Recently I was working with a company that was automating an industrial process. The founding group had come together over about six years. The group had seven people who all shared a common country of origin. They had developed an excellent working relationship with informal, but highly effective communication. However, they were planning to double their staff over the next six months. They were concerned about how to keep the same intimate communication while adding to the technical resources they needed to reach the next level. The process of working with people for years was effective in getting their first six people, but it was clear that process was not going to scale to the next level.
In order to find the next set of people, we had to clarify what had made the first group a good fit. This process took several weeks of work. In the end we learned a great deal about:
• The way the team made decisions,
• Why they made the decisions,
• The personality characteristics of the current team, • How those personalities connected with each other and fit into specific roles, and • The motivations of various team members.
In the end we found that the language and country of origin were not critical features of the decision. Instead, the factors listed above were critical. These were the criteria used to recruit, hire, train and motivate the new team members. The team grew rapidly and reached their milestones with a bigger team that felt a lot like the original team.
While the full process tooks weeks to accomplish, the key takeaway is to find people who make critical decisions in the same way as your core team members.