Superstars

While I am not that much of an athlete, I do enjoy watching all variety of sports.   Here's a fun fact - I actually majored in Sports Science in college.  I must confess though, I don't understand the game of cricket.  It looks like baseball, but it's definitely not.  Brian Lara is apparently an international superstar in the sport and is widely acknowledged as one of the great batsmen of all time.  He once said, "You don't need a group of superstars, you need a team working together to bring you better results."

There have been a number of "superstar" sports teams over the years - teams so loaded with talent, that they seemed like a "sure thing" to win a championship - that just haven't lived up to the hype.  Take, for example, the 2003-2004 Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball team.  The Lakers already had future Hall of Famers Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant and a Hall of Fame coach in Phil Jackson.  Together, they had won 3 straight NBA World Championships.  During the offseason, O'Neal recruited future Hall of Famers Gary "The Glove" Payton and Karl "The Mailman" Malone, two players who had not been fortunate to win a NBA World Championship during their otherwise brilliant careers.  It almost seemed a foregone conclusion that they would do so prior to the start of the season.  The Lakers did win their Division and did make it to the NBA Finals, but they lost the series in five games to the Detroit Pistons.  Following the Finals, Phil Jackson was fired as the head coach, though not before claiming that Kobe Bryant was "uncoachable."  Payton signed with another team, Shaq asked for and got a trade to another team, and Karl Malone retired for good.

It takes more than a group of superstars to win basketball games, just like it takes more than a group of superstars to make a good team (and by team, I mean any team, whether it's in health care, business, or sports).  This is not really a new concept for this blog - in fact, I've posted a number of times in the past on this very subject (see, for example, "Chemistry is culture" and  "Superstars and the mess in Cleveland").  In my last post, I talked about the so-called "portability paradox" and the studies showing that recruiting superstars may not always work out the way you think.  I promised to talk about ways that leaders and managers on the one hand, and the superstar employees on the other, can mitigate this paradox.  Today we will address the "portability paradox" from the perspective of the leader/manager.

Perhaps most importantly, given the "portability paradox", it is even worth trying to recruit and hire superstar employees from another organization?  If you go back and look at my last post, Groysberg offers a couple of key suggestions to increase the chances that a newly recruited superstar employee is just as successful in her/his new firm as she/he was in the old one.  If you are hoping to convince a superstar to join a struggling firm, don't waste your time.  Groysberg's research suggests that the chances that the superstar will find the same level of success in the new firm are slim to none.  If you are recruiting a superstar to perform a similar role in your organization (exploitation versus exploration), then go for it.  And while you are at it, make sure that you spend the time and energy into onboarding the new superstar and integrating her/him into your organization's culture.  Also, if you can recruit the superstar as part of a "package deal" (bringing in other member's of her/his old team), the superstar's chances of success will significantly increase.

Groysberg offers some additional suggestions to make sure that the superstar recruit pays off in the long run:

1. Hire for the individual's talent, expertise, and experience as well as the cultural fit within the organization.  Allow the superstar's future colleagues, including individuals from different parts of the organization, to interview the candidate before the hiring is finalized.

2. Don't overestimate the importance of pay.  Paying a superstar recruit far more than what you are paying your current employees will only create problems for the future.  

3. Do not create a double-standard for the superstar.  There should be one culture and one set of rules and expectations for everyone. 

4. Even superstars need a strong group of colleagues and systems to make sure that they are successful.  Do not neglect the latter for the former.

Organizations who can mitigate against the "portability paradox" will create a virtuous cycle.  Superstars, when they are successfully integrated into their new organization's culture, create an environment where everyone else gets better too.  For example, a study of an academic department found that, on average, department productivity (in terms of numbers of scientific journal publications) increased by 54% after the arrival of the superstar.  Most of this impact was indirect - hiring a superstar increases the chance of successfully bringing in more talent.  High-performers like to work with other high-performers!

Hiring superstars doesn't always work out.  However, taking into account all of the considerations above will definitely increase the chances for success.  Next time, we will talk about what the individual (i.e. the superstar) can do to increase the chances of her/his success at a new organization.