Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations (30 page)

Healthy, Successful Teams

Healthy, successful teams will prove the most difficult to manage. The members of the team know what they’ve accomplished, and they’ve had a satisfying time doing so. Unlike the members of unhealthy, successful teams, all the members know that they are good at what they do, that they made substantial individual contributions, and that they deserve to be properly rewarded.

For that reason, you will have a tough time keeping this team together. First of all, thanks to salary increases, the cost of operating this team in the future will be much higher. Second, the Peter Principle will soon be at work, as the team members start getting promotions to better jobs (for which they may or may not be suited). This will be especially the case for the team leader: successful team leadership—in business, in science, in the military—is almost always the prerequisite for advancement to senior management. (The good news is that you’ll likely be promoted too.) Finally, news of the success will hardly be confined to your own organization, and it won’t be long before some of those team members will be recruited by other divisions in your company and by competitors. In some cases, team members will decide to become entrepreneurs and start their own companies.

This can be disappointing; but it can also be good news. Healthy, successful teams can be lucky too. And because a team managed to remain healthy and achieve success on one project, the odds that it will do the same the next time around are only increased—they aren’t guaranteed. Indeed, the best strategy at the end of one of
these teams may be to accept the inevitable and allow it to break up—but to do so in a managed and strategic way.

That is, let the team leader get promoted; it’s probably best for the company’s future anyway. But identify the other team members with the most managerial talent, and make them the leaders of new teams pursuing new goals. With luck, you will multiply the success and functionality of the original team, as the new team leaders pass on what they’ve learned about winning. Then take the other members of the original team and place them in other teams that have a high chance of success in the hope that they will push those teams over the line to victory. This may seem counterintuitive: If a team is already likely to be successful, why waste on it the talents of another winner, when that person could instead be used to turn around, or at least improve the odds, of a failing team? Two reasons:

•
      
You go for the win. Life doesn’t offer that many wins, so you take them when you can. You are better off achieving a guaranteed victory, especially one that accomplishes more than expected, than trying to push a failing team over the finish line.

•
      
Failure breeds failure as much as success breeds success. Adding a winner to a failing team rarely turns things around, as the team is failing either because it can’t win in a changed environment, or because it is unhealthy, in which case the newcomer has almost no chance of turning it around. Either way, those teams, as we’ve already noted, should be
shut down
, not be transformed into a black hole for time and resources trying to resuscitate them.

Handled properly, a healthy and successful team can become the farm team for a whole host of new teams that carry with them the parent team’s DNA and that, with luck, are just as healthy and successful.

L’ENVOI

Why, after nearly a quarter millennium, does the story of Washington’s farewell at Fraunces Tavern still resonate so deeply?

One obvious reason is that, combined with General Washington’s official retirement before the Continental Congress a few days later, the farewells mark a major historical turning point in Western civilization. Much more so than now, the officers and delegates at those two gatherings knew their history—and that the last victorious general who had laid down his sword and submitted to the dictates of an elected legislature had been the Roman consul Cincinnatus. On learning the news, even King George III, the ruler defeated by Washington, was heard to mutter, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” And he was.

But we think it is more than that. After more than two centuries of living in a democracy, we Americans (and the citizens of those nations with leaders, like Nelson Mandela, who followed Washington’s lead) have grown comparatively inured to the bounties of democracy. What was a thunderbolt to the officers in Fraunces Tavern—many of whom still wanted the general to declare himself king—is just everyday life today.

No, what appeals to us about that moment is that
we wish we could have been part of that team
. That feeling is best captured in the famous illustration of that day, in which Washington embraces a weeping officer who is so distraught that he has buried his face in the general’s shoulder, while circled around them a dozen other officers bow their heads or wipe their eyes.

Life is short and our chances to do something great are few, and, as we hope this book has convinced you, the best chance for doing so is as part of a team of smart, hardworking people—a team of genius—working together in harmony to create something greater than themselves.

