<p>Many stories have a lone person, who is unknown but eventually becomes a hero due to his years of toiling and getting success. We like to think of this ‘heroic’ feat as something done <em>exclusively</em> by the hero.</p>
<p>The role of the team, the other people that are not in the frame is often overlooked. <strong>Any important achievement cannot be done alone, and if we look closely, a person is a product of the education system, society, environment, luck, the internet and a lot more.</strong></p>

The A Player

Teamwork

Leadership

<p>The job of a leader is to get the right team, which according to an estimate provides <strong>three times more output than an average team</strong>.</p>
<p>The work of a leader isn’t as simple as hiring the best talent, and merely putting smart people together as a team is <strong>not</strong> an effective strategy.</p>

The Leader With A Team

<p><strong>Any combination of individual intelligence does not make an intelligent group</strong>, no matter how logical it sounds on paper.</p>
<p>The ‘A’ Players, the cream of individual intelligence, bring in drive, integrity and the ability to mentor, but all of which is not possible without the collective effort of other players of the team, who are not A players.</p>

Individual Intelligence Vs Group Intelligence

<!DOCTYPE html><html>
<body>
  <div>
    <header>
      <div>
        <div>
          <a href="/"><svg>
<style>.st0{fill:#CC3232;}</style>
<path></path>
</svg>

</a>
        </div>
        <ul>
                                    <li><a href="/blog/">Articles</a></li>
                          <li><a href="/books/">Books</a></li>
                          <li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter</a></li>
                          <li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast</a></li>
                                              <li><a href="/membership"> Community</a></li>
            
                              <li>
                    <a href="https://fs.blog/?memberful_endpoint=auth">Member Login</a>
                  </li>
                                <li><a href="/search"><i></i></a></li>  
              </ul>

              <div>
                <a href="#"><div></div></a>
                <nav>
                  <div>
                    <ul>
                                                                        <li><a href="/blog/">Articles</a></li>
                                                  <li><a href="/books/">Books</a></li>
                                                  <li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter</a></li>
                                                  <li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast</a></li>
                                                                                                                      <li><a href="https://fs.blog/members/">Member Login</a></li>
                                                                    <li><a href="/search">Search</a></li>  
                    </ul>  
                  </div>
                </nav>
              </div>
            </div>
          </header> 
          <div><div>
	<main>
		<div>
			<div>
									<ul>
													<li><a href="/mental-models/">Mental Models</a></li>	
													<li><a href="/smart-decisions/">Decision Making</a></li>	
													<li><a href="/reading/">Reading Better</a></li>	
													<li><a href="/best-articles/">Best Articles</a></li>	
													<li><a href="/random-articles">Random Article</a></li>	
													<li><a href="/tags/">Tags</a></li>	
											</ul>
							</div>
		</div> 
		<div>
			<div>
			</div>
		</div> 
		<div>
			<div>
				<div>
											<div>
							<div><span><a href="https://fs.blog/blog/">Blog</a></span><span>  </span><span><a href="https://fs.blog/category/thought-and-opinion/">Thought and Opinion</a></span><span>  </span><span><span>The Importance of Working With “A” Players</span></span></div>						</div>
										<div>
													<article>

