Hiring For Alignment And Complementarity: Why Common Values And Diverse Skills Make The Ideal Team
Blending Common Values and Diverse Skills Creates More Effective Teams
In today's fast-moving, complex business environment, assembling the right team is more than just ticking off boxes of technical competencies or work experience. A client asked me would you hire someone like yourself or totally different to you for a critical role on your team. I responded 'neither of them!' She was a bit surprised as it is common practice to say 'I want diversity' as we know this is important for good outcomes. So I clarified by saying 'I want someone who shares my values, but has a complementary skills profile to me.'
Successful organizations are increasingly recognizing the strategic value of hiring people who not only bring the skills to get the job done, but also share the organization's core values. This dual focus—on values alignment and skills complementarity—yields stronger teams, better execution, and a more cohesive culture. In essence, we should hire people who believe in the same 'why' but bring a different 'how.'
The Power of Shared Values
At the heart of a resilient and high-performing organization lies a shared sense of purpose and a common set of values. When employees share core beliefs—whether about collaboration, integrity, innovation, or service—they are more likely to align on long-term goals, trust one another, and navigate ambiguity together effectively.
According to an article in Human Relations 2016 diversity of skills sets with corresponding diversity of values leads to negative outcomes, as the team members do not trust each other and collaborate effectively. So the benefit of the diverse skills is lost if the teams cannot find common ground and values.
Moreover, in times of uncertainty or transformation, values-aligned teams are more resilient. They are able to make decisions faster and with more confidence because they are guided by a shared internal compass. This accelerates not only the pace of execution but also the quality of collaboration.
Complementary Skills Drive Stronger Execution
While shared values lay the foundation for collaboration, it is complementary skills that provide the architecture for execution. A team composed of individuals who all think the same way or have identical capabilities risks redundancy and groupthink. On the other hand, when team members bring different skill sets—strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, operational execution, data analysis, and so on—they can divide work more efficiently, innovate more effectively, and tackle challenges from multiple angles.
Patrick Lencioni, in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, highlights the importance of trust and constructive conflict in effective teams. Trust is rooted in shared values, but healthy conflict—where diverse perspectives clash constructively—is powered by different approaches and problem-solving frameworks. A strategist and an implementer, for example, might disagree on timelines but ultimately create a better plan together. A visionary and a detail-oriented executor may butt heads initially, but end up delivering a more complete solution.
In Google's 'Project Aristotle,' a multi-year study on team effectiveness, also revealed that psychological safety (the ability to take risks and express ideas without fear) was the most critical factor in high-performing teams. Teams with aligned values but diverse skill sets foster this safety by creating an environment where members respect each other's intentions and appreciate different ways of thinking.
Directional Alignment Enables Strategic Agility
When hiring, one of the biggest mistakes organizations make is focusing solely on skills fit or culture fit in isolation. Skills alone won't carry a team through periods of ambiguity, and culture fit without skills can lead to stagnation. Instead, the goal should be directional alignment with functional diversity.
Directional alignment ensures that everyone is moving toward the same objectives with a shared commitment to the organization's mission. For instance, in a company that values social impact and ethical leadership, hiring someone who is only results-driven but ignores long-term consequences might yield short-term wins but damage brand reputation in the long run.
On the other hand, once you're aligned directionally, skills diversity becomes your competitive edge. Consider the composition of a successful product development team: a user experience designer, a back-end developer, a data analyst, and a marketing strategist may not share the same day-to-day responsibilities, but if they are all working toward the same purpose—creating a customer-centric, ethical, and innovative solution—they'll be exponentially more effective than a homogenous group.
Practical Implications for Hiring
Shared Values are the Core of Building Strong Teams
So how do organizations operationalize this ideal mix of shared values and complementary skills?
1. Start with values clarity. Define the core values your company stands for and assess candidates not just on culture fit, but on values fit. Use behavioral interview questions to test how a candidate's past decisions align with your organizational principles.
2. Create team-based hiring models. Involve a cross-functional panel in the interview process to evaluate how a candidate's skills add to, rather than duplicate, the existing team.
3. Hire for potential and adaptability. Sometimes the best hires are those who don't check every technical box but demonstrate a capacity to learn and a commitment to your mission. These individuals often bring fresh perspectives and help the team grow in new directions.
4. Invest in onboarding and integration. When new hires are welcomed into a culture that reinforces shared values and encourages skill-sharing, they integrate faster and perform better. Ongoing training, mentoring, and team reflection sessions help reinforce both alignment and learning.
Conclusion
In a world where change is the only constant, the organizations that thrive are those with teams that are both value-aligned and skill-diverse. By hiring people who believe what you believe—but do what you don't—you position your team not just for operational efficiency, but for innovation, resilience, and long-term success. It's not about sameness; it's about shared purpose with distinct strengths. That's the formula for building teams that truly work.
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