Those officers at Fraunces Tavern—George Washington’s team
of senior officers and his headquarters staff—had done just that, and in the process they had accomplished as much as any team in history. They had taken on the world’s most powerful army and greatest empire, and beaten it. In seven years, they had literally changed the trajectory of human history, and for the better. And they had done so not only against impossible odds but against a third of the local population and, in Washington’s case, against both a stingy Continental Congress and even some of his own generals. They had held together through the worst times imaginable—the Battle of Long Island, Valley Forge, the winter of 1779–80. And despite that, they had emerged victorious, with military successes culminating in “the world turned upside down” at Yorktown.

Many of the original team members were now gone—dead, sick, captured—and one reason the general may have composed the moment as he did was that there were some new and perhaps unfamiliar faces in the crowd. As homogenous as the team now looked, especially in their buff-and-blue uniforms, anyone who had seen them at the beginning of the war would have known how diverse they really were: Southern aristocrats, New England merchants, college students, new immigrants like Alexander Hamilton and “Baron” von Steuben. Even Washington’s generals comprised an amazing range of personalities: profane backwoods warrior Dan Morgan, studious bookseller Henry Knox, Quaker Nathaniel Greene, the French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette.

Somehow—it seemed miraculous even to his contemporaries—Washington had not only held them all together, but also turned them into a formidable army that, at Cowpens and Monmouth, had gone toe to toe with the world’s best soldiers and beaten them. Across the colonies, Washington had sent these generals, entrusting them to do their tasks independently—and then, in the end, he had brought everything together on a peninsula in Virginia and sealed the victory. Through all of this, the general had also protected his troops from slaughter, represented their interests against
a mercurial Congress, dealt with the demands of a strategic partner (the French navy), established an intelligence apparatus that supplied key information about the opposition, and regularly taken greater risks than the people he led. Where everyone else at some point wavered, the general alone stood firm, unleashed his titanic temper only when premeditated and useful, and put on one of the greatest “performances” of a leader ever seen.

And now it was all ending on a perfect note. The team had done everything it said it would. And now its leader was fulfilling his most important promise to the team and to the people for whom the team worked (the citizens of the new United States of America). Already one team member, General Knox, had organized an alumni group (the Society of Cincinnatus) with the boss’s blessing, a group that would still be led by the team members’ descendants more than two centuries later.

Most of the team members stayed in touch for the rest of their lives, not least because their singular achievement was the subject of endless celebrations. They would also visit their old boss at the office and at his home for the rest of his life. And when it was time, six years later, to build his next team—his presidential administration—General Washington would draw on many members of that original team, notably Knox (secretary of war) and Hamilton (secretary of the treasury).

Once again, Washington would lead this new-old team to great things, and they in turn would remain intensely loyal to him. As the end of this second team approached, and with it the end of Washington’s public life, the team members began positioning themselves against each other for their future careers. But even in the intense competition that followed, they maintained their allegiance to their late leader’s legacy, keeping it alive for another generation—long enough to set the former colonies on the path to being the most successful and enduring republic in history.

In an era in which we obsessively collect and share “best practices,”
the group gathered at Fraunces Tavern on that December afternoon still stands as the very model of a great and successful team. But just as important—and this too is a lesson—this team was far from perfect. As noted, it lost far more battles than it won. Their leader was so inexperienced that he almost wrecked the team on multiple occasions. And, incredibly, the team had at least one traitor (Benedict Arnold), and maybe two (Charles Lee), in its midst. Even their employer faced bankruptcy (and capture, imprisonment, and execution) on multiple occasions.

And yet, against all odds, this team succeeded—it, and its leader,
learned
how to win—and its victory was so complete and so extraordinary that it still rings down through history.

Whatever our dreams and ambitions, it is highly unlikely that any of us will be part of a team as important and successful as the leadership of the Continental Army. And as team leaders, we would be wildly presumptuous to compare ourselves to George Washington, one of the greatest figures of the last millennium. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot aspire to be the best possible leaders of the healthiest and most successful teams.

Revolutionary America needed a great natural leader and a whole lot of luck. Against all odds, it got both. But in twenty-first-century America, and in other developed nations throughout the world, teams, big and small, fleeting and enduring, don’t need luck (well, perhaps a little). We now have decades of precedent and example to learn from. More than ever before, we can determine not just the optimal team size but also the best team
type
.

