Why Not To Choose A Team With All Star Performers?

‘Star’ constellations may eclipse bright chances of success.

- Muniinder K Anand

As managers and as team members, we all seem to gravitate towards high performers and the stars in an organisation. And with good reasons. We have all heard the saying that ‘birds of a feather flock together’, meaning that the company you keep reflects your personality. A smart person surrounds himself or herself with other smart people. It is not unnatural to want to associate yourself with high performers and to want to put a team together full of stars.

Consider this: how could a movie starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Catherine ZetaJones, and Julia Roberts, directed by Steven Soderbergh, get tepid reviews and gross less worldwide than the star-free My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That movie was Ocean’s Twelve.

Take tennis as another example. Year 2010. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, No 1-ranked tennis player + No 2-ranked tennis player = doubles team unworthy of ranking. The tennis dream team crashed out in the first round of the 2010 Rogers Cup in Toronto.

Closer to home, in 2014 Indian Premier League, Royal Challengers Bangalore boasted a lineup that included big names such as Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuvraj Singh, Mitchell Starc, Yuzvendra Chahal, Albie Morkel, and Chris Gayle; they finished at 7th position out of 8 teams.

Failing all-star teams have been a challenge facing businesses for years. Companies want a superstar leadership team and end up tumbling. How else could a Fortune 500 company run by a brilliant former McKinsey consultant, paying fat salaries to graduates of America’s elite business schools, dissolve into fraud and bankruptcy? It happened at Enron.