There is a reason filmmakers spend so much time thinking about casting. An actor can be extraordinarily talented and still be wrong for a particular role. The requirements of the story, the relationships between characters and what the audience needs to believe all influence who belongs on screen.
Director Ron Howard has described casting as a highly specialized field requiring business acumen, interpersonal and organizational skills, and refined taste.
In a later interview with Harvard Business Review, Howard went on to discuss his approach to selecting production colleagues, including people he had worked with successfully before. For certain roles, particularly in music, cinematography, production and wardrobe design, he explained: “I really want to cast that in a bespoke way for each and every film.”
Howard's perspective has stuck with me because it reinforces something I've long believed about assembling teams:
You need to understand the performance you're trying to produce before you can know how to assemble the people who will deliver it.
Know what you're casting for
In an agency, an assignment often begins with a staffing discussion. Which disciplines are needed, who is available, and how much of their time can we secure? That may answer a resourcing question without addressing the more consequential one: what combination of people gives us the best chance of delivering this particular assignment?
For me, that starts with a forensic read of the brief and then taking the analysis well beyond it. What is the client actually trying to accomplish? What do they believe the problem to be, and what might they be missing? Who needs to be persuaded, what matters to those people, and what would make an ambitious proposal or scope of work credible to them? And perhaps most importantly, what distinguishes us from our competition and what are our known vulnerabilities?
The answers inform the strategy, including the 'win strategy' in a competitive pitch. They also determine the contributions we need. We may already have all the necessary talent in the organization, but scattered across disciplines or teams that rarely work together. Casting means deciding how to bring those capabilities together, who should shape the thinking, and when each person's expertise will matter most.
Experience assembling teams helps us recognize where to look and which questions to ask. It becomes a liability when we assume that what made one team successful must be the answer to the next. Remember what Ron said about refined taste?
Maximizing potential between people
Some of the best teams I've worked with have shared an almost infectious admiration for one another's abilities. The members of the team are confident in their own expertise and genuinely enthralled by what a colleague can do that they cannot. There is an enthusiasm for the work, the people doing it and the possibilities created by their combination.
That matters when selecting among comparably talented contributors. Complementary skills are essential, but I also look for what I call the 'good-hang' factor. It isn't social sameness, likability or simply getting along. It's the comfort to bring your own quirks and accept somebody else's, alongside enough shared values about people and the work to make the environment stimulating (a good hang) rather than defensive.
You can disagree intensely in that kind of team. Indeed, you should be able to. Respect for another person's expertise gives the disagreement somewhere productive to go. A long shared history can help people reach that point, although I've seen it develop remarkably quickly among people working together for the first time when the conditions are right.
Different performances, different casts
The team best suited to win an assignment may not be identical to the team needed to deliver it. Sometimes even securing that assignment depends on a leader's ability to know the difference. A pitch calls for people who can interpret an opportunity, devise the strategy, connect specialist ideas and earn an audience's confidence. Delivery demands the ability to fulfil that promise across competing priorities and changing circumstances.
There should be continuity between the two, but the mix of roles and contributions may require change. A technically impressive proposal is of little use if the client cannot see a credible path to adopting it; a persuasive pitch is no substitute for an operating model that can actually deliver. Casting has to account for both performances.
What casting makes possible
A well-cast team can still be undermined by confused responsibilities, conflicting incentives or an operating environment that prevents people from doing their best work. Casting creates potential; it doesn't guarantee the performance.
But the decision deserves more attention than a search for available names. Start with the audience, the assignment and the result you need to produce. Work out the approach most likely to succeed. Then cast the people whose individual contributions and resulting alchemy can bring it to life.
