Avelengo, Italy -
The author Taylor Steelman reminds us that higher ground provides perspective.
Be it physical or metaphoric, high altitude is useful for seeing and solving complex problems, assessing our own leadership with humility, and stretching beyond artificial or self-imposed limits.
Steelman wrote in a 2021 Medium.com piece, “What does that (high-altitude) panorama afford us nomadic creatures but the possibility of going great distances?” One in a series of “High Altitude” paintings (image below) by nearby Milanese watercolorist Nadia Tognazzo suggests Steelman’s vantage point, no matter how harsh the operating conditions.
On the other hand, one can be too high up in the clouds and fail to see complex problems clearly and otherwise lose touch with day-to-day operating reality. Witness the ruler Plasus on Stratos in the “Cloud Minders” episode of the original “Star Trek” series. His indifference to the Troglodytes far below Cloud City could ultimately have been his undoing.
Sitting high above the world here astride Italy’s Dolomites, I’m thinking about what it means to be a team. What it really means. Why is it that some teams go great distances, in Steelman’s words, while others do not.
David Deming, Ben Weidmann, and colleagues at the Harvard Skills Lab may have some answers. They’ve developed a task-related test and corresponding metric to calibrate individuals’ capacity to be “team players.” Their testing identified people who, when added to a team, actually elevated its effectiveness.
The current issue of Harvard Magazine (Sept-Oct) reports that Deming, Weidmann, et al. believe good team players encourage “their peers to try harder: groups containing a team player were more likely to use the full time allotted to complete the task, which was associated with better performance.” They also believe team players facilitate “allocative efficiency: having teammates each tackle the task they are relatively strongest at.” And what might the practice of these two beliefs be called? Oh, that’s right, leadership.
It was mildly disappointing, therefore, to hear the great Stanford Professor of Psychology and creator of the “growth mindset” concept Carol Dweck say, when asked by Guy Kawasaki in his “Remarkable People” podcast (August 16) about her approach to teaching, “I praise progress, not effort.”
Well yes, of course. We went entirely too far societally in praising effort at the expense of actual growth and tangible results. We need higher expectations than that, for sure. This is not to say, however, that the role of coaching, motivating, channeling and, yes, praising effort is not useful. Quite the contrary. Effort is often a necessary determinant of progress.
So, what about effective team players? After all, can’t one superstar in chess, mathematics, or basketball pull along an entire team of weak players and win? Now and then, of course, this happens.
In the main, however, teams with stars augmented by highly effective team players - each knowing their roles and accenting their strengths- provide a much more replicable, sustainable success formula.
The 1990s’ Chicago Bulls had the greatest player in history (Michael Jordan) but, importantly, they also had a star and future Hall of Famer (Scottie Pippen), a superb player (Toni Kukoč), and excellent team players and specialists (Steve Kerr, Dennis Rodman, Horace Grant, and John Paxson). That was a real team whose composition was well considered and they delivered six championships. The whole was certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
In contrast, take Luka Dončić and today’s Dallas Mavericks. Building on Deming, Weidmann, et al. and countless others - as well as common sense - it’s clear that great players make other players even better. That’s the whole idea. Jordan made others better; Dončić does not.
Luka’s brand of so-called heliocentric play, in which the Mavs rely on him for most of the scoring and ball-handling, is doomed. The Mavs with Luca will never be a championship team, even with (or because of) the addition of Kyrie Irving.
For example, according to NBA University, 85 percent of Luka’s made baskets last season were unassisted, including 78 percent of his successful three-pointers. This means, by and large, that he often brought the ball up court, passed to nobody, and shot while his four teammates stood around and watched. How many teams have you witnessed people silencing their creative input because one guy likes the sound of his voice and, as Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter used to say, has the properties of halon by taking all the oxygen from the room?
So when composing and comprising a team, step back and get the big picture as if in Nadia Tognazzo’s “High Altitude” painting. Consider how Deming, Weidmann, et al. define team-player effectiveness. In doing so, keep in mind the need to motivate and coach others because, contrary to Carol Dweck’s assertion, effort is generally (but not always) a precursor to success. And yes, recruit great players but define greatness to include how they work with others and make them better. Surely, we are on this planet to help make each other better.
Image courtesy of Saatchi.