Sometimes, being a CEO is a lot like being a major-league coach. That means you need the right mix of playmakers in your locker room. Here's how I do it.

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Any sports-franchise owner will tell you that just because a certain set of players got you to a certain level of success, your team still has weaknesses. Without some adjustments, you probably won't make it to the big winner's circle anytime soon.

The same goes for business leaders. The leadership team that got you to $10 million probably won't be the team to get you to $50 million. Doug Tatum talked about this in his book No Mans Land: Companies too Big to be Small and too Small to be Big. True, you might have some of the same key players from those early winning teams. However, to get to that next level and the tickertape parade that goes with it, you're going to need to add some playmakers to the locker room. And that comes with a big elephant of an issue:

Locker. Room. Chemistry.

As coachI mean CEOgetting the chemistry right is my responsibility. From integrating run-'n'-gun style players into the already tight-knit team to redefining what success means for everyoneit all comes down to me. These are the four things I have on my clipboard to help make sure my roster is playing nice and we all have a much better chance at winning that ring:

Create a Hybrid Game Plan

We know that we aren't a company that's going to sell our services at the cost of our culture. We also realize that we have opportunities to focus on moving into the open spots in the market where in the past we may have been content in playing at a certain level. That's why I look to find the right mix of existing team members and new talent. I wasn't shy about adding new members of the team that had a sales focus and could help get our company to the next level. But that didn't necessarily jive with a very deliberate culture with longstanding traditions. So how would I balance the opportunity for growth and those that felt we should do things the way they've always been done? I realized that the answer was somewhere in-between. We needed a balance of keeping and respecting some of the old and embracing and accepting some of the new.

The Coach is the Chief Reminder Officer

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Build Chemistry in Your Leadership Team