Rule 26. Respect Individual Differences

I have several children. I expect them to operate as a team. But I am also shrewd enough to realize they are all completely different, and if I try to treat them all the same, apply the same rules—apart from the discipline ones—I’ll get a mutiny, or chaos. Now one of them—and I’m not mentioning any names here but they will know which one I’m talking about—can’t be hurried. Not ever, not anyhow. If you shove, he digs his heels in and can’t be shifted. He has to be lured, enticed, and seduced into being quicker. But I have another son who constantly has to be slowed down. I have to respect—and work with—their individual differences. I simply have to.

Now your team is just the same. Some members can be hurried and others can’t. Some will need to be slowed down and others you need to speed up. Some will come to work with a cheery smile, others are best not approached first thing in the morning. Some will be terribly good with technology and others won’t. Go back to what Belbin says in Rule 2 and see how everybody in a team has something different to offer—and that difference is what makes your team superb.