Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations (15 page)

Chained teams aren’t
always
at each other’s throats. Indeed, at the beginning, if there weren’t some chemistry, they would never have teamed up. But even then, the fault lines are usually obvious. Such teams often emerge because the extraordinary opportunities presented by their harmonious talents overwhelm the differences in character, attitude, or temperament—at least at the beginning. But, as great as the fame that follows may be, it never completely resolves those differences . . . and more often than not, it amplifies them. Thus, what began as areas of friction that could be ignored
in the excitement of early success can grow in time to a chasm that isn’t reduced with each new victory but widened.

How long it takes for these Chained pairs to finally snap is anyone’s guess. Like marriages, some Chained pairs can seem doomed from the start yet last decades, the partners squabbling all the way. Others can seem much calmer, and in little peril . . . only to have one member awaken some morning and decide that he or she can never work with the other again. All that can be done is to take full advantage of the power of one of these unlikely and incompatible pairs for as long as it lasts, be prepared for it to shatter without notice, and get out of the way when the blast occurs . . . and start planning for the inevitable reunion tour a quarter century from now.

It is interesting to speculate that one reason such pairs seem so (temporarily) successful is that the available pool of potential partners is almost infinite, because they don’t have to be compatible—as opposed to the limited number of compatible pairs in the other pair-team types. But that success is also something of an illusion: you don’t see a lot of mediocre Chained pairs, because they split up quickly. It takes real success to stick together day-to-day with someone you hate or despise.

Another reason for the success of these partnerships is not so obvious. It is that the members of the pair usually enter the relationship with a pretty good idea of not just the strengths of the other party but also his or her weaknesses. That doesn’t mean they don’t often delude each other that they can make it work (again, the similarity to marriage is obvious), but at least they know those differences exist and can develop work-arounds or other strategies for dealing with them.

Ultimately, even after they fail and split up, Chained teams are often unforgettable, the stuff of legend. Certainly their achievements are part of it. But just as memorable is how they did it: two people, often at each other’s throats, resentful and jealous of any credit earned by the other, each feeling trapped in a miserable
relationship, their names forever linked, and any memory of one inextricable from that of the other . . . and yet, somehow, they create magic, some of it immortal. Who could ever forget encountering a relationship like that? It’s the stuff of memoirs—which only make that Chained pair even more famous.

4.0—HERE AND THERE:
“Here and There” duos are really a twenty-first-century phenomenon, the product of the Internet-enabled global economy, of the arrival of those two billion new consumers from the developing world into that economy, and of the competitive need to create customized solutions for all customers, new and old. The solution has been to create a pair-team that includes one member from a home office or headquarters and one member from the international front where the company is targeting its next marketing thrust. The headquarters partner represents the institutional memory and the culture of the company, and the field partner brings an understanding of the consumers, market, and community or country being targeted. In operation, the field partner provides the momentum of entering the market, while the headquarters partner guides that effort, making sure it is congruent with the company’s products and services, resources, and rules—and when it isn’t, making the case for the field partner’s strategy with the senior management. What ties them together and makes such a team possible is technology: the emergence of the Web, global communications, the cloud, and teleconferencing and telepresence.

PAIRS DEFINED BY SIMILARITY

5.0—TOGETHER, WE’RE MORE THAN TWO:
This is the first pair-team type that can be intentionally created. Indeed, given the low odds of two appropriate individuals finding each other, this pairing almost demands outside influence.

“Together, We’re More Than Two” teams are
fulfillment partnerships
; that is, these are pairs composed of two individuals whose lives or careers have remained incomplete and unfulfilled until they team up. These individuals are typically late bloomers who have certain limitations in their personalities or skills that they have little chance of overcoming through their own actions. Sometimes a limitation can be as simple as risk-aversion, anxiety, or a lack of nerve—which a partnership helps them overcome. The unlikely pairing of Darrell A. and Dave Z., those two obscure North Dakota high school track coaches who teamed up to set new records, is a paradigmatic example of such a fulfillment partnership.

It is crucial to note—to distinguish it from some of the other teams to follow—that this type of partnership consists of two individuals of comparable traits and attributes, . . . and who on their own have failed to reach their full potential. This is among the most homogenous of pairs.

Together, We’re More Than Two partnerships appear throughout history. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had mediocre solo careers in silent films until they teamed up and created one of the greatest comedy duos in cinema history. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were both computer nerds from a Seattle prep school, and all but indistinguishable at the start of Microsoft.

This type of partnership enables each partner to accomplish more than he or she could do alone. The return on the investment of time and energy required to create such duos can be enormous. After all, you are taking two “failures”—or, more accurately, employees who have fallen short of their potential—and turning both into top achievers. That’s a whole lot cheaper than going out and recruiting two superstars. Moreover, because these pairs really succeed only together, their members are drawn to maintain their relationship—or risk falling back to their old ways.

The biggest and inevitable risk for this type of team is the
resentments and jealousies that may crop up as each member starts to grow and change over time.

6.0—CASTOR AND POLLUX:
These are the “perfect partnerships,” the ideal teaming of individuals who are so much alike that they each can take on the other’s duties with barely a hitch.

