Dynamic Reteaming, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5. One-by-One Pattern

When our companies grow, our teams change. We hire in people one by one. When we are fortunate in hiring, we have the challenge of bringing multiple people onboard in close proximity. On the other hand, sometimes we face the opposite situation. We lose people. People quit, are fired, and at times are laid off en masse.

I think there’s an inherent joy when our companies grow. Things are good. We have the money to hire in new people. Conversely, when someone leaves the company it’s not typically a happy situation, unless for some reason we’re glad they’re leaving because maybe we perceived them as hard to work with or difficult. Maybe the feeling then is more like a feeling of relief or is an expansive feeling—without the “difficult person” around we feel like we can now do more in our jobs and are not as held back.

Joining and leaving are both part of the one-by-one dynamic reteaming pattern. This chapter addresses both facets of the pattern, starting out with when someone joins a team, as shown in Figure 5-1.

Figure 5-1. One-by-one pattern

Depending on the personalities of the people coming in and out, this “adjustment at the edges” of teams can be a less risky team-change pattern. Keeping the crux of the team the same brings continuity. When you add new people to the existing teams, they can get a sense of what the existing culture is like. This ...