This post is not meant to be limiting my thoughts are “features” that I look for in a team member…
For the past 6 years, I had the chance to work with people on various matters. For some of the opportunities, I had the chance to pick the people that I wanted to work with. Here’s an overall set of ideas that I can share from my experience and that I believe to be recurring qualities,
- Generous
An inborn quality, sometimes, dependent on the environment where you grew up.
- Dedicated
Or could be interchangeable with commitment. That’s a fundamental characteristic that only pre-exist if the talent is already keen on the role.
- Driven
Willingness to go the extra mile to get things done within the boundaries of rationality and reasonability.
Identifying those 3 qualities are tough – interviews, due diligence, guts are primarily useful. I’ve been often been satisfied with 2 out of the 3 qualities in an individual given that the 3rd quality, can be acquired when provided the environment to do so.
While I wish to dig deeper, I can say that I would also look for people:
- Life experiences (e.g. has trekked over 50 km, or started a couple of (un)successful side projects)
- World exposure (e.g. being aware of what’s going on in the world)
- Smart (e.g. able to think thoroughly, reply intelligently, among others)
What do you look for in a team member?