Innovation Calls For I-Shaped People

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That goes for everyone else on the team. (The only exceptions might be when you are staffing another team, or the problem that you are working on is sufficiently hairy that you need to divide in order to conquer.)

• Know the difference between solid breadth of literacy and deep competence, and test for both in considering candidates. You do not need jacks-of-all-trades.

• If you think you know the core competencies needed for a team, list them on a bunch of Post-it notes, and have each person on the team write the name of the "go-to" person on the team who has the most depth in that area. If you do not have strong consistency in the responses, Houston, you probably have a problem.

• T-shaped is highly desired, but not sufficient. In staffing up teams, interview and test for I-shapedness. I don't care how good someone is either at the pragmatic or abstract level, there is someone out there who is equally good and who has strength at both ends. Find that person. If you doubt such people exist, just look at the profile of a reasonable sample of Nobel Prize winners. What I suggest you will find —based on having done so myself—is that a very high number share these combined T and I attributes.

• Hire people who do not require predictability and stability in order to be effective. Typically, each problem that confronts you is going to be different and will require different skills. Hence, teams will be constantly reconfigured to meet the demands in front of them.

• Hire people with strong interpersonal skills. Remember, I come from the computer industry and have seen my fair share of brilliant software engineers who have the social skills of an oyster. All that I can say is that I have also seen those with the same skills that know how to communicate, back down, listen, question, and compromise. A Renaissance team of T and I-shaped thinkers is a potentially volatile cocktail. Its value is too precious to be put at risk by even a single individual, regardless of how otherwise talented.

With that, all that I can leave you with is the imperative that you should always cross your Ts, but never dot your Is.

Bill Buxton is Principal Scientist at Microsoft Research and the author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. Previously, he was a researcher at Xerox PARC, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc.

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