It's actually not about the best people

This is an article I published several years ago. WIth basketball season upon us, I thought it was worth bringing back for Points of Impact.

When I was a freshman in high school I played basketball. During the final days of tryouts before everyone knew who made the team, our coach pulled the players together and said this: "my job isn't to select the best basketball players....I'm not interested in that. Besides who am I to say whether you are a good basketball player or not. My job is to select the players that will make the best team." That perspective on teams has stuck with me a long time. As I coached my own kids in basketball I thought about it. It's not just the center who can score, but the one who plays great help defense. It's not just the point guard that can get to the basket, but the one who distributes the ball to all his teammates to keep them engaged in the game.

The same holds true in any company. To the degree TiER1 has had success over our 20+ years, it's largely because of our ability to put together great teams. We focused a lot of energy on finding people with different skill sets who are more interested in the talents of the other individuals than they are in showing off how much they know; giving them a common target/objective, setting principles by which they are expected to work, and then giving them the freedom to go figure it out....as a team. When we've struggled, it's been because an individual doesn't fit in the team concept. Or doesn't understand the team expectations. In fact, most of our hiring over the years has been looking at the person inward not from the position outward. In other words, we meet a person, look at their talents and strengths, and when they seem fit culturally we begin thinking about "how" and "where". This is admittedly more difficult to do in a large organization, but the impact is tremendous. When you can get great people in the right roles on a high-powered team, the potential is enormous. It is far more likely when you are thinking about building a team, not about hiring to a specific role.

At times in organizations you see "dysfunctional" teams and/or cultural misalignment (which are closely related problems). This is often true when teams aren't assembled intentionally as a team but rather assembled as a composite of individuals.

How do you create a high powered team then? Here are some strategies that have worked for us:

1. Understand and articulate the underlying values of the team. What are the foundational principles and values that everyone on the team must have? Evaluate and select people in the context of those. For our basketball team it was 'defense'. You didn't make the team (or see the floor if you did) if you didn't play great team defense.
2. Pay attention to team dynamics. Even within a single company, a person that struggles on one team may thrive on another. In my career as a consultant, I've never seen a consultant, no matter how good they were, who didn't struggle with some client. Fit is hugely important across individuals. If the team dynamics aren't right, you need to change one or more people....often just a single change takes a team's performance to an entirely new level. The guy who shoots the ball every time - even if they are a great shooter - can totally disrupt the offensive potential of everyone else.
3. Get people in the right positions and be careful of redundancies. You don't generally need 2 point guards on the court at once. You have to intentionally design teams so everyone knows their role and respects others' for theirs. Jim Collins calls it getting the right people on the bus and getting them in the right seats. That said, having 2 point guards on the court at once - with one clearly knowing his/her role - can allow to do some things that other teams can't. Play to the strengths that you have.
4. Treat team building as a continuous process. The process of reshaping teams, getting people in the right roles, strengthening relationships, driving clarity of expectations, never ends. You have to "practice" every day. Often organizations spend a lot of time on individual performance management. That's great and important. But team performance management is ultimately what is most important. The performance of an organization isn't the sum of individual performances. It's the sum of team performances. Leading the league in scoring, rebounding, etc. doesn't equate to championships.
5. Make investments in your team's relationships. The more teammates know each other and believe in each other the better they will perform together. This isn't just "team building" activities. Often it's creating personal opportunities for individuals to work together and get to know each other....traveling together, working on a special project, having team dinners etc. are all ways to do this. I've often found that the relationships that are built through these constructs are far more impactful than the actual work that is done through them. Trust and belief in each other is the foundation of any team. In business, investing in teams is even more important than investing in skills. Great players will do the latter on their own; only the organization can build the team.

Organizational dynamics in business - frequent changes in leadership, the "voluntary" nature of employment, complexity of restructuring and even letting people go, all against a backdrop of an "ever changing game" - make intentional team-building one of the most significant strategic activities you can engage in. These are some of the ideas that have worked for us. What works for you?

"Points of Impact" is a weekly publication expressing thoughts on how we might approach our work differently to have a better impact on others and the world. For more related perspectives, check out the book Impact with Love: Building Business for a Better World.