By Santiago Hunt
(Cover picture by Pixabay)
When looking for individuals who can truly reshape reality, I’ll take people with TICS vs. people with GRIT every time.
Why the capital letters? Because both TICS and GRIT are acronyms that stand for a series of personality characteristics. These are frameworks we developed as part of our work with Vanaxis Investment Group where we focus on early-stage investments. They’re particularly useful to us when discussing founding teams. However, I wanted to write about them because I believe they exceed the realm of founders and are a useful tool when discussing talent per se. They’re especially powerful when searching for individuals who will need to lead transformational challenges.
What does TICS mean?
The T-I-C-S acronym stands for:
T – Technological depth
I – Infectiousness
C – Commitment
S – Scalability focus
T: Technological depth: People who have deep domain expertise on whatever field they’re exploring. The immediate example is software engineers. But it could also mean that if somebody is running an auto repair shop, you want them to be really strong at understanding car mechanics. If it’s a last mile fulfillment business, they must excel at demographic densities and efficient logistic management. Or in the case of a cross border tax API protocol, you look for an expert in international tax regulations. It’s about firm technology grasp, in the wider sense of the word.
It sounds obvious, and yet it’s not. In many cases you find people who are good but not great at this. They might have ancillary expertise from an adjacent industry and are looking to transfer it. This is not a dealbreaker if they’ve done the legwork to improve their technical knowledge. But it is if they’re good and not great. Because ultimately, you’re looking for a compoundable edge that can scale. And to craft that edge, you will likely need that deep technical expertise.
I: Infectiousness: The biggest risk here is to mistake infectiousness with charisma. We are drawn to charismatic people. And many charismatic people are infectious. However, the key difference is that infectiousness is about contagion. You don’t have to like infectious people. You might even find them weird, or they may make you uncomfortable. But their pitch sticks with you. Perhaps due to its irrationality, but that’s OK (and maybe even a plus).
You’re not looking for somebody popular or nice (doesn’t hurt if they are). Instead, you are looking for a preacher. Some preachers are loud. Some are quiet. But all the good ones reach you. And that’s what infectiousness is about. You’ll need someone who can bring employees, customers, investors and more on their journey.
C: Commitment: This is the hardest of the 4 to assess upfront. You can look for a mix of passion, determination, and resilience. But these are only proven when tested by the sword. It’s likely you will have to take a leap of faith or trust your gut when screening for this characteristic. Ultimately, it’s about finding those people who won’t give up.
There’s a reason why 2-time+ founders carry a premium: It’s less about their past successes. It’s more about the fact that they already know what they’re getting into. And that signals commitment.
S: Scalability focus: I like to think about this as “one eye on the road, one eye on the horizon”. To scale organizations, behaviors or best practices, you need someone that can imagine the future while executing in the present. Fail in one of the two fronts, and you end up stuck. Either because you have an efficient operator who lacks imagination, or a creative spirit which lacks grounding and follow-through skills.
However, no skill set is perfectly balanced in real life. So, if you’re going to err, you want to make sure you err on the visionary side. It’s easier to find operators and enablers than it is to find people who can see around the corner.
TICS
When combined, these 4 factors lead to unique individuals. TICS is not just a play on words. These individuals are few and far in between, and therefore their behavior is atypical. They stand out. They don’t fit in pre-fabricated categories. They are misfits.
If they can find a conduit to harness their powers, these people can be transformational in the true sense of the word. They can re-shape reality.
Avoiding “rosy traits”
In my past life I used to work in marketing. One of the best lessons I learnt was about defining brand personalities. When asked about the personality of a brand, it’s easy to define it using what I call “rosy traits”. The issue is that these descriptors fail to be true indicators of personality. They’re aspirational, but of little value when describing a brand (or a person for that matter).
You could say that X is a “fun” person. The issue with “fun” is that no one wants to describe themselves as the opposite of fun. Being boring sucks. For a trait to be truly descriptive of someone, it must sit at the end of a spectrum where its opposite can also be desirable. For example, you have people who are irreverent, and people who are respectful. You have people who are traditional as well as people who are modern. People who are pragmatic vs. those who are idealists. The list goes on…
Where am I going with this? I want to talk about people who are the opposite of those with TICS. People with GRIT. But I want to do it by identifying ‘desirable’ flipsides to TICS, and not the negative ones.
What does GRIT mean?
There’s a series of characteristics which, while individually desirable, when combined lead to a dangerous mix. Dealing with people with GRIT can be tricky, and we’ll explore why.
What does GRIT mean?
G – Generalist
R – Rational
I – Intrepid
T – Task-focus
G: Generalist (vs. Technological depth): Generalists are the quintessential jack of all trades, master of none. It’s incredibly hard to capture them off guard. They either have working knowledge of a subject or are very quick to build it by association. I consider myself a generalist and know firsthand the multiple advantages this trait carries.
Generalists excel at breadth – which goes in the opposite direction than technical depth. .
R: Rational (vs. Infectious): Calm, collected individuals. Highly analytical. On top of their emotions. These are the hallmark aspects of the ‘Rational’ trait. Incredibly valuable for any group, rational individuals are in many cases the oil between the wheels of highly effective teams.
Rational people are somewhat predictable. While this signals dependability, it also plays against the unexpected or surprising side that comes with infectious people.
I: Intrepid (vs Committed): The dictionary’s definition for intrepid is ‘fearless’. An image that paints intrepid people quite clearly. Shoot first, ask questions later. They are inspiring by nature, and it goes without saying that you always want people like this in your corner.
Why do I see intrepidness as a counter to commitment? Because I believe that true commitment can only be achieved once fears have been taken in. While being intrepid sounds cool, true commitment requires embracing the fear – and choosing to face it regardless. The intrepid person is not afraid. In contrast, the committed person is very much afraid, but chooses to march on anyway. It might sound like semantics, but personally, I believe this is a critical distinction in life.
T: Task focus: The realm of the operators. The dogs on the bone, those who will not rest until doing what needs to be done. Detail oriented people, their job is to tick all the boxes in the checklist.
What’s the catch? They need a checklist. They need predefined problems, with clear boundaries. Masters of sorting out the “known unknowns”, they struggle when facing the “unknown unknowns”. Therefore, they’re the flip side of those who are “Scalability focused”. Excellent navigators when given a map, the Task focused people struggle when drawing a map from scratch.
TICS vs GRIT
It should be clear by now that all characteristics that describe GRIT people are, on their own, aspirational. Yet, when brought together, they create individuals which might prove misleading. Not because they’re bad people. That’s not the issue. Actually, they are highly appealing and persuasive. To such a degree that they create overpromising expectations.
You’ve likely encountered people with GRIT. They exude a calm, confident aura because of their rationality and intrepidness. They are diligent, which can be mistaken with commitment. And their generalist skills can be mistaken with big-picture vision.
Your initial reaction is to trust your money on this people. Be it by giving them positions of leadership, responsibilities, or by literally investing in their startups if they’re founders. They are ambitious, but by mixing intrepidness with lack of scalability, they overestimate their transformational capacity. And that’s when the cracks start to show.
Compare them with people with TICS, who initially feel less “safe”. The issue is that, when pitted together, people with GRIT might outshine those with TICS. Which leads to a misallocation of resources that will deliver a poor return on investment. Which in turns is bad for individuals and for society as a whole.
What’s the take-home message behind this post? It’s not about dunking on people with GRIT. They’re highly valuable people, excellent operators and strong stewards who can hold the course through a tough storm. But if you’re looking for true transformational outcomes, having people with GRIT will not be enough. You will need magic. You will need people with TICS.
