Learn from David Beckham and Real Madrid.
👉 A reporter once asked David Beckham if there were any language problems in Real Madrid, since the players were from about eight different countries. He said it was never an issue, because everyone was so good, they never had to talk. They all just did the right thing.
In most teams, especially small teams and startups, if you have folks who are waiting to be given instructions, the battle is already lost. There can be top-down direction and alignment on overall strategy and the north star, but the everyday work has to be automatic. The team has to pick up the right problems, pass the ball to the right experts in the right team, and keep moving towards the goal.
Other than the occasional huddle with the coach (i.e. manager) for some nudges, the show should run on its own.
How to build high-performance teams? Hire people with high agency. 🔥Â
Hire people / train teams to do the right thing without anyone telling them.
👉 How to hire people with high agency? Look for solution mindset and impatience in their answers, deep dive into the toughest problem they faced in their career and look for agency in the way they took initiative and solved it, in the face of constraints.
👉 How to train teams to have high agency? Throw teams in the deep end as a group, set clear expectations NOT to expect detailed directions, give ownership of key metrics and timelines, and step away. Let them fail and learn. Once they’ve learnt, celebrate the culture and have them train others.