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That may sound like an odd thing to say, and this research is now actually a few years old, but is nevertheless still misunderstood. We all seem to generally feel that more talent leads to a better team. This applies to sports teams as well as to business teams. I have just come back from a conference in the life sciences sector and one panel was talking about talent. The discussion revolved around finding the best people.
This research suggests, that finding the best people may not be the most important strategy but finding the most suitable people — that is different — but this also isn’t always the case. It depends on how the team must operate together.
Adam Galinsky and Vikram Pandit of Columbia Business School have researched a number of team-based situations, from egg production in chicken coop. Yes, you read that correctly, chickens also need to produce effectively, and their performance, egg laying, drops in certain teams! To 10 seasons of professional basketball and baseball.
What did they find?
They found that “team coordination suffers when there is too much talent”. Not a good thing for team performance. Simply put, too much talent creates a conflictual “pecking order”, see that research into the chickens is suitable, top talent tries, understandably to be higher in the pecking order…
