I always roll my eyes internally when I hear people talking about how they only hire A-players.
The way I see it, you want A-players in certain positions where their performance and influence drives the company forward - "moves the needle", to use a clichė. You don't want A-players in mundane/support roles because they'll end up getting frustrated and likely become disruptive (the exception is when you put an A-player in a support role so she can learn the ropes/basics before you move them to the role you actually want them to fulfil).
Doesn't that perfectly describe Google? I mean, plenty of A players, not enough A player work to go around, at least what I have read from Michael Church.
Some nuance should be applied here: this is usually said in the context of startups.
In the first few years of a startup, there's no such thing as a mundane support role. The first person you hire for support is your future "VP Customer Support". The first few people will form the support culture and processes of a company for the future.
In this context, all hires should be A-players, because they are supposed to contribute way more than just fulfil the role in their job description.
If someone becomes disruptive when they get frustrated, then they are not an A player.
Part of being an "A player" is to be professional, including in their communications and behavior. IF they are having problems with their role, speaking to someone about it and getting the problems resolved is appropriate, not disrupting the business.
Most businesses that pride themselves on hiring only the "best" are of course not doing so, but merely using such phrases to boost the morale of the mediocre body of wage slaves they have on staff. If they truly hired the best, their salaries would be the best. The harsh reality is that most people are close to average. And that's OK. You don't need to be a genius to churn out the next incremental update of a SAP IDOC.
It's like the term "competitive salary" in a programming advertisement. Sure. If you had a competitive salary I'd be hearing about you from my friends, not reading your job advertisement.
I really don't agree with this. I think a lot of people can be exceptional alone, if they direct their efforts towards that, more so if they have coaches, support structures, etc. But it similarly requires a kind of intelligence and the same levels of a different kind of effort, to work effectively with a group.
It's a kind of collective intelligence, almost like trusting your arm to always throw the ball in the way you have practiced, you have to trust that your team mates will be able to compute or think or calculate in ways that you simply don't have time for, or don't know how to know how to do, because there aren't 10 yous, and even if there were 10 yous, you'd probably be blinding yourself half the time you try to lead yourself.
The difference between a good director / lead / manager and a bad one is stark.
I don't think it's hard to turn a single person into a star. I think it's really hard to keep people motivated on a unified goal, keep all those people thinking about what needs to be built, while none of that thinking contributes to egocentricity, passive aggressiveness, defeatist attitudes, etc. There is so much conflict that creates tiny little cracks through an otherwise solid foundation of skill, but all those cracks can add up. Do you spend that five minutes solving a problem with your SAP coworker or do you spend that five minutes grabbing coffee and grumbling to yourself about what an idiot that guy is? For people who are aware of the cracks and go out of their way to fix them, instead of stampeding over others with their supposed skill and intelligence. I mean I would be an idiot if I ignored all the times my ego got in the way of my success, and I would likewise be an idiot if I ignored the fact that I must be aware of all of my social inadequacies, and I must be willing to continue to learn from them, if I actually want to succeed.
Working in teams is completely different from working alone, and working in teams is more than being able to do your part. Working in teams while programming is being psychologically extremely close to all your teammates, whether you realize it or not. There's some stuff that you just have to be able to sync together with and then discard, without even really realizing what happened. Half of the things people wind up arguing about, those things wind up being hilarious when looked at in retrospect, if they are overcome. It's hard to even understand how one could both simultaneously suppress and ignore their social emotional connectivity while acting as though it does not exist, when it clearly does. We like to think we are these efficient, effective, calculating machines, but we aren't. This is a big reason as to why work experience is more valuable than intellectual or educational experience.
I really think the mediocrity of development occurs with otherwise extremely intelligent people, people capable of solving huge variation of technical and conceptual problems, it comes from those people continuously thinking that it is their intellectual and technical skill that needs to be constantly improved and updated, rather than confronting how much time is literally wasted on poor communication, difficulty resolving social conflicts, and rolling your eyes at every motivational, team building activity. You either like the people you work with or you don't, and some people are unfortunately very dependent on jobs they chose out of necessity, rather than jobs they chose because those jobs and those people make that person happy. Whether you cut people some slack when they need it, you apologize when you make mistakes, or you ignore those things and act like a mini tyrant, these things make big differences. It's often not when we are at are best that determines the success of a team, but much of the time when we are at our worst.
I can see how this can be true. I've seen a team of "star" programmers fail massively on what should be a simple project. They over designed, they used all the new and latest, framework, language, plus spent all their time reinventing the wheel. They forgot about time/budget constraint.
