On January 6, 2011, Noel Johnson announced that he was leaving the Clemson basketball team. Johnson is a very talented player and his departure left the team short-handed, but Clemson is a better team because of it. That happens sometimes in business, too.
Business is a team sport and when things are going well it’s wonderful to behold. As Art Petty put it:
Talent is important, but it doesn’t need to be great talent, just enough. Years ago I played on an All Star basketball team that toured parts of the Midwest. We played two kinds of teams, other all star teams and teams which had played together all season. The teams who had played together were far tougher. The individual players might not have been as talented as the all star teams, but by playing together they got better results.
Sometimes a star player can be more of a problem than a help. The problem can come from a poor fit, like Noel Johnson and Clemson, or sometimes stars get arrogant and stupid. For an example consider Randy Moss, described this way in Dashiell Bennett’s post, “Why Chemistry is More Important than Talent.”
“For years he’s been regarded as one of the most exciting and dynamic athletes to ever play football. Still, not only has he been cut loose by two NFL teams in four weeks, but when all 32 teams were given a chance to pick him up on waivers, only one team thought he was a valuable addition to their roster.”
Talent is important, for sure. But talent that doesn’t fit or, worse, talent that disrupts operations and dissolves morale, is a very bad thing indeed.
