Find people who can work together. I feel very strongly that you create teams. So while someone may be absolutely brilliant at what they do, if they are not a team player, I’m not much interested. How the senior people get along with each other is what I’m interested in, and that’s extremely important to me.
I normally look for people with excellent interpersonal skills, as well as being very good at what they do. I’m not very interested in the brilliant loner; that doesn’t work when you’re running large, complex institutions that require different groups to work together. So I always ask a lot of questions about how they work with others and what skills they add to a team.
I look for people that are open, that will listen and that are ready to be a part of a team. If I see that they can work in a group atmosphere, then I look at their skill experience and see if they have moved around enough to acquire enough skills in the positions where they’ve been.
Use your team to keep things moving. Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t lose your sense of humor; have patience and don’t try to solve every problem all at once. I delegate a lot after I make sure people have strategies. I try to keep it light and keep the institutions that I lead moving. Part of that is to have a lot of trust in the senior people that I work with.
You can build a consensus by listening to them and by making sure you’re creating the strategy with lots of consultation by talking it over with the leaders and the governing board of the institution. That becomes an important measure and then you take that and provide the opportunities and support systems so that everyone knows that we’re in this together.
HOW TO REACH: University of Miami, (305) 284-2211 or www.miami.edu
