Build a great team

We have an exceptionally high talent bar at Kinde. I’ve worked in some pretty incredible places (Shopify, Atlassian) but the Kinde team is something extra special. Without doubt some of the brightest and most talented people I’ve ever seen or had the incredible honour of working with.

That doesn’t just happen by accident. It is the result of very deliberate intent. Before we ever hired anyone, we defined our values. And these values have driven a lot of how we think about what great people look like. At least for our team. Remember – what is great for our team may not be great for yours. And the reverse.

I think the fascinating thing about values, that most seem to overlook, is that a well defined value should be intentionally polarizing. In another company, any of Kinde’s values could potentially be something entirely undesirable. If this is not the case then all we have is a platitude (which is a disease that most corporate values suffer from). In your business you may not want human kindness and gentle manners, you may want a team that is ruthless and hard driving. And that’s fine. Values should drive the outcome you are trying to achieve and the ideal that you (typically as founder) want to embed in your team.

That said, I do believe that there are some overarching things that make for great people in any team. A lot of these are the things we’ve tried to capture in our values.

This sounds obvious - but isn’t really. A lot of people are driven by career and personal growth. There’s nothing wrong with that. Truly great people are inspired (and that is partly your responsibility as a founder) to do the most important work of their lives. They want to make an impact. They want to change the world. These are the people you want on your side. The people who will not stop until they have achieved something world changing. Best make sure your mission lives up to that.

You can often spot them by a tendency towards action. They seek to do things rather than talk about them.

Find people who are so driven and compelled to achieve your mission that they can’t stop themselves being fanatical about it. Those are your people.

This one is highly subjective – you may want something else. But to me, if you want to build a generational culture you start with a strong team that is deeply integrated. In order to do this you need to have people with a high degree of care and empathy. They will be the best team to support one another in the hard times and the good. They’ll tend to avoid blowing up and stomping around angrily. They’ll seek first to understand. They’ll also be more likely to come at problems with an open mind.

For us, the worst characteristics people can have is a tendency towards bullying, toadying or politicizing. These are never the people we wish to have in our team.

We talk a lot about being a company of giants. This is very deliberate. It’s a reminder to our team that nothing at Kinde was ever about any single one of us, and that building each other up to be as successful as possible is the single best way to further abundance for all of us. And so we look for people who are happy to share the limelight. To be team players. And to help contribute to the largest possible wellbeing for everyone in the team. It’s not about individual outcomes, but the collective gain (which ultimately translates into individual gain).

Building culture and team is probably your biggest job as a founder. If you do this well, everything else will come from it. Take the time to think about and understand what you want your team to feel like. Then go and deliberately craft it.