I gave a presentation titled "Building an Effective Team" to LFI's Emerging Leaders Institute.

1. BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE TEAM
The Will Marlow Agency

2. About the Will Marlow Agency
 Small ad agency
 Founded: 2012
 10-person company
 Google AdWords Certified Partner
 Data-driven ad agency

3. Agenda – Takeaways
1. Why hiring effectively is the most important step
in managing and leading
2. Why the average manager has a .33 record
3. Why you need to start with culture

4. “Making a product is hard but making a team
that can continually make products is even
harder…The product I'm most proud of is…the
team I built at Apple.”
— Steve Jobs

5. The Right People
"My #1 job here at Apple is to make sure that
the top 100 people are A+ players. And
everything else will take care of itself. If the
top 50 people are right, it just cascades down
throughout the whole organization."
— Steve Jobs

6. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1:

7. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months

8. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2:

9. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months

10. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months
 Employee #3:

11. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months
 Employee #3: GREAT HIRE

12. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months
 Employee #3: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #4:

13. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months
 Employee #3: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #4: 3 months

14. A Brief Personal History of Hiring
 Employee #1: 3 months
 Employee #2: 3 months
 Employee #3: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #4: 3 months
 Employee #5: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #6: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #7: 3 months
 Employee #8: 3 months
 Employee #9: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #10: 3 months
 Employee #11: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #12: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #13: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #14: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #15: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #16: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #17: GREAT HIRE
 Employee #18: GREAT HIRE

15. Avg. Hiring Performance*
 1/3 Stars
 1/3 Mediocre
 1/3 Failures
*Stats from Peter Drucker

16. First 10 Hires = 40% Success Rate

17. Second 10 Hires = 90% Success Rate

18. What changed?
1. Focused on honest personality assessments
(starting with myself)
2. Eliminated uncertainty in job positions
3. Defined a detailed “company culture” to make
hiring strategic rather than tactical

19.  Disciplined
 Focused
 Deliberative
 Responsible
 Competitive
Empathetic
 Connector
 Networker
 Strategic
 Contextual
 Intellection
 Adaptable
 Includer
 Learner
 Future-Oriented
 Detail-Oriented
StrengthsFinder

20. Personality Assessments
What strengths were missing for me?
• Focus + Detail

21. Personality Assessments
What was missing for me?
• Focus + Detail
 My first successful hire helped
address these issues.

22. Personality Assessments
This success made me a believer, and I
was ready to use personality
assessments in all hires.

23. Personality Assessments
But what was I hiring for?

24. Eliminating Uncertainty in Positions
1. Started with job descriptions.

25. Eliminating Uncertainty in Positions
1. Started with job descriptions.
2. Created an entire online training site with 300+
videos

26. Eliminating Uncertainty in Positions
1. Started with job descriptions.
2. Created an entire online training site with 300+
videos
3. Created a “Black Belt” system to assess/motivate
mastery of responsibilities

27. What about the intangibles?
Company Culture
 Shared values, ideals, behaviors and mission
 Applicants can better decide if we are good fit
 We can decide if applicants are good fit

28. What about the intangibles?
GE
 They are transforming the world
 They want to be #1 or #2 for any product they sell

29. What about the intangibles?
Facebook
 “Move fast and break things”
 Lots of people get fired at FB, but not typically for
mistakes of aggression

30. What about the intangibles?
Company Culture
 We are a human capital company
 People > Product
 Our job is to help our clients grow their sales
 Our mission is to make our clients look like geniuses

31. What about the intangibles?
Company Culture
 Pursuit of knowledge
 Helpfulness
 Hard work

32. What about the intangibles?
We Defined Our Culture
 We put it on our website
 We discussed it in interviews
 We bring it up at team meetings
 We review it to make sure it’s still valid

33. The Right People
"My #1 job here at Apple is to make sure that
the top 100 people are A+ players. And
everything else will take care of itself.”
— Steve Jobs

34. Practical Management = 20%