Lewis had written an article about Shane Battier for The New York Times Magazine entitled "The No-Stats All-Star". He tells the story of the Miami Heat superteam, which played from 2011-2014. Basically, superstars LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh decided that they wanted to play together on the same team. Dwayne Wade had already won the NBA Championship with the Miami Heat in 2006, and both LeBron James and Chris Bosh were free agents during the 2010 offseason.
LeBron James famously announced his decision to play for the Heat (and leave his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers) on live television on July 8, 2010 (see "The Decision" on ESPN). During a team press conference later that summer, in which all three superstars appeared, James was asked how many NBA championships the team would win. Again, he famously said, "Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven...". Suffice it to say that expectations from the Miami Heat and the fans were very high. The reality was very different.
During the 2010-2011 season, the Miami Heat initially struggled to play together as a team. In fact, they lost a number of close games. As Adam Grant said during the podcast, "Lots of stars means lots of egos—and lots of egos means infighting. To overcome that problem, you need humility. Humility is having the self-awareness to know what you're good at and what you're not good at. Studies show that when you have humility in a team, people are more likely to play to their strengths. Instead of going for the spotlight, they take on the roles where they can help the team win."
The Miami Heat would finish the season with a 0.707 winning percentage, but they failed to win the championship, losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals. During the offseason, the Heat brought in yet another free agent player, but this time one that led to a lot of head-scratching. They brought in Shane Battier, a talented player, but one who throughout his career failed to score a lot of points or make a lot of rebounds (during his 13-year career, Battier averaged 8.6 points per game, 4.2 rebounds per game, and 1.8 assists per game). But Battier's presence on the Heat the following season made a huge difference!
Whenever Battier was on the court, everyone on the Miami Heat played better, both offensively and defensively. Michael Lewis told Adam Grant, "Shane had broadly two big effects. On his own teammates, he made everybody more efficient. When he was on the court, the shot the team took tended to be a better shot than it was when he wasn't on the court. And on the defensive end, he made the other team slightly less efficient." Suddenly, everyone was playing better AS A TEAM.
The Heat would go on to win back-to-back NBA Championships following the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons before losing in the NBA Finals again in 2013-2014. Shane Battier was a leader on the court and helped to build the kind of team chemistry that turned into championships. I've mentioned this in a couple of previous posts ("He's the glue..." and "In search of David Ross") - Shane Battier was the glue that helped make everyone work together and win (see also an article published this past fall in The Wall Street Journal "The underrated power of 'glue employees' who hold everything together").
Adam Grant also said something that resonates with me, "When it's time to put together a team, most people look for the best talent. I hear it in every industry. “We don't take B players, only A players.” But what actually happens when you have a whole team of stars? The evidence is pretty clear: no matter where you work, having an entire team of superstars can be a total disaster. It turns out that if you have a team of 10 people, you're better off with six stars than eight."
He references two important studies, one from the world of sports and the other from the world of Wall Street investment banking. The first discusses what is known as the "too much talent effect", in which investigators were able to show that greater individual talent is associated with winning in soccer and basketball, but only up to a certain point. Past that point and more talent leads to worse performance, similar to what occurred with the Miami Heat (who, even with Shane Battier, failed to win the seven championships that LeBron James talked about in the press conference). The second showed that the "too much talent effect" wasn't unique to sports. In other words, when it comes to making key investment decisions, "too many cooks spoil the broth" - having a team composed of too many experts actually leads to worse financial decisions!
Hopefully, my last three posts have convinced you in the so-called "war for talent" in today's work environment, leaders should focus on building diverse teams with different levels of skill. Bringing in too many experts is actually counterproductive. So I ask, is it better to have too much talent or not enough talent? My answer - it's better to have not enough talent...
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