Equally important, we now have more than a decade of deep empirical research into the psychological, sociological, and anthropological heart of successful (and unsuccessful) teams. And in the next few years, as digital technology comes to bear, we may even have assistance in team member recruitment.

Finally, we now also have, more than ever before, an understanding of the life cycle of teams. We also, for the first time, have a
template for the different phases in this life cycle, and crucial clues about how to lead a team through each of them in turn, as well as through the difficult transitions to the next phase.

The teams in which we work, and the teams we lead, may not change the world. But they can make the world a better place, make our company (and everyone who depends on it) more successful and secure, and give ourselves and our teammates a more rewarding and fulfilling career. And most of all, we can increase the odds of our team’s success. Given all of that, why wouldn’t we want to apply the latest discoveries and experiences about teams to our own lives and careers? Why wouldn’t we want to create and be part of teams of genius?

Not every team can do something great. But every team can
be
great. Even if we can’t be at Fraunces Tavern in 1783, we can be at our own team’s final party someday in the future, celebrating our victory, making teary promises to stay in touch with each other, and, best of all, knowing that the last few months, or years, of our lives have been well spent.

And who doesn’t want that?

Rich

This book would not have the depth of research, in chapters two through five especially, if not for the work of Faiiza Rashid, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Business School. Thanks to Jeff Leeson of Benson-Collister for the introduction to Faiiza, and for his invaluable advice on the book’s organization. Thanks also to Professor Amy Edmundson of Harvard Business School.

To my coauthor Mike Malone, Silicon Valley’s most gifted writer and knowledgeable historian.
Team Genius
marks the latest of many collaborations with Mike, beginning with
Upside
magazine in the 1980s and continuing through
Forbes
ASAP in 1990s, when we tricked the great Tom Wolfe into writing a 9,000-word grand essay (“Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died”) for a tiny fee. To future capers and collaborations, Mike!

There is no better book agent than Jim Levine, who, once he believes in you, can sell a project faster than anyone. Thanks for believing in us, Jim, and for saving us the drudge of a long and tedious proposal. Thanks to superstar editor Hollis Heimbouch and to Eric Meyers and Joanna Pinsker of Harper Business.

I’d like to thank Steve Forbes and his brothers Kip, Bob, and Tim for welcoming me aboard a new world back when
Forbes
Magazine was seventy-five years old, and to Mike Perlis for navigating this ship toward our hundredth anniversary in 2017. To T. C. Yam, Wayne
Hsieh, and Sammy Wong for their wise stewardship and guidance. To George Gilder, who taught me to think exponentially, and to Danny Stern, who said I had the chops to be a professional speaker.

My patient wife, Marji, and kids, Katie and Peter, must wonder whether I’m writing my
Forbes
Innovation Rules column, the next book . . . or else sneaking a peek at Real Clear Sports or aviation websites . . . when I’m in my home office, half-supine on my Relax The Back recliner, with my laptop on a thick pillow and drugstore reading glasses on my nose. My wonderful family puts up with me, and I’m grateful.

Mike

To Rich’s recognition of Faiiza and Jeff I add my own. Their talents and hard work took this book to a level the two of us could not have reached without them.

As Rich noted, this book marks thirty years of collaboration—creating controversies, putting out some of the best magazine issues of the era, and now, after all of these years, writing our first book together. I hope it’s just a prelude to even more fun in the years to come.

Speaking of teams, being part of a trio now for the last seven years with Hollis Heimbauch as my editor and Jim Levine as my agent (in Jim’s case, for another decade before that) has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. I consider myself very lucky to be able to work with the two best people in their professions—and grateful they were willing to break that rule to work with me. Eric Meyer has now kept me on track for four books (no easy task), and Joanna Pinsker is the best publishing house publicist I have ever worked with, bar none.

At the Malone household, professional writing has now moved on to the next, fifth generation. I hope that the family’s newest writer finds the same wonderful teammates on his books as I have found with this one.