Deep Dive: Building Teams to Last

Olivia Carter

Alright, welcome back. I’m Olivia Carter, here with Mark Putnam—Mark, how’s it going?

Mark Putnam

Good to be with you, Olivia. I’m glad we’re tackling this myth about leadership and teams. It’s persistent, and, honestly, a bit exhausting to see new leaders get tripped up by it over and over. It drives me a little crazy, honestly.

Olivia Carter

Yeah, it's that idea new leaders walk in and, instead of just steering the ship, they feel pressured to rip out the crew and start fresh. I remember my very first assignment for TechCrunch—a new CIO at a University in California. The CIO just went on a hiring spree, talking about “fresh blood, new talent density,” the whole Silicon Valley playbook. But if you actually peeked behind the scenes, the folks getting things done were the ones who’d been at the university ten, even fifteen years. They had all the context and the relationships.

Mark Putnam

That model—the so-called “talent density” obsession—is imported from companies like Amazon, SpaceX, you name it. But higher ed just doesn't work that way. We’ve got salary bands, tenure, all kinds of administrative protections. The constraints are real. You can’t just buy the hottest players and prune the rest, no matter how many business books say otherwise.

Olivia Carter

Right, it’s almost like we want to believe leadership is a magic act—swap enough people and everything transforms—when, most of the time, the magic is in making the team you have exceptional. But the pressure new leaders feel is real, too. There’s this clock in the background, ticking louder every meeting, like, “When are the big changes coming? When do we clean house?”

Mark Putnam

Absolutely. And, the irony is, the team you already have is likely far better than outsiders give them credit for. They don’t need a demolition; they need coherence, clarity, and a leader who’ll actually help them “sweat the details” together, not just chase after new faces. We’ll dig more into what that means, but it all starts with recognizing the value sitting right in front of you.

Olivia Carter

Tell me more, Mark.

Mark Putnam

Let’s be honest here—there are always a few folks on any team who aren’t on board. They’re what we call “edge cases.” People who, for whatever reason, don’t align, maybe it’s passive resistance, or maybe they just checked out years ago. It’s unavoidable, and I’ve had my share of those.

Olivia Carter

Definitely—every org has them. But the drama people expect, the big confrontations... From what I’ve seen and what you wrote, it’s way less dramatic than people imagine. Setting expectations, raising standards, and—honestly—making things clearer can be the thing that nudges those folks to either step up or opt out.

Mark Putnam

That’s right. And it doesn’t have to become this organizational spectacle. Structural pressure does most of the work: a new set of expectations, a transparent bar for performance, and suddenly the culture starts shifting. The employee either adapts or, more often than not, finds the environment doesn’t suit them anymore—they “select themselves out.”

Olivia Carter

But, here’s the thing—and I think this gets missed in a lot of the “fix the stragglers” conversations—spending all your energy on the outliers means you’re ignoring the 95% who actually want to do good work. It just tanks morale. And, Mark, you wrote about a time when a so-called ‘star’ left your university team…

Mark Putnam

Yeah, I remember it well. Everyone thought this individual was irreplaceable. They drew a lot of attention, and the fear was “what will we do without them?” But the truth? The team stepped up. Capacity wasn’t lost—it was unlocked. People who’d been in supporting roles showed what they could do. It was a lesson in stewardship: you don’t need to fix the whole roster; you need to focus on bringing out the best in the bulk of your people, not just chasing or fearing the outliers.

Olivia Carter

Speaking of stars—can we talk about this “star quarterback” mindset? I swear, every startup and, honestly, half the universities I cover are still looking for one magical hire to turn everything around. But chasing star players just doesn’t fix fundamentals.

Mark Putnam

It’s a seductive myth. You hire someone who promises rapid results—maybe they do some good things early—but they go around process, ignore collaboration, and, in the end, create a pile of technical debt for everyone else. I’ve seen it. The true long-term advantage in institutions isn’t individual heroics; it’s institutional loyalty, memory, and trust. The ten-year veteran who understands the system is worth more than someone who burns out in two.

