In our first five minisodes on leading high performance teams we built your mission and this was the vision, purpose, strategy, values and goals of your team.

We’ll spend the next 5 weeks focusing on what makes it all happen – PEOPLE.

And to start off we’ll look at getting the RIGHT PEOPLE on your team. As Jim Collins said, “Get the right people on the bus and wrong people off the bus.”

In many ways, this is actually the first step. But in reality you need to keep checking in to see if you’ve got the right people. And so that is first question:

If you think about your mission and the aspirational goals you’ve set do you, without a shred doubt, have the team that can do that?

If your answer isn’t a confident yes, if there is someone who you’re unsure of that is nagging away at you then you must get that fixed as a major priority.

Review your team and ask yourself, are we a title winning team. Who am I unsure about and is it their skill or their character?

This is something where you really have to follow your intuition. If they’re unhappy and causing trouble it’s likely their spreading their unhappiness throughout the team and everyone will be more than comfortable if you move them on. In fact, sometimes you’re doing them a huge favour…even if they don’t realise it in the moment. In the end, some people have gotten too toxic and it’s too hard for them to rescue their reputation in the time required. This takes courage and humility and resilience but all great chiefs ensure they have the right people on the bus at the beginning.

Remember, there are two main criteria for the right people: skills and character. Recruit and retain on both. Not just one. You need good people who are experts at their work. If either is missing it'll hurt performance and culture.

Here are some questions you can ask that'll help you get more to the character and capability of the people your interviewing or leading:

1. Can you tell us about a time you were apart of a transformation? What happened? What were the setbacks? What did you learn?
2. Do you have any hobbies? What do you do away from work?
3. How do you keep learning?
4. What is your favourite book and why?
5. Who are your mentors or influencers that you follow?
6. What are you philosophies in life and business?
7. What are your three most important values and why?
8. What is your process of dealing with difficult people?
9. If you inherited $10M right now, what would you do with your life?

These are just a few. Listen to the CEOs interviews throughout the first 86 episodes and you'll hear countless other high quality questions.

OK Chief. Now it is over to you. You have to be bold in leading high performance teams. That starts with the right people. Look closely at your people, make respectful and strong moves. Hold people accountable. Bring in stars. Get to it.

Stay epic
Greg

Next article in the High Performance Teams series:

Pillar 2/People: Part 7 – The Right Role