Karen Rubin's Ramblings

One of my favorite podcasts is Stanford's Entrepreneurial Though Leaders series. Every couple of weeks during the semester they have fascinating people come talk about being entrepreneurs and they record the talks and make it all available online. 

A couple of weeks ago, they published a talk by Bill Gross the CEO of Idealab which included a brilliant section about the skill set needed in a management team. Bill outlines 4 different types of people you need on your management team to succeed. 

• The Entrepreneur -  is the visionary. They see the big picture, loves inventing things and can envision the future. They are frequently trying to do things ahead of their time.
• The Producer - is the person who actually makes things happen (or as we say at HubSpot, gets shit done.) They can take an idea, execute on it, sell it, and get things into peoples hands. 
• The Administrator - helps to organize things. They put systems in place to keeps the trains running on time, make sure everyone get's paid and that the company runs smoothly.
• The Integrator - is more of a people person. They understand the other three types of people and helps them get along. They are generally more worried about what other people are thinking or feeling than the product or customer and often bridges the gap between the other personality types. 

Bill explains that no one is just one of these personality types, but we each have strengths and weaknesses. For example, strength is as a P and I do alright as an I. I realized awhile ago that I am not an E. If you give me a vision, I can execute and get it done, but I am not the idea generator. 

Bill also explains that it's important when you are forming a company to make sure you have these personality types present. For example, if your two co-founders are E's, they have no one that can actually get the product built. They need to bring in a P. Once they have a P, they need to bring in an A to put some systems in place to keep things running smoothly. When you have an E, a P and an A in the same place, you have to have an I because there is going to be tension between them that has to be resolved. 

I thought this was an interesting way to think about the people and skill sets you need on a team. What do you think? What are you? And what skills do you need to add to fill in your weaknesses?