What’s Missing in Your Team?
The capability you’re missing could be more valuable than all the capability you already have.
Most recruitment begins with a vacancy.
Someone leaves.
The business grows.
A new role is created.
The organisation writes a job description and starts looking for somebody who has done something similar before.
But after years of working with teams, I’ve come to think there’s another question worth asking first:
What’s missing?
Not simply:
Who do we need to replace?
But:
What does this team need that it doesn’t have today?
That small change in question can produce a very different recruitment decision.
THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE CREATE A PATTERN
Every team develops a character of its own.
Put several technically minded people together and the team may become exceptionally good at analysis and delivery.
Put several highly instinctive, entrepreneurial people together and you’ll probably create energy, ideas and momentum.
Put relationship-focused people together and you may create extraordinary levels of empathy, collaboration and client connection.
All are strengths.
But something interesting happens when the same strengths become concentrated within a team.
The pattern also reveals what’s missing.
That’s one of the things Perfect Teams® was designed to make visible.
THE GOLD-MINE MAY BE IN THE GAP
In our previous article, I described two accountancy firms we’d profiled.
One contained a broad combination of technical expertise, relationship-building and growth orientation.
The other was heavily weighted towards technical capability.
There was nothing wrong with its technical people.
Quite the opposite.
They were good at what they did.
But the team contained very few people naturally focused on creating relationships and driving growth.
One of those few people told us he’d often felt like a lone voice.
Then the partners saw their Perfect Teams® map.
Suddenly the conversation changed.
His difference wasn’t the problem.
His difference was valuable precisely because it was scarce.
That’s why I originally described the missing element as potentially being a gold-mine.
The capability everybody else lacks can sometimes be disproportionately valuable.
RECRUITMENT SHOULD START WITH THE TEAM, NOT THE CANDIDATE
This leads to an important recruitment principle.
Before looking at candidates, look at the team they’re joining.
What does the team already have in abundance?
What does the role require?
What does the organisation need next?
Where are the blind spots?
What character or perspective might complement the people already there?
Only then should we ask:
Who could provide it?
Otherwise, organisations have a tendency to recruit in their own image.
People like people who seem familiar.
Technical leaders recruit technical people.
Entrepreneurs recruit energetic self-starters.
Relationship builders recruit people they connect with.
And gradually, the team’s existing strengths become even more concentrated.
DON’T RECRUIT DIFFERENCE FOR DIFFERENCE’S SAKE
There’s an important qualification.
The objective isn’t to create a perfectly symmetrical team map.
Nor should character ever replace judgement about whether somebody can actually do the job.
Skills matter.
Experience matters.
Values matter.
Attitude matters.
Capability matters.
Character adds another question:
What will this person contribute to this particular team?
That’s fundamentally different from using profiling as a pass/fail test.
We’re not trying to recruit a colour or a number.
We’re trying to build collective capability.
HIRE FOR WHAT YOU NEED NEXT
This becomes particularly important when a business is growing.
The people who got an organisation to £1 million may not provide everything required to get it to £10 million.
A brilliant technical team may eventually need stronger commercial capability.
A founder-led sales organisation may need systems and operational discipline.
A highly analytical leadership team may need somebody who understands people.
An entrepreneurial business full of ideas may desperately need somebody who finishes things.
The question therefore becomes bigger than filling today’s vacancy.
What capability will the organisation need next?
That turns recruitment from replacement into strategy.
FROM INDIVIDUAL PROFILE TO TEAM MAP
This is where Perfect Teams® becomes much more than an individual profiling tool.
An individual profile tells us something useful about one person.
Put those profiles together and something else appears:
The team.
We can begin to see:
Where strengths are concentrated.
Where different characters complement one another.
Where friction may occur.
Where perspectives are underrepresented.
And, critically:
What’s missing?
That changes the recruitment conversation.
Instead of simply asking whether somebody is a good candidate, we can ask whether they help create a more capable team.
YOUR NEXT GREAT HIRE MAY NOT LOOK LIKE YOUR LAST ONE
That’s perhaps the most important lesson.
If your organisation is changing, the capability it needs will change too.
So simply replacing like with like may preserve the very limitation you need to overcome.
Sometimes the person who feels different is exactly the person the team needs.
The challenge is recognising why.
Because the objective isn’t to assemble a collection of individually impressive people.
It’s to create something greater between them.
Complementary character.
Collective capability.
Interdependence.
So before you write the next job description, ask one question:
What’s missing in this team?
The answer could be worth considerably more than the vacancy you’re trying to fill.
Nobody is perfect.
But your team can be.
You can’t download capability.™
What capability is your team missing?
Perfect Teams® makes the composition of your team visible — helping you identify strengths, blind spots and the character and capability your organisation may need next.
Originally published 16 June 2021. Updated August 2026.
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