How to build and lead successful teams

Welcome to Spark, a newsletter from Vivace. We curate and publish the most interesting thinking and ideas from our community on themes ranging from business and finance to culture and creativity. Send pitches and feedback to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.

Hello Spark reader,

I think many of us recognize that AI is only making human connection more important. A key tenet of The Vivace Way (our culture code) is prioritizing our community built on friendships and great working relationships within both our core and extended team.

Organizations are collections of teams. The stronger the teams, the stronger (and more resilient) your organization. But strong teams are not built by accident. Here to illustrate this is Ben Jarrold, a colleague and partner through many challenging transformation periods throughout Ryan and my corporate careers.

Ben draws on two decades of experience building, nurturing, and managing strong teams to offer some invaluable guidance on how to shape yours. Enjoy part one of this series on the key hiring ingredients and look forward to part two, on how to lead that team, coming in a future edition.

Bon appétit!

-joel

A time-tested recipe for building and leading successful teams

Guest essay by Ben Jarrold

I was recently in the kitchen making dinner, stirring our family favourite bolognese sauce, and all the while pondering how best to frame this article about my lessons learned leading teams over the years. You can probably tell where this is going, but there was something in the analogy of the endless recipe tinkering and fine-tuning, the seeking of culinary inspiration from the wider world, and of course, the discovery of a miraculous secret ingredient, that was very tempting to indulge in…

Fortunately, you won’t have to read through a Michelin-star-worthy ode to team leadership here. I put down my spoon, picked up my pen, and left the analogies at the kitchen door (for now). The truth is, there’s no need for an artificial construct to introduce what really matters: key lessons I’ve learned after 20 years of building and managing effective teams, and some shortcuts to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way. 

Part 1: The hiring ingredients

To begin with, you need to gather your ingredients. Recruitment opportunities, like good quality produce, are precious—treat them as such.

Whether starting from scratch with new roles or replacement ones, recruitment offers the unique chance to build, blend, and create something special. I’ve built some guiding principles over the years that have largely steered me in the right direction.

1. Hiring ‘good enough’ is never good enough 

Prioritising the time, energy, and focus required to get it right is a non-negotiable. Hiring ‘good enough’ will inevitably lead to mediocrity, can limit growth, and often results in long-term costs.

‘Good enough’ won’t foster and drive innovation, efficiency, or excellence. It can slow down team cohesion and morale if your hire isn’t a cultural ‘fit’ for your team and company values. A quick fix often equates to a negative cost and time impact, with more training required, lost productivity, or even having to re-hire and start again.

Hire exceptional people, and if you can’t find them immediately, be patient or consider other ways you can manage until you do.

2. Skills and experience are important, but team ‘fit’ and balance are essential

In addition to demographics, background, and experience, a team should also be balanced by personality and character. There are a multitude of options out there to assess a team’s personality traits and understanding what you already have, where the gaps are, and any complementary types that could ‘fit’ with your team can and should influence future hires. 

This is especially true for a management team: the right blend of action-orientated, analytical and people-focused managers will aid a team’s ability to be more effective.