Why Good Team Selection is Critical

Often in this blog topics center around hiring the right person. But once on board, selecting the right people for teams is just as important. While you want to give the makeup of the larger team serious consideration, the makeup of work teams can be critical. In other words, teamwork is where the rubber meets the road.

The reason for this is that in the larger organizational team the bigger picture may be the focus in terms of theories, strategies, and even brainstorming. While in smaller or work teams, the work is the dissecting, organizing, testing, and implementation of those theories, strategies, and innovative ideas.

The point is that for a group of people we call teams to be able to work together, the right chemistry of personalities, skills, talents, and attributes must come together much like an orchestra plays in harmony by delivering the right notes, at the right level, at the right time. Notice I didn’t say without conflict.

There will be conflict but putting together a team with members who possess the right attributes, conflict can occur, and the team members can work together to overcome conflict, be productive, and be an even stronger team. So how does a team leader know what the right mix is for a task?

As you have heard numerous times, if you have a four-person team, you need one of each of the behavioral styles. This is true, and the right mix of skills and talent serve to help complete a project with excellence in a timely fashion. For example, what mix of analytics and innovation does a project require? Does the project require extensive research, or will the experiences or instincts of teammates suffice? Are highly structured processes needed or can processes be somewhat loosened? Will people be necessary who are capable of a more driving management style or would a less assertive management style work better?

Of course, any successful working relationship must begin from a foundation of trust and respect. This is true no matter the size of the relationship whether it’s one-on-one, two or three people, a team, or the entire organization.

As you can discern from the above questions, just throwing a group of coworkers together on a project probably will not achieve a work goal. Therefore, leaders must understand the project and the people who will be working together to achieve success. At the very least, maintain a database of the knowledge, skills, and attributes your employees bring to the table. Collecting this data at hire from resumes, interviews, and reference checks is a good start. Once on board, this data reveals itself during committee service, projects, and evaluations. At best, use assessments and a report system that can pull all that information together automatically for you and allows you to add and delete people to establish best matches.

Having good teams throughout your organization is essential. Having good teams to perform the work is critical. However, there are processes, systems, and tools to help make team building painless, productive, and profitable.

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