Building A Team From Scratch
One of the most exciting experiences and potent lessons in leadership is building a team from the ground up. The task requires a healthy balance between leadership and management skills. The experience of building a team both tests and strengthens a manager’s abilities to forecast or plan, strategize, and execute. Whether a seasoned leader or new and relatively inexperienced, there will be something to learn.
When it comes to building a team, the most anxiety inducing part is that results are not measurable until after the team goes through the phases of forming, storming, norming, and starts performing. Also known as the stages of team development. Building a team requires a leader to stretch themselves in order to find compatible candidates. Ultimately hiring the right fit. Looking into the future and being able to develop and communicate a vision that includes moving from current state to desired state.
The direction of the company is a great grounding point for leaders to identify a team’s functionality. A lot of hiring managers tend to have a myopic view for problem solving. Focusing only on the immediate problem in front of them, leaving the future in a blindspot. Which leads to incompatible hires and impacts retention in the long run. After assessing current state and developing a vision for future state that’s aligned with the company vision. Consider a few questions: What is the urgency or timeline for forming a team? What is the plan for formation and which stakeholders should be involved in the process? What type of talent is needed for now and later?
What is necessary for success in the short term is not the same as what is necessary to achieve and maintain long term success. The objective is to hire for now and later. Once immediate needs are met, a whole new set of needs arise to be resolved. It is paramount to hire for talent that can add immediate value, and also grow as the role circumstances evolve. Providing potential for value add later. This perspective demands leaders envision the scope of work that team currently does. How the nature of the work shifts and expands as the company scales. Expansion is inevitable.
A vision is an objective that needs a strategy and plan to achieve. Distilling the vision into actionable tasks will help in determining the necessary resources. In any case, in a greenfield environment, it’s extremely important to source and recruit candidates that have strengths in multiple areas. A jack of all trades that can think upstream and downstream. Sounds like looking for a unicorn, right?
There are a number of factors to consider, but a few that should be prioritized before sourcing for candidates. Structuring roles is among the top priorities for building an exceptional team. To help guide the process, developing a career ladder is a helpful starting point. A lot of new teams are hired reactively rather than proactively. Career ladders give the recruiting team and hiring panel a reference to hire against. Not to mention, they give employees guidance for career development. Helping to answer some very important questions: What hard skills are necessary to fulfill responsibilities of the role(s)? What soft skills are necessary for successful collaboration? How to qualify compatibility with the culture? It is also good a baseline for deciding on role leveling (i.e. entry level, mid-level, senior level, etc.) and writing solid job descriptions based on hard and soft skills outlined in the career ladder. As a resume represents a candidate at first glance, a job description represents the team and company. Stakes are high and reputations are on the line!
After roles and descriptions have been structured, developing a hiring process for finding the right talent is the next actionable task for building an exceptional team. Hiring processes include assembling the best hiring panel possible. It is usually the sum of people who will work closely with the new team. Of course after team member one is hired, they become a part of the hiring process going forward. The interview panel is responsible for being the hiring managers extra eyes and ears. Assessing competencies, such as hard skills, soft skills, and culture fit.
It’s imperative for hiring managers to be honest with themselves, their recruiting team, and the candidates. Not every candidate will want to be a part of a team that is newly formed or forming. Making it critical to be upfront in the hiring process. Otherwise, it would be doing a disservice as a manager, to the company and team, and the candidate.
Although building a team from scratch is a fulfilling experience. It is also very humbling. There is a lot to consider, a lot to remember. Therefore a lot to neglect. Especially if the approach is more reactive than proactive. For anyone involved in the process of building a team from the ground up, it’s like drinking from a water hose. Approaching it from the perspective of distilling tasks for a large project could make doing the work a little less daunting. A proactive approach allows for the opportunity to be thorough and structured in the planning process. Enabling end-to-end thinking.
Recap Tips For Building a Team From Scratch:
- Assess and clarify your understanding of the direction of the company as it pertains to the team’s function in the business
- Consider hiring candidates that possess skills that will add immediate value, as well as have the desire to learn and grow
- Structure roles and responsibilities; building and leveraging career ladders can be helpful
- Assemble an interview panel with the appropriate partners, stakeholders, and team members
- Be honest with candidates about that fact that the team they’re being considered for is being formed, which comes with it’s pros and cons
