When hiring great people isn’t enough
Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, entrepreneur, author and investor shares a compelling TedxHarlem talk on the journey of executing on a “great idea,” and the series of “next great ideas” that come up and draw our attention, motivation and focus away.
Making ideas a reality, even the greatest ideas “suffer horrible odds,” Belsky says. Execution is hard, teams seeing a vision through is challenging; pursuing and maintaining the motivation to see something through to fruition is near impossible.
Belsky goes on to say this is even more challenging when you have creative teams, who can collectively struggle with this issue of attention, motivation and drive towards a common project, initiative or goal. He points out, the reality is projects, initiatives, goals plateau. Motivation wanes, attention dwindles or is re-directed and the idea of ensuring momentum is often a greater feat than anyone plans for in a project.
Belsky focuses on these challenges in an effort to be a realist when it comes to creative idealists. “It’s not enough to hire great people; you need to graft them onto your team.”
We thought the concept of “grafting” was brilliant and insightful. Belsky shares the core ingredients to grafting a team to stay together for the long haul. It’s not just about “onboarding,” but much more about an ongoing effort to ensure the team has these core values actively in place to be successful:
- Empathy
- Integration
- Psychological Safety
- Communication
To Learn More
If you are building new teams or struggling to gain momentum with a team stuck or not reaching their full potential, we encourage you to watch this TedxHarlem talk and contact us to help you learn how to accelerate the assimilation and cultivate empowerment, passion and purposeful environments.
