Mixing and matching people

Business enterprises need a lot of teamwork to reach their goals. It is not sufficient that they recruit people who are competent. They must ensure that the entire organization is cohesive, coordinated, and complementary to one another.

Cohesiveness means that the different parts of the enterprise pursue the same goals, live the same values, and share a common culture.

Coordination means that the different functional areas (marketing, operations, finance, administration) know what the others are doing so that that they can calibrate their work processes and deliverables. Coordination also means cross-functional collaboration in activities that require the involvement of all units in order to produce the organization’s desired outcomes.

Complementation means that the organization has the correct mix of competencies, which conspire to produce a synergistic effect. Complementation means that specialized skills are balanced with general management perspectives; that breadth of management coverage is tempered by depth of technical expertise; that customer-focused staff are supported by resource-optimizing personnel.

Cohesion, coordination, and complementation can be attained if enterprises know how to mix and match people well. Enterprises are composed of teams assigned to accomplish certain programs, activities, and tasks. There is a need to orchestrate the actuations of these teams as well as the behavior of individuals within each team.

Proper Mix

In order to accomplish their assigned roles, teams must have the proper mix of individuals. The correct mix will depend on the required team outputs and outcomes.

Teams need different types of people. They need good leaders and followers, initiators and implementors, extroverts and introverts, visionaries and operators, entrepreneurial trend-setters and cautious controllers.

Teams with highly specialized functions (e.g. equipment maintenance crew, cost accountants, and computer programmers) need more homogenous mixes while teams with broader mandates (e.g. corporate planners or organization developers or marketing staff) need eclectic combinations.

Highly competitive or combative teams (e.g. selling units) need individuals who can close ranks and fight as one. They must be composed of disciplined achievers with a strong desire to win.

Support teams (e.g. human resource department) must have service-oriented members who have the passionate desire to help others without losing sight of the overall organizational mission.

Correct Match

Once the correct mix of individuals is determined, the hiring or inclusion of new team members must pass the matching test.

Will the new personnel "fit" into the team culture? Do they have the personal traits, characteristics, behavior, and competencies needed by the team to succeed? What is their added value to the team? What strengths and weaknesses do they have? Do they possess virtues that are both consistent and complementary with the other team members?

The four operative criteria for matching people correctly are: compatibility with the team culture; capacity to deliver the required work outputs; charisma to influence others (both inside the team and outside the team); and congruence to the objectives set by the team.

Compatibility operates at two levels. The first level is concerned with personality fit. Will the members of the team get along or will they tend to have personality clashes? The second is value fit. Will the members of the team share the same ideals, values, and principles to guide their actions by?

Capacity has to do with knowledge, skills, competencies, and attitudes. Teams will expect each of their members to contribute significantly to the team effort but they cannot do so if they lack the expertise and predisposition to perform well.

Charisma is the ability of individuals, particularly team leaders, to inspire, motivate, persuade, and influence others. It is also the "likeability" factor or the ability to like and be liked. Charisma is the commanding presence of a person who can elicit respect, entice participation, and evoke performance.

Congruence means the individual goals and aspirations can be fulfilled by coming together to achieve group goals. It can also means that individuals are able to identify with group objectives and find personal fulfillment while pursuing those group objectives.

(Eduardo A. Morato, Jr. is on the faculty of the W. SyCip Graduate School of Business of the Asian Institute of Management. For comments and inquiries, you may contact him at: [email protected]. Published "Entrepreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed on the AIM website at http//:www.aim.edu.ph).