Have you ever seen a food commercial so many times that you just had to eat what they advertised? Did you go to that restaurant, order that dish, and it was just the right thing? It was exactly what you wanted. It was exactly what you needed. It was the right fit at the right time.
Or, the song “Right Place, Wrong Time” goes thru your head, and you wonder if you, yourself, are in the right place…….at the right time.
In any company, large or small, lies an amalgamation of talent. Each team member lends their skills and expertise to collectively make an organization. It is essential, for this organization to be the best that it can be, that everyone is in the right position for maximum impact.
Even back in Michelangelo’s day, master artists hired workers for their special abilities: gilding, painting background landscapes, rendering the folds of a garment and so on. These people worked according to the master’s plan and were paid accordingly. As a production model, this environment had its good points and bad points. Assigning the less technical work to apprentices allowed the master to produce much more than he might have otherwise in his lifetime but, it still placed the entire burden of success on the master. So it is with a team.
Teams need to harness the brainpower of more than one person if for no other reason than to share the workload and the victory. I see this in sports all the time; a star athlete who hates to share the glory but wants to share the labor. Each athlete on a major sports team plays a key role in the team’s outcome.
Did you know human DNA code is 99% the same?i Even though it accounts for all the information that makes up an organism, DNA is built using only four nucleotides: adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine.ii That’s it. Simple right? If we can break something as complex as DNA down to its essence, why can’t we find the right DNA sequence and correct neural connectors to ensure you get the best people for your team? You can’t because it isn’t a scientific calculation. It really comes down to knowing people, knowing their behavior, their values, their talents. How do we do that? Ah, that’s the crucial question.
Herb Brooks, the renowned coach of the 1980 US Olympic gold medal-winning hockey team once said, “I’m not looking for the best players, just the right ones.” He had the right idea. The medal-round match between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the “Miracle on Ice,” is one of the most illustrious sporting conquests in US history. My favorite movie of all-time, Miracle, is based on this famous game. In it, Kurt Russell in his portrayal of Herb Brooks, says this great line, “The name on the front (of their jerseys) is more important than the name on the back.” What he meant is that the team is more important than the individual. Greatness is not in being the strongest but in the right use of that strength.
While I will never claim that all poor performers can become superstars, I argue that their potential contribution is severely limited if they are not in the right place. In other words, high performance is partly driven by being in the right place, with the right group, at the right time. Putting people in the right place at the right time is the absolute beginning to set them up for success.
When I put together teams, I don’t always try to find people who all think alike. I try to find people who can work together. It is more important to have a team that complements each other’s strengths and skills rather than a team who has all the same skills, which can lead to gaping holes in performance. You need the right people in the right job at the right time. The right person for a role in a $1 million organization may not be the right person to get you to a $1 billion business. The abilities of your creative and talented personnel create a higher demand for your product or service. This, in turn, creates a greater level of performance. Each level requires more. Each time people show themselves responsible with what they have, they qualify themselves for more.
Finding your hidden gems is not enough, you must also harness their full potential. The more sophisticated your talent identification processes are, the more “raw” your candidates will be because you spotted their potential at an earlier stage. At the same time, the earlier you start working on their development, the more they will develop. Best wishes.
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