The name comes from Greek mythology. Castor and Pollux (known in Latin as the Gemini) were twins who were so close that when the mortal Castor was dying, Zeus allowed Pollux to share his immortality, such that each spent alternate days on Mount Olympus and in Hades. Castor and Pollux pair-teams are the organizational version of soul mates—and they are just as desirable and just as rare. These partnerships can range from near clones—often taking the form of siblings, such as Orville and Wilbur Wright or George and Ira Gershwin—or very different people who still match each other in the details of their joint efforts, such as Bill Hewlett and David Packard, and Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

Such sibling or best friend pairs are the ultimate Castor and Pollux form. But more interesting are the less rare cases of duos that begin in one of the other pair-teams (such as a Yin and Yang) and then evolve to this higher level. So complete and mutually actualizing can these pairs become that they resemble less a partnership than a love affair or a long and happy marriage. Like lovers, these perfect duos, whatever their differences in personalities and behavior, exhibit (and, conversely, earn) an almost perfect trust in each other. A classic example of this was the partnership of Tom Perkins (flamboyant, mercurial) and Eugene Kleiner (humble and courtly), who together created the world’s most influential venture capital firm.

Castor and Pollux pairs, because they essentially erase all the natural friction between two individuals, can be uniquely powerful and effective. It isn’t just like doubling the intellectual attributes, talents, and capabilities found in a single individual, but instead like multiplying them. Such pairs can be remarkably creative and decisive,
and because (like the mythical twins) they can alternate focus and energy, they can also seem tireless.

Sometimes, depending on the nature of the work, Castor and Pollux pairs can be superfluous. You don’t necessarily need or want them on the loading dock or even in a sales office, but you probably very much want them in R&D or marketing or IT. On executive row? Probably not. But as chairman and CEO? Absolutely—such pairs may be the single best executive combination imaginable . . . and the names of these pairs would fill a hall of fame of American business: the aforementioned Hewlett and Packard, Larry Ellison and Ray Lane, Walt and Roy Disney, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, and so on.

Probably one reason these “executive-level” teams work so well is that the demands placed on leaders at the top of both fast-moving young start-ups and large public corporations are so great and so wide-ranging—strategy, day-to-day management, public relations, and so forth—that they are better handled by two individuals rather than one, especially if those two individuals are consistently of one mind, and have complete faith in each other’s judgment when they are not. Moreover, in the face of such extreme demands on their time and energy, these individuals can also occasionally spell each other without losing a step. Thus, when Packard was asked to go to Washington to serve as deputy secretary of defense, Hewlett stepped up to run the company solo—and HP’s employees, customers, and shareholders barely noticed the change. (Tellingly, and providing a glimpse into the emotional depth of these remarkable relationships, Hewlett broke down and wept in front of the company’s thousands of employees in making the announcement of Packard’s temporary departure.)

All of that said, Castor and Pollux teams aren’t flawless. For one thing, they can become hermetic—like the happily married couple whose relationship is so fulfilling and harmonious that
they even withdraw from past friendships and affiliations. Finally, the breakup of these perfect teams—through death or outside events—can be devastating. Just as the effectiveness of such pairs is not a consequence of the addition, but the multiplication, of the two personalities, so too is a breakup not a subtraction, but a division. The surviving member can experience something close to being divorced, even widowed, with long periods spent in depression, involving low productivity and a (usually failed) search for a replacement.

Probably the ultimate Castor and Pollux example, in all of its ups and downs and extraordinary achievements, is that of the Everly Brothers. Phil and Don Everly were children when they began to sing together on their parents’ country music radio show. By age twenty, they were already among the most successful singing duos in popular music history. It wasn’t just their legendary harmonies, or the remarkable songs by the likes of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant (another perfect pair; she actually dreamed of her future husband before she met him)—the Everlys looked alike and dressed alike, and for most of their first thirty years in this world they were all but inseparable.

As any rock or country music fan knows, that perfect partnership ended on July 14, 1973, at Knott’s Berry Farm in California, when, in a combination of drug abuse, exhaustion, and weariness of each other’s perpetual company, the Everlys broke up in the most public way imaginable—Don smashed his guitar on the stage and stormed off, leaving Phil to complete the show. Reportedly, the only time the two men spoke again over the next decade was at their father’s funeral. During those years, both men seemed lost and in a perpetual and sad search for a new partner. Finally, on September 23, 1983, in one of the most moving reunions in pop music history, the brothers settled their differences and appeared again as a duo at Royal Albert Hall—and restarted their partnership as if it had never ended.
¹

7.0—LIFEBOATS:
These are “rescue” partnerships. That is, they consist of pairs whose teaming up is perhaps each individual’s last chance at a career or personal survival. “Lifeboat” partnerships are a common trope in movies because of their inherent drama and their natural plot climax of success and redemption—think of the Sylvester Stallone and Burgess Meredith characters in the Rocky movies. When you hear the phrase “I’ve got no place left to go” or “You’re my last hope,” you are probably watching a Lifeboat movie.

In fiction, Lifeboat stories are almost always uplifting. That’s somewhat true in real life as well—though that is in part because we rarely hear about failed such partnerships. The most famous, or at least the most influential, Lifeboat story of modern times is probably that of Bill Wilson and Robert Smith, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. As the story goes, Bill Wilson (“Bill W.”) was struggling to stay sober while on a business trip to Akron, Ohio, in January 1935. In desperation, Wilson called some local ministers who might know of any alcoholics. Wilson was put in touch with Dr. Robert Smith (“Dr. Bob”), a notorious Akron drunk who hadn’t yet achieved sobriety. The two met at Smith’s house, and from that first encounter, the two men—both of whom had nearly lost their families and careers to drink—teamed up to create Alcoholics Anonymous. Together, the two men not only established the most successful sobriety program ever, one that is now found in almost every country around the world, but also stayed sober the rest of their lives.

Lifeboat pairs present an interesting problem. On the one hand, they can produce impressive results—certainly greater than the sum of their two busted parts. But, on the other hand, since the starting point is so low, their results may not be, in the end, that impressive of an achievement—especially if you end up paying two salaries to get what you might find with just one person without black marks on his or her résumé, and posing much less of a risk.