Aspirants and established

A good team is a combination of contenders and established players. If everyone is a contender, we run the risk of being more hungry than experienced. If everyone is established, there's an overdose of experience, but a lack of energy to return to the initial efforts. When everyone on a team already knows all the answers, it's time to introduce someone who brings new questions. What is a contender and what is an established player?

An aspiring person isn't someone just starting out. They're someone who feels like they haven't arrived. An established person is someone who, whether they've been here for a long time or a short time, feels like they've already arrived. Aspiring people have more questions than answers. Established people provide answers to common questions. Aspiring people focus their lives on learning. Established people focus their lives on teaching.

I know 70-year-old candidates and 35-year-old established professionals. There's no ageism in this, as there is in almost anything. Being a candidate or established is an attitude, a way of being. I've known professionals and managers who have changed jobs many times without leaving the same company. They remain candidates. I've known established professionals who have followed only one professional pattern their entire lives, even though they've worked at several companies and in different sectors.

Established companies tend to improve upon established inertia. Their philosophy is: we're doing well, let's not mess things up with experiments. Aspiring owners think more about the next level than about inertia. Sometimes I meet owners who still feel like aspirants and complain about their overly complacent management. Other times I meet CEOs who would like to take the company to the next level, but they find themselves with owners who have become very conservative and want to avoid risks.

Ideal formula In a company, the ideal is to have teams with established, unleveraged people and with candidates who listen. That's the formula. It's a good alliance.

I think of examples of aspirants and established players. I think that, with some exceptions, the conventional automotive industry has been dominated by proudly established men. I think Kodak died from an excess of established players per square meter. I've always had the feeling that Motorola was a brand of visionary aspirants who, when it exploded with success, hired an excess of established players. I think Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in 1986 by a group of established players who didn't realize they were expelling the soul of the company and nearly destroyed it. In 1997, Jobs returned, and his aspirant soul brought glory to Apple. Reading Jack Welch's memoirs, I get the feeling that he was very aspirational in the mornings and very established in the afternoons. Paul Polman spread his aspirational passion to Unilever to avoid being swallowed up by a hedge fund. In mass consumption, one might think that the vector of aspirants is dominated by Amazon, but I never saw Walmart as a wealthy group. If I think about Japan, I think Sony was more dominated by established players than Toyota, which always conveyed the freshness of contenders.

When things go wrong, you never know whether to cling to what you have or embrace profound and uncertain changes. But this is the life of a manager. Managers are there for this. And that's why the best teams are those that combine both perspectives: drive and experience; hunger and composure. For someone who has all the credentials to become a well-established leader to continue to retain the spirit of an aspirant, it takes more humility than complacency.

People management is a fundamental function in companies. If HR managers have an established mindset, they'll try to narrow down the equation between people and functions. They'll look for people with equivalent experience for each position. Same qualifications, same gender, same profile. People managers with an aspiring mindset focus more on people's ability to learn, and from there, they make bets for today and especially tomorrow. Established people hire established or consolidable people. Aspiring people tend to hire aspiring people, apprentices by attitude, entrepreneurs by vocation. I strongly believe in the youth system. I strongly believe in the Masía of companies. You need a lot of people running the line with the soul of an aspiring person, eager to enter the field and grow. Aspiring people travel one way. Established people, if they're not vigilant, travel back. It's more about persistence than resistance.

You've already deduced it: I'm more attracted to aspirants than established ones, although I think both profiles are suitable. I believe in people who use experience to ignite passion, rather than those who use experience to fuel the full range of imaginable skepticism. The ideal is teams with unleveraged established players and aspirants who listen. That's the formula. It's a good alliance. Neither "it's always been done this way here" nor disruption for disruption's sake. Both established and aspirants must know how to see the future more through the eyes of customers than through the sum of their track records. Experience is useful, but it's not an infallible guarantee. The business graveyard is full of companies brimming with experience. Wise men never stop being aspirants; on the other hand, there are many experts who quickly present themselves as established.

Situation When everyone in a team already knows all the answers, it's time to introduce someone who brings new questions.

I prefer management committees that combine challengers and established players. The established players know they need some tough challengers on their teams who have the confidence to challenge a few orthodoxies. The very aspiring players know it's good to have established players on their side who can explain the difference between sensible shortcuts and suicidal ones. The best thing is when there's enough trust in management teams for the established players and challengers to laugh at each other a bit but, when it comes down to it, act seamlessly. A management team is a space for real solidarity, for the whole to rise above the parts. Neither the established players nor the challengers win battles on their own. Challengers are a product of the future. The established players are a product of the past.