Great Teams Are About Personalities, Not Just Skills - HBR

 Great Teams Are About Personalities, Not Just Skills

…who you are affects how you behave and how you interact with other people, so team members’ personalities operate like the different functions of a single organism.… 

In our own work we found that psychological team roles are largely a product of people’s personalities. For example, consider team members who are:

• Results-oriented. Team members who naturally organize work and take charge tend to be socially self-confident, competitive, and energetic.
• Relationship-focused. Team members who naturally focus on relationships, are attuned to others’ feelings, and are good at building cohesion tend to be warm, diplomatic, and approachable.
• Process and rule followers. Team members who pay attention to details, processes, and rules tend to be reliable, organized, and conscientious.
• Innovative and disruptive thinkers. Team members who naturally focus on innovation, anticipate problems, and recognize when the team needs to change tend to be imaginative, curious, and open to new experiences.
• Pragmatic. Team members who are practical, hard-headed challengers of ideas and theories tend to be prudent, emotionally stable, and level-headed.