High Performance, Human Leadership with Michael Lin

Yeah, it's a good question, Julia.

And I've evolved my thinking in that space quite a bit over time.

Firstly, I'll probably share my natural strength from all these surveys I've done, especially in that first part of my career.

It's about harmony.

Harmony.

That means, I think, bringing people together, working through solutions with common interests, creating that environment of high trust and high comfort.

So when it comes to building team, my natural instinct, and for many others as well, it's just bring someone in that's switched on and can get along with everyone else.

Sometimes these hiring decisions, especially when internal candidates are involved, are made because they're the easiest options, or maybe because they solve a people issue somewhere else in the business.

But I learned pretty early on, five, seven years ago, that the focus really shouldn't be around whether that someone gets along with the team, but whether they're the best candidate for the role, assessed against what the actual role actually needs.

which doesn't mean like, you know, it's the smartest or the best technical or the best salesperson, but it's just being really clear about what the job needs.

For example, a head of pricing, the most two important thing is that whether that person is going to deliver the best commercial outcome And whether that person is going to lead a team in a way that keep developing future leaders as well.

I think those are the two main things.

I think some leaders do worry a bit about having too many A players or too many top performers in the team.

My view is that if it's a large organisation, you can never have too many talents and there's no such thing as too... talent density being too high.

And I think the same goes with a small company because, you know, if you have a lot of good talents and the business is going to naturally grow, I do acknowledge that, you know, that mindset sometimes will slow down the hiring process a little bit because you're trying to keep finding that right, the best person.

But then if you've got the right, if you have the right pitch, the right resources and, you know, Perhaps a bit of willingness to compromise on some secondary considerations.

I think you always find the right person.

Can you give us an example of one of those sort of secondary considerations you might need to compromise on?

Yeah, I think it's quite personal depending on people's leadership style.

For me, in recent times, I tend to... compromise a little bit on experience.

Okay.

Not a lot, obviously.

Like, experience is super important.

For sure.

But