Berger Leadership Blog

Here's a question: What if we spent more time building our teams than leading them? What if our main focus was to identify strong team players, recruit top-notch employees and develop those who will lead in the future?

I'm not recommending that we stop focusing on developing or leading our current teams. Time spent on our current employees is important. But I am suggesting that we turn more of our attention to identifying the people we want.

Inc.com contributor Jeff Haden recommends doing just this. "Spend a significant chunk of your time focused on how you'll add the perfect people to your team," he writes. "Make it a daily part of your job to identify. Make it a daily part of your job to recruit."

He draws a parallel to sports teams: "A team with great players and a decent coach will almost always beat a team with decent players and a great coach. (That's why the best college coaches are, first and foremost, great recruiters.)," he explains.

Yes, spend time developing current employees. However, know the more time you spend identifying high performers, will give you back more time to continue recruiting. Why? The more high performers you bring to your team, the less time you need to spend leading them.

"Become an identifier and you create the most virtuous of cycles – one that helps your team perform at ever-increasing levels of performance," Haden concludes.

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