<div>

<h1>The Importance of Working With “A” Players</h1>
<div>

<span>Reading Time:  3 minutes</span>
</div>
</div>

<div>
<p>Stop me if this sounds familiar. There is a person who toils alone for years in relative obscurity before finally cracking the code to become a hero. The myth of the lone genius. It’s the stuff of Disney movies.</p>
<p>Of course, we all have moments when we’re alone and something suddenly clicks. We’d do well to remember, though, that in those moments, we are not as independent as we like to think. The people we surround ourselves with matter.</p>
<p>In part, because we tell ourselves the story of the lone genius, we under-appreciate the role of a team. Sure, the individual matters, no doubt. However, the individual contributions are supercharged by the team around them.</p>
<p>We operate in a world where it’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything great as an individual.  When you think about it, you’re the product of an education system, a healthcare system, luck, roads, the internet and so much more. You may be smart but you’re not self-made. And at work, most important achievements require a team of people working together.</p>
<p>The leader’s job is to get the team right. Getting the team right means that people are better as a group than as individuals. Now this is important.  Step back and think about that for a second — the right teams make every individual better than they would be on their own.</p>
<p>Another way to think about this is in terms of energy. If you have 12 people on a team and they each have 10 units of energy, you would expect to get 120 units of output. That’s what an average team will do. Worse teams will do worse. A great team will take the same inputs and get a non-linear outcome. The result won’t be 120; it’ll be 360.No matter where you’re going, great teams will get you there multiples faster than average teams.</p>
<p>Here is a quote by Steve Jobs on the importance of assembling “A” players.</p>
<blockquote><p>I observed something fairly early on at Apple, which I didn’t know how to explain then, but I’ve thought a lot about it since. Most things in life have a dynamic range in which [the ratio of] “average” to “best” is at most 2:1. For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver, versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; what’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%? So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life. Now, in software, and it used to be the case in hardware, the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; maybe even 100:1. Very few things in life are like this, but what I was lucky enough to spend my life doing, which is software, is like this. So I’ve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for “B” and “C” players, but really going for the “A” players. And I found something… I found that when you get enough “A” players together, when you go through the incredible work to find these “A” players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they don’t work with “B” and “C” players, so it’s self-policing. They only want to hire “A” players. So you build these pockets of “A” players and it just propagates.</p></blockquote>
<p>Building a team is more complicated than collecting talent<sup>1</sup>. I once tried to solve a problem by putting a bunch of PhDs’ in a room. While comments like that sounded good and got me a lot of projects above my level, they were rarely effective at delivering actual results.</p>
<p>Statements like “let’s assemble a multidisciplinary team of incredible people” are gold in meetings if you work for an organization. These statements sound intelligent. They are hard to argue with. And, most importantly, they also have no accountability built in, and they are easy to wiggle out of. If things don’t work out, who can fault a plan that meant putting smart people in a room.</p>
<p>Well … I can. It’s a stupid plan.</p>
<p>The combination of individual intelligence does not make for group intelligence. Thinking about this in the context of the Jobs quote above, “A” players provide a lot more than raw intellectual horsepower. Among other things, they also bring drive, integrity, and an ability to make others better.  “A” players want to work with other “A” players. Accepting that statement doesn’t mean they’re all “the best”.</p>
<p>In my experience solving difficult problems, the best talent available rarely led to the best solutions. You needed the best team. And the best team meant you had to exercise judgment and think about the problem. While there was often one individual with the idea that ultimately solved the problem, it wouldn’t have happened without the team.  The ideas others spark in us are more than we can spark in ourselves.</p>

<div>
<svg>
<style>.st0{fill:#CC3232;}</style>
<path></path>
</svg>

</div>

<div>
<div>
<span>Tagged: <a href="https://fs.blog/tag/business/">Business</a>, <a href="https://fs.blog/tag/culture/">Culture</a>, <a href="https://fs.blog/tag/steve-jobs/">Steve Jobs</a> </span>
</div>
</div>



		<div>
	<h6>Footnotes</h6>
		<ul>
		<li><span>1</span> <p>A play on a quote by Bill Belichick</p>
</li>
			</ul>
	</div>
	


<div>
<a></a>
</div>



</div>
</article>


							
	<nav>
		<h2>Post navigation</h2>
		<div><div><a href="https://fs.blog/2019/03/adversity/">In the face of adversity, are you a Guernsey or a Brahman?</a></div><div><a href="https://fs.blog/2019/04/decision-anatomy/">The Anatomy of a Great Decision</a></div></div>
	</nav>											</div>
					<div>
						<div>
							<section><div><h3><span>Sponsored By</span></h3><a href="https://bit.ly/2C2tkCT"><img src="https://149366099.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Farnam-B.png"/></a></div></section>						</div>
					</div>
				</div> 
			</div>
		</div> 
	</main></div>
</div> 
<div>
	<div>
		<div>
			<h2>Suggested Reading</h2>
			<div>
				