Olivia Carter

And this goes back to something I definitely experienced in my early reporting days—actually, Bob comes up here. You wrote about how he took a chance on you, not for a perfect resume, but because you were curious, teachable, and just… wanted to learn. There’s probably someone on every team who’s been overlooked, maybe because they weren’t “shiny” enough on paper, but who could grow, if someone gave them the room.

Mark Putnam

Bob changed the course of my own career that way. He looked for competencies—curiosity, discipline, willingness to stretch. Not just credentials. That’s what I try to do now: look for the restless, the accountable, the reliable. If you focus too much on models designed for Google, you’ll miss all the talent growing, quietly, in your own shop. Chasing stars is a distraction from building the everyday discipline and teamwork that win over the long haul.

Olivia Carter

I agree. Tell me about the importance of coherence.

Mark Putnam

So, let’s move to what actually builds performance in real organizations—not talent hunting, but discipline and coherence. Twenty-five years ago, I worked for Steve, and ex-Army Colonel. We had weekly team meetings, every Wednesday, rain or shine. There was nothing glamorous about it: we ironed out issues, sweated the details, tracked progress relentlessly. But those sessions were the calibration mechanism. They didn’t just make things run; they built trust and a shared sense of purpose.

Olivia Carter

It’s funny—so many people see weekly meetings as micromanagement, but the way you’re describing them, it’s the total opposite. It’s about lifting everybody up, everyone working off the same set of facts, gradually getting sharper, together. It’s not that “hero” culture where you’re just waiting for someone to bail out the team at the last second while everyone burns out around them.

Mark Putnam

Exactly. Look, most teams underperform not from lack of talent, but from distraction—too many priorities, political noise, the anxiety of not knowing what really matters this week. Leaders need to act as shock absorbers. When you shield your team from upper-level drama or conflicting priorities—when you protect their focus—you see real improvement. This is what Indiana football does: they focus on process, not stardom. Excellence as a habit, not as a series of heroic one-offs.

Olivia Carter

So leaders aren’t there to be the genius in the room—they’re there to give the room clarity. I’ve seen this in tech reporting, too. The really steady teams aren’t the ones chasing the news cycle every second—they’re the ones with rituals, standards, process. And, honestly, less burnout in the end.

Mark Putnam

That's right, Olivia.

Olivia Carter

Let’s talk about the real superpower of institutions: the people who stick around. In tech, you hear all the time that staying put equals stagnation, but in higher ed—and, I’d argue, a lot of big organizations—long-term folks are the mission’s memory banks. They know not just how things work, but why they work that way. They keep the place running when everyone else has moved on.

Mark Putnam

Absolutely, Olivia. Tenure isn’t a liability. It’s the foundation. The challenge, though, is to hire for curiosity and accountability—even if the technical skills aren’t all there—and then actually invest in those people year after year. Leaders should be putting at least four percent of their budget into ongoing training and development, every year. Push people just beyond where they’re comfortable, let them grow in the work itself. They’ll reward you with loyalty you can’t hire on the open market.

Olivia Carter

Which also means we’ve got to rethink the “savior hire” story. It’s always tempting to look for someone outside to fix every problem, but that’s usually just an excuse to avoid the hard work of building up what you’ve got. When you work on clarity, coherence, and consistent protection for your team, it’s wild how much more they can deliver. The stars are already there—you just have to give them the framework to shine.

Mark Putnam

That’s right. Stop looking for saviors. Build the structure and discipline that unlock potential. In higher education, as in any entrenched institution, it’s structural coherence—clear roles, consistent rituals, space from distractions—that transforms decent teams into lasting, high-performing ones. If you do that, you’ll be surprised by how good your team already is.

Olivia Carter

Alright, I think that’s the perfect place to wrap up. Mark, as always, thanks for the wisdom. And to everyone listening, thanks for joining us. We’ll be back soon with more on how tech’s really changing the world of higher ed and beyond. Mark, I’ll see you next time.

Mark Putnam

I look forward to it, Olivia. Take care, everyone—and remember, the answers usually start with the team you have. Goodbye for now.