Meanwhile, a much less talented scrappy team, just figures, "Hey!, we ain't so smart so we are going to get all the help we can" No new technology, just small established libraries and simple design, KISS, and what do you know? they shipped!
You can load up your sales team with talented sales agent and see massive output, they don't need much team interaction. But a dev team? If they are super smart, the problem better be tough or they will invent new problems to solve.
...and Agile is mostly about restraining enthusiasm to small, testable efforts. Which causes much moaning and misery among the most talented developers.
What we need is, some kind of process that sorts the ambitious parts to the talented/experienced devs, and the rote jobs to the new folks. Let the horses run!
I'm not sure how this applies to football (soccer). As far as I can see, Barcelona have the most superstar team in world football, and are winning everything. The next two teams with the most superstars (Madrid and Munich) are winning everything else.
Also, isn't this impossible, too? A team that wins everything over a long period will by default have their players considered superstars.
Barcelona has an undeniable king above all superstars, Messi. This give perspective to all others, Neymar and Suarez just know Messi is better. And the last batch of BCN superstars were formed by stars whose play style was inherently teamworking: Iniesta and Xavi were midfielders whose biggest strenght was prepare the game for others.
And Barcelona have always had its share of average, but impressively dedicated team players, like Puyol, Piquet and others.
Real Madrid isnt the same and do not have the same performance as well.
Yeah there's limit to the logic, but it's also known that summing the best parts (in isolation) mean you will have the best product. The opposite is also true, Messi doesn't shine as much with the national selection, he needs his other team mates to be at its best.
> A team that wins everything over a long period will by default have their players considered superstars.
I find the conclusions made by this paper to be dubious. Perhaps the reporting is weak and did not properly delve into the methodology used by the authors of the paper to draw their conclusions. But based on the article, couldn't it be possible that teams that have the higher percentage of superstars opted to load up on star players and therefore had less resources to flesh out the rest of the team. What would be the point of having let's say five or six world class players in soccer if you can only recruit below average players for the rest of the positions.
Interestingly, both the study and the article in question don't mention one of the most famous examples of an "all-star team," the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team, who won gold and led at an average of 44 points per game.[1]
The study measures success over a period of many years, but perhaps there really is no substitute for an "all-star team" when you need to get shit done in a short period of time (as in startup culture).
I would argue that this is deeply correlated with the reward structure. If you only have rockstars but they are rewarded must strongly due to individual accomplishments they will tend to lower the team play, if instead the rewarding is more calibrated twards team achievements, then there will be much less worriying on who is getting credit for what. Thus increasing collaboration. (I am assuming that the entire team is mainly A players and Bs are filtered out, thus there isn't too much variance in individual productivity)
You want to gather the most talented and hardest working individuals with the combined skills that you need that can also work well together as a group. Sometimes skill trumps group dynamic and sometimes group dynamic trumps skill. Your job when assembling a team is to make those judgement calls. It's not difficult to understand.
One of the interesting corollaries to this is that the right person for a role at one point in a company / product is not necessarily the right person at a future time.
For example, the rogue / maverick type can be very important at early stages. They drive innovation, take risks, and get absurd amounts of things done. But, later that same risk taking can become absolutely destructive.
There is a good reason why millions of years of evolution has created a minority of "talented" people. Societies need super-talented people and leaders (these are often not the same people, btw), but it also needs legions of pedestrian followers. Troops. Individually, each troop is not very impressive, but as a collective, they are what makes a vision happen.
[+] [-] jackgavigan|10 years ago|reply
The way I see it, you want A-players in certain positions where their performance and influence drives the company forward - "moves the needle", to use a clichė. You don't want A-players in mundane/support roles because they'll end up getting frustrated and likely become disruptive (the exception is when you put an A-player in a support role so she can learn the ropes/basics before you move them to the role you actually want them to fulfil).
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makeitsuckless|10 years ago|reply
In the first few years of a startup, there's no such thing as a mundane support role. The first person you hire for support is your future "VP Customer Support". The first few people will form the support culture and processes of a company for the future.
In this context, all hires should be A-players, because they are supposed to contribute way more than just fulfil the role in their job description.
[+] [-] codingdave|10 years ago|reply
Part of being an "A player" is to be professional, including in their communications and behavior. IF they are having problems with their role, speaking to someone about it and getting the problems resolved is appropriate, not disrupting the business.
