Signs You’re Building a World-Class Team | Hacker News Reader

Signs You’re Building a World-Class Team

nfx.com

44 pointsdomrdy15 comments

> Hire someone if this will be their career-defining role — they are on the cusp of their career... They will do everything it takes to succeed.

I have mixed feelings about this. One one hand finding people that haven't been spoiled by big tech and are still excited and enthusiastic about making a difference is huge for a company. But that "they will do everything it takes to succeed" sound like it could be used to the detriment of the employee.

Most younglings are very enthusiastic, it’s usually the process of not being able to go up in the ladder (only so many can be bosses) nor the opportunity to specialize (with acknowledgment from the bosses) that grinds people down and it usually happens within just a couple of years.

If your bosses are empathetic and proud, you’ll get way better output than grinding people down for a couple of years and then getting fresh blood. That’s at least my experience from working as a consultant. So check your system first and then get the stars.

There are two types of "younglings".

1. Those that want to refactor the entire codebase and are shot down, and become jaded about the management structure.

2. Those who refactor the entire codebase and learn why they should have been stopped. They then become the managers who stop the next generation.

Ask whether you really need a world-class team or just a competent one

The one time I hired "just a competent one" it was a disaster. They weren't competent at all!

I think it's better to say things like, "make sure your expectations are realistic."

> ”They weren’t competent at all!”

”They” ?

You hired a team, but you weren’t part of the team? Weird.

I mean... <looking at the 1st and 2nd sentence over and over again>

Remove founders who have a reputation. Remove being part of an accelerator/incubator. Remove VC backing. Remove being in a "tech" hub.

Now we're cooking with wood! One way to view this in my opinion is what do you do with what you have, how do you build a learning organization that overcomes obstacles whatever they are, how do you grow with that organization and attract people who are better than you are at what you do, especially when you're in "putting down fires".

How do you build a product that enables the team to win and attract talent when you don't have the infrastructure / credentials / backing, etc.

Something to keep in mind is: World Class talent has world class opportunities.

And a lot of them simply won't be visible on the market at any given time.

Bit tautalogical these

We have similar ironclad principles to only hire the best at my company

And yet somehow they all missed the memo and ended up at Squarespace anyway

I think velocity is the most important indicator, at least at the start. How fast can you build and ship? I saw startups spending a year, and they could not launch a website. Same thing in enterprises too. A team gets formed around a project and they start building everything including a highly sophisticated pipeline, feature toggles and multi cluster deployment; but the product is still not close yet. Velocity is my indicator for team success. Just ask how long have u been developing before joining any team.

I continue to be unimpressed by articles on teams, team building in Hackernews. This article is another one. It seems more like sales and marketing article, and as a sales and marketing writeup, it is a very thin veneer with foggy bits of truth that doesn't move the bar at all.

If you want to quit messing around with fog and "hit it" right, directly, and fundamentally, then buy two books:

- Human Element: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Element-Productivity-Self-Estee...

- Total Quality Management the Japanese Way: https://www.amazon.com/What-Total-Quality-Control-Management...

That's what? Not even $10 total for used copies. Can't beat that! Here's why these are good books:

The Human Element book cuts through all the crap on teams, on why they work, why they don't. The central thesis: Teams are broken by individuals. Individuals are broken when they engage in defensive, fixed, unchanging behavior. And that modality happens when the context in which the individual works hits their self esteem negatively. If the individual lacks self-awareness their coping behaviors and ability to learn, change is significantly reduced. Then what behavior you'll see will make things worse. This ought to strike you as real: a manager's worse assignee is a person with whom they've had "the talk" but things don't change. Human Element is also extremely operational in nature: it provides a toolset to do, to engage, to measure, to check, and to move on beyond stuck. Once you get this, you'll be far better able to place the OP's piece in context to greater effect.

On the Ishikawa book (TQM the Japanese way) don't get too focused on "Japan", although during the 80s/90s Japan was kicking butt. In Japan the highest award for organizational and quality excellence is the Deming Award. Deming was an American who was well received in Japan. So what's at work here really are universal truths for all human organizations. It deals with teams in the larger context of human organizations. In software company culture is all the more important. TQM's focus is what quality means. Quality like "international relations" or "global economy" immediately comes with notions on what it means. But when you drill in to it, the certainty turns into its own kind of fog. This book helps you press your understanding to getting down to fundamentals that companies will never outgrow.

Both books are short reads. And very information packed. The TQM book was extremely well translated from Japanese; I applaud the translator. Ishikawa would be considered an industry leader, and an excellent example of a manager with Drucker know-how but real, on the job experience in manufacturing.

Empower that talent through a culture of ownership and transparency. Invest heavily in them as the company’s future leaders.

Totally agree! Are there concrete steps or examples to achieve this?

I think this is the big takeaway because somehow, most startups miss this.

When you invest internally, you maintain strong institutional knowledge and culture. You deepen the commitment and the connection to the project. This is just a win-win-win for any company. I've seen it continuously result in boosted productivity, quality, and overall mood/energy in the office.

Contrast that with the usual approach of hiring anybody and everybody rapidly, and then pulling in outside execs that bring in their own VPs and decimate the existing culture. This signals to all the talented people in the company that they will not receive a promotion, but instead by replaced when necessary. They will just jump ship at that point and get a promotion elsewhere.

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