The key to high-performing teams isn't more talent or perfect leaders

"We've been taught that the surest way to win is to gather the most talented people. But stacking a team with stars doesn't guarantee success. In fact, it often undermines it. Take the 1980 U.S. Olympic basketball team. They were just college kids, facing NBA All-Stars in a series of exhibitions. On paper, the pros should have crushed them. Instead, the college players won four out of five games, including one by 31 points. The less talented team consistently defeated the stars."

"Quibi was a short-form streaming platform, led by Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg and eBay's Meg Whitman. It raised nearly $2 billion, but leadership was so insulated and overconfident that they ignored feedback. The company shut down within months. Or DaimlerChrysler. In 1998, Mercedes's parent company merged with Chrysler in what was billed as the perfect match of German engineering and American scale. Instead, cultural clashes and competing egos derailed the merger, wiping out billions in value."

Intelligent teams outperform groups of isolated stars by aligning goals, unlocking collective resources, and creating cooperative cultures. Overreliance on individual talent can produce insulation, overconfidence, and ego clashes that undermine performance. Historical examples include the 1980 U.S. Olympic college basketball team's wins over NBA All-Stars, Quibi's rapid collapse despite massive funding and insulated leadership, and the failed DaimlerChrysler merger caused by cultural clashes and competing egos. Psychologists label the phenomenon the 'too-much-talent problem.' Effective leadership focuses on alignment, feedback, cooperation, and cultural design to ensure that team members collaborate rather than compete destructively.

Read at Fast Company