We talk a lot in business about the power of teamwork. Great companies are built, it is said, on the power of exceptional teams.
There is certainly truth to this but it obfuscates the fact that teams are composed of individuals. And unless an individual is strong, smart and innovative, his value to a team is minimal. People don’t get great because they are joined together in groups, they can only contribute excellence in a way that– in the best of circumstances– makes the group greater than the sum of its parts.
Anyone who is ever naked on a stage — a ballerina in a solo performance, an executive making a speech, a scientist working in a lab by herself–has to be exceptional WITHOUT a team. With nothing but their raw talent.
If they can accomplish this with genius, aplomb or both, they have passed trough a kind of baptism by fire that tests their mettle and, in turn, qualifies them for membership in a team.
A team that is more substantial than a group of people simply working together. The fact is, mediocre people banded together in an operating unit is not as much a team as a bureacracy. In cases such as this, the coming together in a unit, of sorts, simply provides cover for their individual ineptitude. No one excells, everyone whines, progress and excellence are not in the lexicon. It is called a team but it really just a rag tag collection of also-rans blending into the woodwork of each other.
When the extraordinary scientists who came together in Los Alamos to make sure America won WW II by creating the world’s first atomic bomb, the great physicists had already made their mark, individually, on the naked stage of scientific discovery. For a brief, compelling and triumphant period, they were will to cast aside their egos and cross pollinate their genius for the greater good.
This is the glory and the majesty of an exceptional team. It is a group of talented people, fully capable on their own, who come together to dance Swan Lake in a way that thrills the audience or that produces software that breaks the existing barriers on human productivity.
A true team is a rare and powerful marvel. It is a group with an exponent over it work.
Mark Stevens
CEO
MSCO | The Art and Science of Growing Businesses
www.MSCO.com
www.YourMarketingSucks.com
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I think very often teams will be a mix of these. What is your opinion on teams that have some exceptional people but also some average people? Any recommendations?
Cut out the average people and only have exceptional people on your staff. You want to stay lightweight and pack a mean punch with your team. Any weaknesses in your staff will effect everyone’s output.