David Cummings on Startups

Balancing Personality Types on Founding Teams

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David Cummings

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When building a startup it’s important that the founding team have different personality types. Some people like to constantly start things, but don’t enjoy maintaining them. Other people love maintaining things, but don’t get as excited about creating new things. Some people do both creating and maintaining, but often have a preference for one over the other. There’s no right or wrong answer as long as there’s some balance on the team.

Another consideration with founding team personality types is around the traditional Myers-Briggs attributes. Most entrepreneurs have N and T (e.g. ENTJ) as the middle of their four attributes, which stands for intuition and thinking. Going along with intuition and thinking, other Myers-Briggs attributes like sensing and feeling are important as well. Regardless, balance is important.

So, founding teams should look for that balance, that yin to the yang, as it’s important to have multiple perspectives.

What else? What are some other thoughts around balancing personality types on founding teams?

Comments

3 responses to “Balancing Personality Types on Founding Teams”

  1. mikekeen Avatar
    mikekeen

    Stop the presses, balance is important!

    Reply
  2. Nikhil Taneja Avatar
    Nikhil Taneja

    I have found Myers-Briggs tests to be a valuable resource when discussing working styles with others. By taking the time to understand each other’s personality traits, founders can better anticipate potential conflicts. For example, it is helpful to know if someone prefers brainstorming as a group versus working in isolation, or if someone works best without too much structure but may be prone to procrastinating. I agree that balance is key, so it’s important to be able to work with people that have different working styles.

    Reply
  3. Joss Lippstreu Avatar
    Joss Lippstreu

    Perhaps understanding Tuckman’s stages of group formation (forming, storming, norming, performing and, mourning) allows for evaluation of the stages a group might be in. For example, it may be used as a diagnostic tool in case an outsider needs to be brought in to balance out the team. These stages describe the group progression. Each stage is dependent on the previous. The classic example if what I’m trying to say is that if trust is never achieved, then norming stage can’t commence and thus group performance is compromised.

    Reply

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