Do Business Well

A healthy partnership is based on one crucial understanding: Neither partner is perfect. If potential partners are afraid to admit their imperfections, or are trying diligently to correct them, or are reluctant to ask for help, neither will be on the lookout for a productive partnership. They will be nervous of confessing to too many faults and suspicious of anyone who offers.

Strangely, most companies actively encourage this kind of behavior. Job descriptions, for even the simplest roles, run to two or three pages, presumably in hopes of capturing every minute task that the perfect incumbent should be able to perform. Training classes and development plans target those few behaviors where you consistently struggle. Everyone talks of the need to “broaden your skill set.”

Perhaps the most pervasive example of “partnership prevention,” however, can be found in the conventional wisdom on teams and teamwork. Conventional wisdom’s most frequently quoted line on teams is “There is no ‘I’ in team.” The point here seems to be that teams are built on collaboration and mutual support. The whole is, apparently, more important than its individual parts.

On the surface this appears to be eminently right-minded. Taking these sentiments as their starting point, many companies have dedicated themselves to creating self-managed teams. Here team members are encouraged to rotate into different roles on the team. The more roles they learn, the more they are paid. And everyone is supposed to focus on the team’s goals and performance, not his own.

However, conventional wisdom’s view of teamwork is dangerously misleading. Great managers do not believe that a productive team has camaraderie as its cornerstone and team members who can play all roles equally well. On the contrary, they define a productive team as one where each person knows which role he plays best and where he is cast in that role most of the time.

The founding principle here is that excellent teams are built around individual excellence. Therefore the manager’s first responsibility is to make sure each person is positioned in the right role. Her second responsibility is to balance the strengths and weaknesses of each individual so that they complement one another. Then, and only then, should she turn her attention to broader issues like “camaraderie” or “team spirit.” One team member might occasionally have to step out of his role to support another, but this kind of pinch-hitting should be a rarity on great teams, not their very essence.

Jim K., a full bird colonel in the army—an organization that might be forgiven for emphasizing flexibility and camaraderie over individual excellence—gives this description of team building:

“When I first assemble the platoon I ask each person to tell me what activities he is mostly drawn to. One will say sharpshooting. One will say radio. One will say explosives. And so on. I’ll go around the whole group, taking notes. Then, when I build each squad, I try to assign each person to the role he said he was drawn to. Obviously you won’t get a perfect match. And obviously every soldier will be required to learn every role on the platoon—we might lose a man in battle, and every soldier must be able to step in. But you’ve got to start by assigning the right duties to the right soldier. If you get that wrong, your platoon will falter in combat.”

Whereas conventional wisdom views individual specialization as the antithesis of teamwork, great managers see it as the founding principle.

If individual positioning is so important, then at the heart of a great team there must be an I. There must be lots of strong, distinct I’s. There must be individuals who know themselves well enough to pick the right roles and to feel comfortable in them most of the time. If one individual joins the team with little understanding of his own strengths and weaknesses, then he will drag the entire team down with his poor performance and his vague yearnings to switch roles. Self-aware individuals— strong I’s—are the building blocks of great teams.

Find an Alternative Way

There are some people for whom nothing works. You trip every trigger imaginable. You train. You find partners. You buy Rolodexes, teach spell check, and cut through office walls. But nothing works.

Faced with this situation, you have little choice. You have to find this employee an alternative role. You have to move him out. Sometimes the only way to cure a bad relationship is to get out of it. Similarly, sometimes the only way to cure poor performance is to get the performer out of that role.

How do you know if you are at that point? You will never know for sure. But the best managers offer this advice:

You will have to manage around the weaknesses of each and every employee. But if, with one particular employee, you find yourself spending most of your time managing around weaknesses, then know that you have made a casting error. At this point it is time to fix the casting error and to stop trying to fix the person.

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