Building a Team of Athletes

Many organizations require specialized skills to produce their goods and services. Manufacturing companies need machinists, insurance companies need underwriters, and media companies need copywriters. In certain professional services companies, it is often better to draft athletes that can fill multiple roles. The reason is that the environment and assignments are ever-changing. It would be impractical to modify the makeup of the workforce to adjust to these changes.

In businesses such as Innventure’s, it is imperative to find individuals that have the talents to fill many different roles. We invent and build businesses in many different sectors which require expertise to understand and assess various technologies and markets. Further, an individual may play a key role in evaluating a business opportunity and then may be assigned an interim CXO position.

So, what are the characteristics that make for a good athlete? The most important thing is possessing a natural inquisitiveness that leads to first principle thinking. We refer to this as having the “why” chromosome. No assumption is taken at face value. We find that individuals with backgrounds in the hard sciences such as physics and mathematics are naturally curious. People tend to self-select into fields that leverage their strengths.

Another key attribute is the desire to learn. Our team members tend to be interested in “everything”, are well-read, and have the capacity to absorb information across a broad spectrum of topics. We typically evaluate a few dozen ideas before one crystallizes into a new company. To that end, an idea that results in success is likely created from the intersection of several different technologies and business ideas. Having that broad base of knowledge catalyzes the creation of the next big thing.

Finally, we require self-starters – individuals that need little supervision and that know how to fill a vacuum. There are limitless opportunities to grow within Innventure’s ecosystem as we continually expand into different fields. Having the ability to understand what needs to be done and taking the initiative to step in and solve problems is an invaluable asset.

By being very selective in our hiring process, Innventure has developed a small but gifted workforce that delivers results with a global influence. We have accomplished this while creating a culture that values accountability, performance, and fun.

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