[+] [-] draugadrotten|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicallee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ai2389ca|10 years ago|reply
It's a kind of collective intelligence, almost like trusting your arm to always throw the ball in the way you have practiced, you have to trust that your team mates will be able to compute or think or calculate in ways that you simply don't have time for, or don't know how to know how to do, because there aren't 10 yous, and even if there were 10 yous, you'd probably be blinding yourself half the time you try to lead yourself.
The difference between a good director / lead / manager and a bad one is stark.
I don't think it's hard to turn a single person into a star. I think it's really hard to keep people motivated on a unified goal, keep all those people thinking about what needs to be built, while none of that thinking contributes to egocentricity, passive aggressiveness, defeatist attitudes, etc. There is so much conflict that creates tiny little cracks through an otherwise solid foundation of skill, but all those cracks can add up. Do you spend that five minutes solving a problem with your SAP coworker or do you spend that five minutes grabbing coffee and grumbling to yourself about what an idiot that guy is? For people who are aware of the cracks and go out of their way to fix them, instead of stampeding over others with their supposed skill and intelligence. I mean I would be an idiot if I ignored all the times my ego got in the way of my success, and I would likewise be an idiot if I ignored the fact that I must be aware of all of my social inadequacies, and I must be willing to continue to learn from them, if I actually want to succeed.
Working in teams is completely different from working alone, and working in teams is more than being able to do your part. Working in teams while programming is being psychologically extremely close to all your teammates, whether you realize it or not. There's some stuff that you just have to be able to sync together with and then discard, without even really realizing what happened. Half of the things people wind up arguing about, those things wind up being hilarious when looked at in retrospect, if they are overcome. It's hard to even understand how one could both simultaneously suppress and ignore their social emotional connectivity while acting as though it does not exist, when it clearly does. We like to think we are these efficient, effective, calculating machines, but we aren't. This is a big reason as to why work experience is more valuable than intellectual or educational experience.
I really think the mediocrity of development occurs with otherwise extremely intelligent people, people capable of solving huge variation of technical and conceptual problems, it comes from those people continuously thinking that it is their intellectual and technical skill that needs to be constantly improved and updated, rather than confronting how much time is literally wasted on poor communication, difficulty resolving social conflicts, and rolling your eyes at every motivational, team building activity. You either like the people you work with or you don't, and some people are unfortunately very dependent on jobs they chose out of necessity, rather than jobs they chose because those jobs and those people make that person happy. Whether you cut people some slack when they need it, you apologize when you make mistakes, or you ignore those things and act like a mini tyrant, these things make big differences. It's often not when we are at are best that determines the success of a team, but much of the time when we are at our worst.
[+] [-] segmondy|10 years ago|reply
Meanwhile, a much less talented scrappy team, just figures, "Hey!, we ain't so smart so we are going to get all the help we can" No new technology, just small established libraries and simple design, KISS, and what do you know? they shipped!
You can load up your sales team with talented sales agent and see massive output, they don't need much team interaction. But a dev team? If they are super smart, the problem better be tough or they will invent new problems to solve.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|10 years ago|reply
What we need is, some kind of process that sorts the ambitious parts to the talented/experienced devs, and the rote jobs to the new folks. Let the horses run!
[+] [-] summerdown2|10 years ago|reply
Also, isn't this impossible, too? A team that wins everything over a long period will by default have their players considered superstars.
[+] [-] soneca|10 years ago|reply
And Barcelona have always had its share of average, but impressively dedicated team players, like Puyol, Piquet and others.
Real Madrid isnt the same and do not have the same performance as well.
[+] [-] agumonkey|10 years ago|reply
> A team that wins everything over a long period will by default have their players considered superstars.
I was about to conclude like you.
[+] [-] ingenieros|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikkev|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blackkettle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allencoin|10 years ago|reply
The study measures success over a period of many years, but perhaps there really is no substitute for an "all-star team" when you need to get shit done in a short period of time (as in startup culture).
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_States_men%27s_Oly...
[+] [-] dkarapetyan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fmsf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsdpython|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkjv|10 years ago|reply
For example, the rogue / maverick type can be very important at early stages. They drive innovation, take risks, and get absurd amounts of things done. But, later that same risk taking can become absolutely destructive.
[+] [-] vegabook|10 years ago|reply
Here's a recent example of an overtalented hornet's nest: https://www.trumid.com/Team.aspx
I give them 6 months.
[+] [-] stdbrouw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diego_moita|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] known|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]