Ok let me argue the toss here. We know some people are dramatically better at somethings that others. Sports make this perfectly visible to everyone. So we can expect people to be 10x better at something than someone else who is "good" at it. Professional/amateur football (soccer) shows us this every weekend.
The 10x individuals your are talking about here seem to be some kind of power mad, individually focused cohort that might be "rockstars" and "divas" all at the same time. You know, people like Steve Jobs, hell to work with but capable of greatness. I don't think those people work well in most teams, at the end of the day, to be Steve J you also need to be able to influence and control, in all other cases you are just a loud arrogant noise.
For me, the most important thing in teams I run is a lack of ego and a sense of passion for the business outcome. Preferably a very underdeveloped "everyone must do it this way, I'm right" attitude too.
I don't believe your multiplication example scales where compared to addition - I don't believe you'd get higher multiples across the gamut of tasks developers need to do in a consistent way. In other words: I believe great processes, architecture and planning can probably double or triple the performance of a team and you should strive for this, but not at the expense of saying no one can be dramatically better than anyone else and trying to slow them down because you think this.
I think a leader should accommodate the skills of the team, if someone is massively more productive use it; don't fire everyone else and try to hire a full team of people as productive as this unusually good developer; and don't slow this person down and wrap them in red tape. Leading here is about ensuring the individual participates as a member of the team and the team performs as well as possible.
Everyone on a soccer team can score a goal, but it's mostly strikers that do. They won't be able to do that without the rest of the team doing their part too.
Thanks for such a well-thought comment. I love how it complements the article and I very much agree with what you say. People can be outstanding at something and it's great to have such a star in your team. And I'd never equalize the team to the lowest common denominator, by avoiding hiring such stars or slowing them down.
The "divas" are real, though. There are players who risk tricky shots instead of passing the ball, for the sake of their own stats and stardom. And there are players who use their star power to motivate, mentor, and challenge their colleagues, boosting the performance of the whole team. So I couldn't agree more that running a team with a passion for the business outcome and a lack of ego is a critical job of a manager.
The only thing I'd argue about is that multiplication doesn't scale. I believe it scales a lot and not only for process, architecture, and planning, but also for motivation, training, tooling, communication, focusing on the outcomes, and many other areas. Imagine implementing a design system that speeds-up building new UIs by 30% in a company with 300 developers. You'd have to be a 90x dev to match that impact. (Plus be able to understand the context of several dozens of projects and communicate with tens of stakeholders at once.)
The sports analogy starts to break a bit when it comes to scaling because sport teams are small. The better analogy here is military. For a force of hundreds or thousands, tactics, supply chain, intelligence, and equipment trump the number of Rambo-like supersoldiers in the force.
That said, a military is also a great example of an emphasis on individual training, so I again agree with you that understanding and accommodating the skills of team members is an important job of a manager. And boosting the performance of the team doesn't have to come at a cost of limiting individual performance. However, if they conflict, the team performance wins.
Yes I've definitely met the divas, and the worst of those are people who are just zealots and think that they are cleverer than everyone else, but are really just highly opionated - often about something that isn't end user focused.
I also hesitated to write my initial comment because I know the point you are making and agree with it. I've been a startup CTO since 2000 and have been successful and unsuccessful at building products. Because of my preferences and my style I'm better suited to directing smaller teams and to accommodate this I've usually created smaller Team sized independent squads - but that's just not an option for many businesses.
Ok let me argue the toss here. We know some people are dramatically better at somethings that others. Sports make this perfectly visible to everyone. So we can expect people to be 10x better at something than someone else who is "good" at it. Professional/amateur football (soccer) shows us this every weekend.
The 10x individuals your are talking about here seem to be some kind of power mad, individually focused cohort that might be "rockstars" and "divas" all at the same time. You know, people like Steve Jobs, hell to work with but capable of greatness. I don't think those people work well in most teams, at the end of the day, to be Steve J you also need to be able to influence and control, in all other cases you are just a loud arrogant noise.
For me, the most important thing in teams I run is a lack of ego and a sense of passion for the business outcome. Preferably a very underdeveloped "everyone must do it this way, I'm right" attitude too.
I don't believe your multiplication example scales where compared to addition - I don't believe you'd get higher multiples across the gamut of tasks developers need to do in a consistent way. In other words: I believe great processes, architecture and planning can probably double or triple the performance of a team and you should strive for this, but not at the expense of saying no one can be dramatically better than anyone else and trying to slow them down because you think this.
I think a leader should accommodate the skills of the team, if someone is massively more productive use it; don't fire everyone else and try to hire a full team of people as productive as this unusually good developer; and don't slow this person down and wrap them in red tape. Leading here is about ensuring the individual participates as a member of the team and the team performs as well as possible.
Everyone on a soccer team can score a goal, but it's mostly strikers that do. They won't be able to do that without the rest of the team doing their part too.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for such a well-thought comment. I love how it complements the article and I very much agree with what you say. People can be outstanding at something and it's great to have such a star in your team. And I'd never equalize the team to the lowest common denominator, by avoiding hiring such stars or slowing them down.
The "divas" are real, though. There are players who risk tricky shots instead of passing the ball, for the sake of their own stats and stardom. And there are players who use their star power to motivate, mentor, and challenge their colleagues, boosting the performance of the whole team. So I couldn't agree more that running a team with a passion for the business outcome and a lack of ego is a critical job of a manager.
The only thing I'd argue about is that multiplication doesn't scale. I believe it scales a lot and not only for process, architecture, and planning, but also for motivation, training, tooling, communication, focusing on the outcomes, and many other areas. Imagine implementing a design system that speeds-up building new UIs by 30% in a company with 300 developers. You'd have to be a 90x dev to match that impact. (Plus be able to understand the context of several dozens of projects and communicate with tens of stakeholders at once.)
The sports analogy starts to break a bit when it comes to scaling because sport teams are small. The better analogy here is military. For a force of hundreds or thousands, tactics, supply chain, intelligence, and equipment trump the number of Rambo-like supersoldiers in the force.
That said, a military is also a great example of an emphasis on individual training, so I again agree with you that understanding and accommodating the skills of team members is an important job of a manager. And boosting the performance of the team doesn't have to come at a cost of limiting individual performance. However, if they conflict, the team performance wins.
Yes I've definitely met the divas, and the worst of those are people who are just zealots and think that they are cleverer than everyone else, but are really just highly opionated - often about something that isn't end user focused.
I also hesitated to write my initial comment because I know the point you are making and agree with it. I've been a startup CTO since 2000 and have been successful and unsuccessful at building products. Because of my preferences and my style I'm better suited to directing smaller teams and to accommodate this I've usually created smaller Team sized independent squads - but that's just not an option for many businesses.
Makes perfect sense. And I'm glad that you decided to comment. It was a great discussion! 🙇