THE GOLDILOCKS TEAM

A practical, data-driven approach to building teams that excel.

Jaeckli, founder and CEO of OpenElevator, makes the case that building the “just right” team is what makes an organization successful, asserting that most leaders are going about it the wrong way (“The old-school hiring approach often fails to address the core issue, finding the ‘right’ fit for the manager, for the team, and for the environment”). The book opens with a nautical metaphor about the captain of a finely tuned ship being sabotaged by crew dynamics; the author argues that a “Goldilocks” team, containing neither too much nor too little of any one quality, is essential for navigating turbulent business waters. Per Jaeckli, engagement isn’t about charismatic leadership or team-building retreats—it’s about ensuring alignment between people’s values and interpersonal styles. The author breaks down employee engagement into four different categories: safety and certainty, contribution and purpose, growth and significance, and connection and belonging. Regarding employee retention, Jaeckli writes that HR is not the department best suited to address such issues, as the direct manager wields the most influence. Engagement and retention, the author asserts, are leadership responsibilities, and they start with hiring the right person for a particular job. Jaeckli posits that resumes, interviews, and personality assessments should be replaced by measuring values alignment (what a team member prioritizes in their work) and interpersonal alignment (the ability to work with others), dimensions that can drive collaboration, satisfaction, and loyalty. To help managers measure these criteria, Jaeckli has created the platform OpenElevator. (This book is more than just an advertisement for the author’s service—Jaeckli provides practical solutions to the issues she raises throughout the text.) In addition to providing tips for hiring and retention—and some rudimentary drawings and graphics to bolster those ideas—the book also serves as an effective leadership manual, guiding managers toward a data-driven, bias-free, human-centric team-building process. Leaders who embrace this way of doing things, Jaeckli avers, will ultimately build successful teams that are “just right.”

A bracing wake-up call to leaders mired in old ways of employee engagement and retention.