Team Dynamic: Building a great team > Hiring the strongest people you can

By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.

Reading time: 6 mins

Summary: When hiring = 1. What roles you need + 2. What will a hire do to the team dynamic. Getting team dynamics right is a crucial part of a high performing team. 

Jingle: to have a dynamic team you need team dynamics to be right! 

Company vs Division vs Team

• A breakdown of the different component of a company: 

  • Company wide dynamics / culture: it’s likely there are some values that are company wide… but IMO not everything. 

  • Division level dynamics / culture: you might have the tech division, the sales division, the support division etc. Each of these divisions likely have different cultural attributes that suit them best. 

  • Team dynamics: for most white collar work you are not talking about having more than 6-7 direct reports per manager. Normally a team of 4-7 is what can work really closely together. 

• Comment:

  • What I’m referring to in this blog is the dynamics of a 4-7 person team. 

  • Inside a division you might have 1s or 10s or 100s of teams. 

  • There are likely some company wide dynamics / cultural attributes you want. There are likely some division wide ones as well. 

  • But I’ve found that the most important one to get right is ‘team level dynamics’. This is because these are the people you work with the most. It’s like this is the foundation upon which all else is built. 

  • I’ve also found that almost always each team is different. For the purposes of this blog let’s assume that a division is made up of 10 teams. You can often have eg 7 teams functioning really well in a division and 3 not functioning well. There can be many reasons for this such as a poor individual contributor, a manager who can’t lead, someone who is burned out, etc etc… but also team dynamic is a key area that can have a team not functioning well. 

“A champion team will beat a team of champions.” - John Mcgrath

• Part of a champion team is the team dynamic. 

• Each team is different. So I don’t think there is ‘one right’ way to have team dynamic. As an example how one sports team wins premiership might be very different to how another team does. So even inside a division I think that it’s likely getting the team dynamic right for each team is different and will take effort. 

• You can have someone who is really strong in a certain area but might be ‘team dynamic lopsided’. You can hire them but you need someone to balance them else their strengths will be more than offset by worsening team dynamic. 

• A way to think about team dynamic - lens 1: existing teams

  • Rate the team dynamic of all teams in your division from best to worst with reasons why. 

  • Draw a line of sufficiency - ie any teams above this line have a team dynamic that doesn’t need addressing. 

  • Then compare and contrast through the teams to see what is driving the differences in team dynamic. 

    • *Aside: I personally find it very difficult to understand team dynamics without being able to compare across teams. 

  • Figure out a plan for what to do. The normal areas I look at: 

    • 1. Speaking to an individual about changing part of their behaviour. 

    • 2. Looking to change part of how a team operates, eg decision making.

    • 3. What is missing from a team and how you add this through a hire.

    • 4. Thinking about removing an individual.

• A way to think about team dynamic - lens 2: hiring into a team

  • When hiring, say who you think a candidate is like in the existing company. Normally a potential hire is a combination of 2x people who are working at your organisation or who have left. 

  • Then put forward how you think the addition of this person will affect the team dynamic. IE will the potential hire improve / not affect / worsen the team dynamic and why. 

  • Comment:

    • Until about 3 years ago I didn’t look at the ‘team dynamic’ lens when hiring. 

    • When I first started trying to describe ‘team dynamic’ I was very bad at it. But like most things, if you spend consistent time trying to do something you normally level up. 

    • I’ve found that team dynamics are a crucial part of a high functioning team. 

Building a great team > Hiring the strongest people you can

• I used to just look for the strongest individual candidates. But you don’t want a team of ‘all captains’. There are people who I previously wouldn’t have thought of as a great hire but I now do when I take into account the ‘team dynamic’ lens. IE hiring this person will be great for team dynamic is a core reason to hire someone! 

• Example 1: People managers Vs Content Creators

  • Let’s say your team makes content for secondary education resources. 

  • I used to be looking for highly driven people who ‘always want the next opportunity’. Eg wanted to go into management. 

  • But we don’t want nor need everyone to do this. It’s arguable that the thing we need more than anything is great quality content. So people who love the subject matter and love making content are mega key. 

  • An analogy is that there are developers who love writing code and don’t want to go into people management, they just want to write code. You need people like this. 

• Example 2: Inspiring people Vs Lovely people

  • Loveliness is a superpower. 

  • Sometimes what a team needs is just a lovely person who makes everyone chill out a bit. Intensity can be good, intensity can be bad. Literally 1x super lovely person can significantly change the tenor of team discussions AKA team dynamic. 

• Some examples of different types of people we talk to: 

  • *please note: the best way I’ve found is to refer to how someone is, is to say how they similar to 1-2 existing people AND how we think they will affect team dynamic. Not by labelling them as ‘team player’, etc. 

  • Team player

  • Team leader

  • Coach

  • Chill person

  • Heavily driven hungry person

  • Camaraderie builder

  • Someone who loves making content / coding, AKA people who do not want to be in ‘management’. 

• If you can’t describe how a new hire will affect the team dynamic then I don’t think you understand team dynamics enough. 

Build vs Buy Team Dynamics

• Of course you can build team dynamics and affect existing teams. I think one should definitely have this as a focus. There are many frameworks and tools for building / changing team dynamics. One I like is Five Dysfunctions Of A Team: 

• Another from Brene Brown:

• However of course when hiring each new hire will affect the team dynamic. So you want to be looking for what you think will happen to a team dynamic when adding someone. I think it is essential to ask yourself what you think an addition to a team will do to the team dynamic. 

• One way I try to screen for team dynamic / soft skills is through knowing what you are looking for and asking questions like in this blog. 

If you only take away one thing

• Team outcome = 1. Individuals in the team * 2. Team dynamic

• You can hire for team dynamic. You can shape team dynamic for existing teams. 

• The sooner you start discussing team dynamics and trying to move them in the right direction the better you get it!