

But is innovation important? Steve Jobs thought it was:

Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat- Steve Jobs

Many, many case studies illustrate the impact of diversity on team performance. Depending on your interviewer, they may like examples from top-tier tech companies or case studies from sports. Tailor your answer to your audience. Here is an example I might use for GenX executive.

The success of the 1992 "Dream Team" in the Olympics can be attributed to the diverse skill sets and backgrounds of its members, including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Initially, the team struggled to perform as a cohesive unit, but as they learned to embrace their differences and leverage their unique strengths, they became unstoppable.

Fostering a Diverse and Inclusive Culture

Building high-performing teams requires a deliberate effort to foster a diverse and inclusive culture. When answering this question, include both anecdotal examples (sports and the military are full of them) but also those hard numbers. Then break it down into a strategy.

1. Inclusive Hiring: Ask your potential employers if they are actively seeking candidates from diverse backgrounds and experiences: race, age, genders, education, etc. Describe how you build teams through structured interviews where you are breaking an overall impression into specific characteristics like "problem solving" and then totaling the score, to reduce unconscious biases.
2. Diversity and Inclusion Training: Ask about it not in terms of "woke" but in terms of "building teams." This is not as fuzzy as it sounds. In my last few companies, I've worked with people in the UK, EU, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, India, Australia, and Canada. Learning the cultural contexts and values of teams helps you not only communicate and collaborate better, it helps you develop and deploy products better. Whatever worked in the past has passed. If today's companies want to go global, it is mission critical to start thinking outside our own boundaries.
3. Encourage Open Communication: Skip the trust falls and corny ice-breakers from the 80s. Research and customize specific suggestions that are likely to make that specific organization trust each other and perform better (check out Grant's research on Finnish schools). Describe how you will help create an environment where every team member feels comfortable sharing their perspectives and challenging assumptions. In UX design, there are a lot of exercises that can be adapted where groups can collaborate. Get developers talking to marketers. Get your customer support to talk to top tier executives. If everybody comes up with the same answers, you either have a major insight or a huge problem.
4. Celebrate Differences: How will you recognize and appreciate the unique contributions that each team member brings to the table? How will you do this for all stakeholders in all directions? Remember, don't just "manage up," collaborate and celebrate up.
5. Mentorship and Sponsorship Programs: Implement programs that support the professional development and advancement of groups outside your usual circles. If you want companies to adopt your platform or technology, don't just evangelize, help them build. Telling your potential employers your ideas about building customers, not just acquiring them, may be what helps you stand out.

This is all starting to sound a little "woke" again isn't it? Let's touch base with the money again.

In their book Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, Mary Meaney and Scott Keller explain that your team is 1.9 times more likely to have above-median financial performance if they’re working together toward a common vision.

Companies are businesses so when talking about teams, always talk about money:

1. Ethnically diverse companies are 33% more likely to outperform their less diverse peers financially.
2. According to a McKinsey report, companies in the top quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity are 12% more likely to outperform all other companies in the data set.
3. If the global workforce became equally gender-diverse by 2030, global GDP could increase by $13 trillion, according to McKinsey's estimates.

When we expand "culture" to things like different working styles, communication styles, learning preferences, age, etc, we find that the highest "high performing teams" are ones who struggle together and embrace the idea of common difficulty versus individual comfort.

How I Build High Performing Teams

I suggest you prepare a top-level answer for this question and keep it handy during interviews. Here's mine.

I build high performing teams by looking for collaborators who challenge me to do my best over and over as well as those who expect me to equip, motivate, and challenge them to not only succeed but exceed. I look at each potential team member and ask myself, what can we give them that makes them want to stay and what can they give that makes me almost desperately committed to keeping them? I build high performing teams by looking for innovators of new ideas and who revise old ones. If we, as a company, want to expand into new audience segments, I look for people both inside and outside those segments to get a clear view. I measure successful teams not only by did we hit our KPIs or achieve OKRs but are we already thinking about the measures down the road? But most importantly, I look for team members who build trust and demonstrate integrity. Everything else can be taught or learned.

As you can tell, I am personally a bit long winded so I often end with, "and I look for people who can help me summarize my thoughts."