Clash of the Titans

Nope - I am not going to talk about the 1981 movie from my youth, Clash of the Titans, which was "loosely based" (I will argue this point to anyone) on the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda.  Notably, the film starred Sir Laurence Olivier as the Greek god Zeus and Dame Maggie Smith - you may know her better as the Hogwarts teacher, Professor McGonagall - as a minor character, the Greek goddess Thetis.  Nor will I talk about the 2010 remake, which followed the original's plot but had the significant advantage of 21st century special effects.  No, what I want to talk about is when top executives don't get along with other members of the executive team.  We have ample examples today - just turn on CNN and watch any story about our current President and some unfortunate member of his team (the list is long, but recently the stories have been about the President's social media habits interfering with the work of his current Attorney General).  I am sure you have observed examples in your own professional life. 

We can all appreciate how well executive teams function when the top leaders work well together and get along (see some of history's great dynamic duos here or just think of leadership pairs like President Obama and Vice President Biden, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, or even Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (sorry, I had to throw them in there).  Here's the question though - how important is it for the top leaders to get along and work well together?  As it turns out, there's objective evidence to suggest that it is incredibly important.

A group of economists explored this exact question in a study that was published a few years ago in the journal, Management Science.  These investigators used a large data-set from Major League Baseball to examine the whether the relationship between the general manager (sort of like the Chief Executive Officer) and manager (think, Chief Operating Officer) of major league baseball teams had any effect on the overall performance of professional baseball teams.  The investigators used data from every single game played during each and every major league baseball season from 1988 to 2012 - during this period of time, there were 136 manager (again, in baseball, managers are like the head coach in football) and 94 general manager leadership dyads in 42,302 games.  Basically, the degree of "match quality" (in other words, how well did the general manager and manager get along) was compared to outcome measures such as game result (wins versus losses) and run differential (how many runs did a team win by).  The statistics used were incredibly complex, but suffice it to say that they factored in a number of important variables to come up with as accurate of an assessment as possible.

So, what did these investigators find?  There were two major conclusions that I think are relevant to our discussion today:

1. Match quality definitely impacts how well the team does, both in terms of win-loss record and whether the team generates an economic profit.

2. Match quality doesn't necessarily improve over time - in other words, either the general manager/manager leadership dyad works from the beginning or it doesn't.  If the two leaders don't get along, they likely didn't get along as time went by.

What are the implications here?  I fully admit that running a large company or hospital isn't exactly like running a major league baseball team.  However, if the key, influential leaders on a professional sports team aren't working well together, the team is probably not going to win any championships.  Similarly, if the executive leaders in a company or a hospital aren't getting along or working collaboratively, you can almost be certain that the company or hospital aren't going to do well either.  Bottom line - the executive leadership team MUST work well together.  Sooner or later, owners (in the case of professional sports teams) or Boards (for companies or hospitals) will recognize that the executive leaders just aren't working out and will need to be replaced. 

Leadership matters.  Collaborative leadership matters even more.  At the end of the day, there is just no room for a clash of the titans in the C-suite.