Characters are steroids of your team
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We have a smorgasbord of characters in the world and business, and so many terms trying to categorize them. The most common ones that emerge are “company culture” and “corporate values.”
Before I begin, let’s agree that work, a job, and a career are distinct terms. And as I describe various character traits, imagine how these people could benefit, piss each other off, help, or impact one other. Now, let’s roll.
Ideas powerhouse
For some bizarre reason, people who generate great ideas and people who can execute those ideas are often on different sides of the spectrum. A person can rarely do both (I guess you could call it a sign of growth and entrepreneurship; good cook → chef → restaurateur).
Sometimes I ask this during interviews:
Are you better at generating ideas or executing ideas?
This duality doesn’t allow the candidate to praise themselves in a distorted way and often leads to an interesting self-analysis.
I noticed that people who come up with better ideas have the skill of asking the right questions, while people who execute ideas tacke the right issues.
If people are good at generating and executing ideas — they tend to have fast progress through their career and are likely entrepreneurial.
Enthusiasm and motivation
I have an unpopular take on enthusiasm and motivation. While our HR and CTO consider enthusiasm a benefit of the candidate, I often veto potential candidates for being overly enthusiastic. The thing is, in 90% of the cases, enthusiasm is built on expectations and feeble boundaries. Expectations of a great team, highly unique product, unconventional management.
I once heard the quote: “expectations are premeditated resentments.” That strikes me as something that makes an incredible amount of sense.
Over time and my growing experience of interviewing people, I noticed that as soon as enthusiastic people lose just a tiny bit of their motivation, their output and interest drop twice. But there’s a good thing — they set a bar of expectations, which is always significant for the result.
As for the other 10% of enthusiasts, the love for the process makes it easy to distinguish from the one built on expectations. It’s mainly about the propensity to play in your work. Often, these people have experienced burnout and reinvented themselves, have stronger boundaries, and find more pleasure in their work; their work stands above their job.
If paired with vitality and communication skills, these 10%-enthusiasts can often become good mentors.
Tenacity and grip
That’s a tricky one to guess during an interview. I’m biased toward these traits and often praise people too much for tenacity (I guess it’s a side effect of a managerial role).
It’s essential that persistence is multifaceted. In such a case, people make consistent progress through their job, work, and career.
If they lack variety, they might succeed at their job, but their growth can become complicated and stale because of a narrow focus. If a cook only uses garlic, her dishes might be delectable, but she’ll be rigid in her style.
It’s crucial to let grippers unwind and encourage experiments to help them move forward and grow.
Vitality and resilience
Let’s be honest, work in tech can get dull. Some roles are more creative than others, some are repetitive, and some just slog you along day after day.
Vibrant people have a unique trait that helps others shine in a new light. They often are the ones who make the team out of otherwise just many persons. I absolutely admire my colleague Liza, who does this like magic. As she joins the daily standup, people seem to enjoy their life more.
Resilience often pairs the vitality. Now, truisms are tasteless, but people are not machines; plasticity makes a person stronger and more human.
I wouldn’t say these traits have a negative side effect as previous ones and would highlight the need for vibrant people, especially in managerial roles.
Summary
All these traits are unique, and some people are just a palatable cocktail of many.
As I was writing this article, I realized there is no way to put this into one post. So give me a clap if you’d like a second part of the collective-making traits and side-effects analysis.