<a href="https://fs.blog/2020/04/shoulders-of-giants/">
<div>
<h2>Standing on the Shoulders of Giants</h2>
<span>Reading Time <span>|</span> 11 minutes</span>
<p>Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Doers and thinkers from Shakespeare to Jobs, liberally “stole” inspiration from the doers and thinkers who came before. Here’s how to do it right. *** “If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton wrote in a 1675 letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, “it is by standing on the shoulders […]</p>
<p>Continue Reading <i></i></p>
</div> 
</a>



<a href="https://fs.blog/2019/11/performance-reviews-kill-culture/">
<div>
<h2>How Performance Reviews Can Kill Your Culture</h2>
<span>Reading Time <span>|</span> 3 minutes</span>
<p>Performance reviews are designed to motivate and bring the best out of our teams, but they often do the opposite. Here’s how to bring out the best in your people. *** If you ask people what’s wrong with corporate workplaces, it won’t take long before you hear someone mention something about being put into a […]</p>
<p>Continue Reading <i></i></p>
</div> 
</a>



<a href="https://fs.blog/2019/05/bezos-business-success/">
<div>
<h2>Jeff Bezos: Big Things Start Small</h2>
<span>Reading Time <span>|</span> 3 minutes</span>
<p>An interview with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos touches on the timeless lessons he’s learned for business success. The three big ideas are (1) thinking on a different timescale, (2) putting the customer first, and (3) inventing. What we’re really focused on is thinking long-term, putting the customer at the center of our universe and inventing. […]</p>
<p>Continue Reading <i></i></p>
</div> 
</a>

			</div>
		</div> 
	</div> 
</div>
</div> 



<footer>
	<div>
		<div>
			<div>
				<div>
					<svg>
<style>.st0{fill:#CC3232;}</style>
<path></path>
</svg>

				</div>
				
				<div>
					<h4>Farnam Street</h4>
											<ul>
																								<li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter</a></li>
																																<li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast</a></li>
																																<li><a href="/membership">Learning Community</a></li>
																																<li><a href="https://fs.blog/books/">Books</a></li>
																																<li><a href="/speaking">Speaking</a></li>
																																<li><a href="/about">About</a></li>
																					</ul>
									</div>
				
				<div>
					<h4>Categories</h4>
											<ul>
																								<li><a href="/mental-models/">Mental Models</a></li>
																																<li><a href="https://fs.blog/learning">Learning</a></li>
																																<li><a href="https://fs.blog/reading/">Reading</a></li>
																																<li><a href="/smart-decisions/">Decision Making</a></li>
																																<li><a href="https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/">Intellectual Giants</a></li>
																					</ul>
									</div>
				
				<div>
					<h4>Partner</h4>
											<ul>
																								<li><a href="/sponsorship">Sponsorship</a></li>
																																<li><a href="https://rethinkworkshops.com/">Workshops</a></li>
																					</ul>
									</div>
				<div>
					<h4>Connect</h4>
					<ul>
						<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/FarnamStreet/"><i></i></a></li>
						<li><a href="https://twitter.com/shaneaparrish"><i></i></a></li>
						<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/c/TheKnowledgeProject"><i></i></a></li>
						<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/farnamstreet/"><i></i></a></li>
						<li><a href="/feed/"><i></i></a></li>
					</ul>
					<div>
						<div>
							<script src="https://forms.convertkit.com/325767?v=6"></script>

						</div>
					</div> 
				</div>
			</div>
		</div>
	</div> 
	<div>
		<div>
			<div>
				<p><i></i> 2020 Farnam Street Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.</p>
				<p>
					Hosted by <a href="https://pressable.com/">Pressable</a>. See our <a href="https://www.fs.blog/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy.</a><br/>Farnam Street participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon.
				</p>
			</div> 
			<div>
				<p>We're <a href="https://syruspartners.com/">Syrus Partners</a>. We buy amazing businesses.</p>
			</div> 
		</div>
	</div> 
</footer>
<script src="//z-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/onejs?MarketPlace=US&amp;adInstanceId=33713fe9-c73f-4b3d-ba8d-436c0a0f0fd4"></script>
<script src="https://snip.ly/site/5a1350b576ae562762b24001.js"></script>

