The Mental Strategies of Top Traders: The Psychological Determinants of Trading Success

6.2. FINDING COMPLEMENTS TO YOUR TEAM

Finding team players doesn't mean just looking for the "smart guys." You have to find people who will fit the culture of your team and who have the requisite personality characteristics already discussed. Individuals may be excellent candidates, but if they don't complement the existing skills or the management style of the team leader they are ultimately not going to fit very well.

Instead of trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole, look for the round pegs for the round holes and the square pegs for the square holes. Here you want to be looking for people who fit your team culture, and who have a capacity to relate to others, build and sustain relationships, and adapt to changes that are required.

For example, Donald is a very bright and intense but pleasant guy with a lot of experience in doing very deep, fundamental, company-specific research in the technology space, looking for the anchoring and embedded value in company product cycles that will produce a solid stream of discounted cash flow in the future. He has a very sophisticated methodology that enables him to find value in the realm of what he considers the margin of safety, which tends to get him an edge very early in the investment cycle. He started working as a writer in the technology field in 1983, fresh out of university, graduated to a role as a technology analyst, and eventually ran a technology book for a while and has been running his own fund for the past several ...