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) explores why founders are naturally drawn toward people who are similar to themselves and the advantages and risks that can come with that choice.
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 language and understanding of how they approach problems. Wasserman (2012) explains that this similarity can make it easier to establish effective working relationships and develop trust within a founding team. For a new business, where there are already 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 highly 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 organizational diversity also suggests that the relationship between team composition and performance is more complicated than simply saying that 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 reinforces the idea that the effectiveness of a team depends not only on who is on it, but also on how those differences are managed.
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 most comfortable 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 hospitality or distillery business, 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. The goal would be to have enough common ground to build trust and a shared direction while still having enough differences to challenge ideas and identify things the team might otherwise overlook.
Ultimately, I think the lesson from homogeneous teams is not that founders should avoid similarity altogether. Instead, founders need to understand when similarity helps and when it starts to hold the team back. Early trust, communication, and shared expectations can be valuable, but as a company grows, bringing in people with different skills and perspectives may become increasingly important. For a founder, building a strong team means finding the balance between having people who can work well together and having people who can make the business better through what they bring to the table.
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.