How to recruit good teams 1
1) Hire a good secretary. This step is essential. Do not proceed without completing it. This person’s job will be to keep bureaucracy off everyone else’s backs, and in the current world they are absolutely crucial. Make sure you hire someone who understands that their job is to pro-actively make bureaucracy invisible for the team — instead of someone who thinks it is their job to wait until the team asks them to handle a particular paperwork tidbit and then meekly do as requested.
2) Advertise that you have a person whose job it is to keep bureaucracy off everyone else’s back. Agree beforehand with people you are recruiting what bureaucracy they are supposed to do and with what tools (bring in receipts of travel expenses, note down times when they arrive and leave work, make lists of participants on their courses and the grades for the secretary, agree on further appointments with customers/patients, report patient/customer meetings they went to) and what they are not required to do (fill in stupid forms about travel expenses, detail times they spend at a particular project, enter grades into database, handle billing details). Try to limit requirements to specialists to giving information to the secretary, without limitations on the format of said information, and especially avoid requirements to use a particular fancy computerized system to deliver the info. Guarantee that if further bureaucracy will become necessary for whatever reason, the secretary will handle it based on necessary information from the rest of the team, with no restrictions on the format of the information.
3) Agree beforehand with people you are recruiting what projects / teams / courses / patient groups / whatever they will work with. Be specific. Agree that they will also have the responsibility for co-ordinating and developing these things with the rest of the team. Guarantee that unless the employee requests it, this will not change before a certain time (of at least two years, preferably more), so that the people will have the chance to think long-term and to commit. Advertise that you think long-term.
4) Agree and insist on team meetings. Separate brainstorming / check-up meetings from a working meeting about a specific problem / case. Guarantee and advertise that you will be available for both, daily if necessary.
Self-evident? I wish.
You are absolutely correct. I work in a larger-than-mid-size university and have drifted into a sort-of team leader position, partly against my will, and see daily the consequences of botching steps one to three. I can only make #4 happen and try to shield the juniors from the radiation generated by the meltdown of secretarial services. The result? 25% of my time is spend on administrative duties that should be handled by a professional.
Aalto university, I welcome you. With high probability any change will be for the good.