The 3 Most Important Things To Consider When Building A High-Performance Team

Teams are only as effective as the people that comprise them.

But building high-performing teams requires more than just an eye for talent. The companies who build the best teams begin doing so even before interviewing their first candidate. That’s because the process demands careful and purposeful thinking about what sort of people you need, why you need them, and what those people will need to accomplish once they’re on board. It’s about finding the right people — not just the most talented with skills to meet your needs.

But when companies don’t hire this proactively, their teams suffer for it.

This is something I’ve learned firsthand both through my work in corporate America, on presidential campaigns, within government, and as my team and I build out RedPen, a blockchain and AI startup.

Here’s what we’re keeping in mind to ensure we put together the best and most productive team possible.

1: Define your requirements thoughtfully.

Before beginning any kind of project, you need to define what a successful outcome for that project looks like.

Putting together a high-performance team is as important as any project you’re likely to take on, meaning you absolutely need to predefine success. This will inform not only your search and hiring strategy, but will also help you create baseline requirements for every hire — what sort of skills each team member needs to possess, what kind of experience they should have, and what sort of character traits they should harbor in order to mesh with the company mission.

But it’s not enough to define what you’re looking for. You must also know why and when you’re looking to hire for that role — something informed primarily by the unique stage of growth your company is currently in.

At RedPen, in growing our engineering team, we defined our baseline resource requirements in accordance with a set of unique needs aligned to our culture — those of a very early stage blockchain and machine learning startup. We know we need engineers with experience writing solidity code and team members who love data and natural language processing. We know we need engineers with experience taking products from concept to market. Likewise, we know we need team members with dynamic skill sets — the ability to wear multiple hats and work on multiple projects at once.

We’re passing on people with more singular talents. Because, again, talent doesn’t matter if it’s not in alignment with your needs.

2: Identify and prioritize the needs of your recruits.

After you’ve identified the unique and present needs of your company, the next step in assembling a high-powered team is identifying those same needs for the folks you plan to bring on board.

This should start the moment you pick up their resume.

The reason is twofold. First, the more you understand about what inspires the people you need — from both a merit and mission perspective — the more purposefully you’ll be able to attract them. This will also help you determine whether potential hires might be good fits. At RedPen, we don’t want people who are complacent — it just doesn’t mesh with our company culture. We want people inspired to grow. We want people inspired to push themselves. As it happens, the best people typically are.

But this focus also helps you more effectively motivate employees once they come on board.

This amounts to understanding what form of incentivization proves most powerful for each member. Is money a key driver, or is training more important? Does team member A want leadership opportunities, or are they more motivated by creative autonomy?

Different opportunities inspire people in unique ways. Knowing those differences will enable you to inspire your team as systematically as possible — to help each team member, in accordance with their unique set of skills and proclivities, become their own kind of superhero.

But aside from being the best operating philosophy, a commitment to helping people become superheroes also turns out to double as a great recruitment tool.

3: Create a compelling mission.

The best kind of recruitment tool, however, is a compelling and powerful vision.

That’s one thing I’ve learned not just through my work with RedPen, but in leading government teams, corporate initiatives, and working at the White House: talented people don’t want to be a part of something that’s average. Talented people are driven by missions that solve relevant pain points. They’re driven by missions that they can become passionate about.

But to truly attract and find great people, your mission should not only be compelling — it should also inspire people to do things they’ve never done before and to strive for something they’re not even certain is possible. That’s because great people find inspiration in pursuing what others see as impossible.

If you give great people a goal that is inherently accomplishable, they’re going to accomplish it. Nothing game-changing comes from safe thinking. But if you task people with doing something “impossible,” they will become more creative. And that’s when people find the superhero lingering inside them — when they push themselves to accomplish things that normal, more complacent people won’t.

And as you’ll learn, the kind of people you want to hire are the ones who themselves want to find their inner superhero. Push them to do that, and you’ll have hiring success.

At the end of the day, great talent is interested in fighting important battles, winning new races, and accomplishing what was once impossible.

Your company mission and hiring strategy, then — the things you’ll use to attract those great people — should be founded upon those kinds of pursuits.

Ultimately, understanding what drives your talent, identifying what sort of talent you need, and designing a team mission that proves both inspiring and enticing requires careful and purposeful thinking. That’s inescapable. So before you begin the hiring process, look inward.

It’s worth it. Talented and inspired teams are never the product of luck.

RJ is the CEO, CTO, and Co-Founder of RedPen, a breakthrough social news and storytelling platform powered by blockchain and AI. To learn more, visitmeetredpen.com or follow on Twitter at @meetredpen.