When building a team, it can be tempting to surround yourself with people who think like you, communicate like you, and approach problems in similar ways. For a founder, this can feel like the safest option, especially when starting a business and trying to move quickly. However, building a team that is too similar can also create problems over time. In Chapter 4 of The Founder’s Dilemmas, Wasserman (2012) discusses the benefits and risks of homogeneity within founding teams and why founders often end up working with people who are similar to themselves.
One of the biggest benefits of a homogeneous team is that people may be able to communicate and build trust more quickly. When founders have similar backgrounds or experiences, they may already have a common understanding of how they approach problems and make decisions. Wasserman (2012) explains that this similarity can make it easier to establish working relationships and trust within a founding team. For a new business, where there are already so many unknowns, having a team that can work together quickly can be a significant advantage.
Similarity can also make it easier to establish a shared identity within a new company. Founders who have similar expectations and values may have an easier time agreeing on how the business should operate. This can help a team make decisions and establish its culture during the early stages of the company. In that sense, homogeneity is not necessarily a bad thing. There are situations where having common ground can make a team more efficient and easier to manage.
The problem is that those same similarities can eventually become a limitation. If everyone on a team has similar experiences, skills, and perspectives, the team may not have enough people who will challenge its assumptions. Wasserman (2012) points out that founding teams can become homogeneous because founders tend to form relationships with people who are similar to themselves. While that may make the early stages easier, it can leave a company without some of the skills or perspectives it needs as it grows.
Research on diversity in organizations also shows that the relationship between team composition and performance is more complicated than simply saying diverse teams are always better. Williams and O’Reilly (1998) reviewed more than 80 studies on diversity in organizations and found evidence of both positive and negative effects. Differences among team members can create opportunities for new perspectives and ideas, but they can also make communication and group cohesion more difficult. This suggests that the effectiveness of a team depends not only on who is on it, but also on how the team handles those differences.
For me, the biggest takeaway is that founders should not confuse comfort with effectiveness. It can be easy to hire a friend or someone with a similar background because there is already trust and familiarity. However, the person who feels the easiest to work with may not necessarily be the person who fills the biggest need on the team. A strong founder needs to ask what skills, experiences, and perspectives the business is missing.
This is something I would want to keep in mind if I eventually build my own business. I would want everyone on my team to understand the overall vision and values of the company, but I would not want everyone to think exactly like me. If I eventually build a farm-to-table distillery and restaurant, I would need people with very different areas of expertise, including operations, agriculture, distilling, food, finance, and marketing. Those differences could make the business stronger because each person would bring something that I or another team member may not have.
At the same time, I would not want to create a team where everyone is constantly challenging each other without being able to work together. I think there still needs to be some common ground. The team should agree on the overall direction of the business and the standards we want to maintain, even if we have different opinions about how to get there. I would want people to feel comfortable disagreeing with me when they think there is a better option, but I would also want everyone to understand that we are working toward the same goal.
Because of that, I think I would intentionally build a team that shares the same overall values but does not necessarily share the same background or way of thinking. I would want to hire people based on what they could contribute to the business rather than simply choosing people who I naturally get along with. If I already had a strong marketing background, for example, hiring another person who thinks exactly like me in marketing might not add as much value as bringing in someone with a different skill set.
Ultimately, I think the lesson from homogeneous teams is not that founders should avoid similarity altogether. Early trust, communication, and shared expectations can be extremely valuable, especially when a company is just getting started. However, founders also need to recognize when similarity starts to hold the team back. For me, the goal would be to build a team with enough common ground to trust each other and work toward the same vision, while still having enough differences to challenge ideas and make the business better. The strongest team may not be the one where everyone thinks alike, but the one where everyone brings something different while still believing in the same overall direction.
References
Wasserman, N. (2012). The founder’s dilemmas: Anticipating and avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a startup. Princeton University Press.
Williams, K. Y., & O’Reilly, C. A. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77–140.