It is often noted that the most important decisions you make as a manager and leader within your organization are the people you hire. I would absolutely agree. The ability to put together a team that can meet your department and overall organization’s needs in the present, and adapt to future changes, is an integral part to realizing success.

Saying you’re a team and operating as a team are two different things. When speaking of team development in a business sense, it is not uncommon to hear about storming, norming, and performing. That is to say, being a successfully functional team is not something that magically happens overnight. It is a process that involves interactions, conflict resolution, reflection, and interpersonal growth.

I’m an avid fan of college football and I cannot help but reflect on the challenge teams have in developing and maintaining a team. Annual turnover in coaching and players is a rule rather than an exception. Therefore, teams that can retain talent, whether it’s players on the field or coaches on the sideline, are at an advantage. Such teams have a leg up on their competition because they have had time to form and gel together. Time (experience) is a premium in the development of teams. What is apparent in sports where the comparative visibility is present is that when talent is comparable, established teams have a significant edge versus newly formed teams.

The University of Michigan’s football team in 2023-24 was a team that had been established and was chalked full of ‘veteran’ players (in the timeline of college athletics). This gave the team an edge against teams of equal or greater talent. This is no different than any organization that has leadership that has done the job of forming a well balanced team and is cohesive with their team members.

At this point, it must be said that retention of talent is second to the acquisition of talent. Getting the right people is lovely, yet keeping the right people is equally as important. If you hold that compensation is in the ballpark of other talent competitors (organizations), then what is it about what your organization does and how you do it that causes team members to stick your turf rather than bouncing for perceived greener pastures?

You have to develop and maintain a work environment where people want to show up and perform at their best. I work and lead a team that is focused on budgets, accounts payable, and payroll. Maybe not the sexiest of areas in the organization, yet the team is vital to the organization’s heart beat…and that is the message. Without what we do, the show does not go on as smoothly as it should or not at all, and that means when we are not at our, best our ‘on stage’ counterparts are not at their best. When our department’s operations are out of sync with those interfacing with who we serve, our customers not receiving the service level they deserve. Ownership and pride in ones work goes a long way to creating and instilling meaning in one’s team. If you know how your role impacts the whole, then it is much easier to own and take pride in what you do.

I’ll close by saying, the idea of ownership and pride in one’s work is great, yet from the start you need to ensure you are hiring people that are going to jive with what you do and how you do it. It is a lot easier to be proud of what you do and how you do it, when you have a desire to do the line of work you are doing and are pre-aligned with the organization’s mission. If you are running an ice cream shop and are hiring people that aren’t passionate about ice cream, how do you think that will translate to your customers? Stoking a fire that pre-exists takes a lot less work than having to figure out how to start the fire.