<script>(function(s,u,m,o,j,v){j=u.createElement(m);v=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0];j.async=1;j.src=o;j.dataset.sumoSiteId='eab90499f89fe425f2d819895641b1a1772cbeb3d761fef0ceffe771f5ca585b';j.dataset.sumoPlatform='wordpress';v.parentNode.insertBefore(j,v)})(window,document,'script','//load.sumo.com/');</script>    <script>
      var ajaxurl = "https://fs.blog/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";

      function sumo_add_woocommerce_coupon(code) {
        jQuery.post(ajaxurl, {
          action: 'sumo_add_woocommerce_coupon',
          code: code,
        });
      }

      function sumo_remove_woocommerce_coupon(code) {
        jQuery.post(ajaxurl, {
          action: 'sumo_remove_woocommerce_coupon',
          code: code,
        });
      }

      function sumo_get_woocommerce_cart_subtotal(callback) {
        jQuery.ajax({
          method: 'POST',
          url: ajaxurl,
          dataType: 'html',
          data: {
            action: 'sumo_get_woocommerce_cart_subtotal',
          },
          success: function(subtotal) {
            return callback(null, subtotal);
          },
          error: function(err) {
            return callback(err, 0);
          }
        });
      }
    </script>
    <script src="https://149366099.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/themes/farnamstreet/js/nav.js?ver=5.5"></script>
<script src="https://149366099.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/themes/farnamstreet/js/tabs.js?ver=20151215"></script>
<script src="https://c0.wp.com/c/5.5/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js"></script>
		<script>
			(function() {
			var t   = document.createElement( 'script' );
			t.type  = 'text/javascript';
			t.async = true;
			t.id    = 'gauges-tracker';
			t.setAttribute( 'data-site-id', '5b2baf7fe5b7c935e5c6fedf' );
			t.src = '//secure.gaug.es/track.js';
			var s = document.getElementsByTagName( 'script' )[0];
			s.parentNode.insertBefore( t, s );
			})();
		</script>
		<script src="https://stats.wp.com/e-202035.js"></script>
<script>
	_stq = window._stq || [];
	_stq.push([ 'view', {v:'ext',j:'1:8.8.2',blog:'148761140',post:'37451',tz:'-4',srv:'fs.blog'} ]);
	_stq.push([ 'clickTrackerInit', '148761140', '37451' ]);
</script>



</body></html>

Career

<ul><li><a href="/blog/">Articles </a> </li><li><a href="/books/">Books </a> </li><li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter </a> </li><li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast </a> </li><li><a href="/membership">Community </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/?memberful_endpoint=auth">Member Login </a> </li><li><a href="/search"><i> </i> </a> </li> </ul>

<ul><li><a href="/blog/">Articles </a> </li><li><a href="/books/">Books </a> </li><li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter </a> </li><li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/members/">Member Login </a> </li><li><a href="/search">Search </a> </li> </ul>

<ul><li><a href="/mental-models/">Mental Models </a> </li><li><a href="/smart-decisions/">Decision Making </a> </li><li><a href="/reading/">Reading Better </a> </li><li><a href="/best-articles/">Best Articles </a> </li><li><a href="/random-articles">Random Article </a> </li><li><a href="/tags/">Tags </a> </li> </ul>

The Importance of Working With “A” Players

<p>Stop me if this sounds familiar. There is a person who toils alone for years in relative obscurity before finally cracking the code to become a hero. The myth of the lone genius. It’s the stuff of Disney movies. </p>

<p>Of course, we all have moments when we’re alone and something suddenly clicks. We’d do well to remember, though, that in those moments, we are not as independent as we like to think. The people we surround ourselves with matter. </p>

<p>In part, because we tell ourselves the story of the lone genius, we under-appreciate the role of a team. Sure, the individual matters, no doubt. However, the individual contributions are supercharged by the team around them. </p>

<p>We operate in a world where it’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything great as an individual. When you think about it, you’re the product of an education system, a healthcare system, luck, roads, the internet and so much more. You may be smart but you’re not self-made. And at work, most important achievements require a team of people working together. </p>

<p>The leader’s job is to get the team right. Getting the team right means that people are better as a group than as individuals. Now this is important. Step back and think about that for a second — the right teams make every individual better than they would be on their own. </p>

<p>Another way to think about this is in terms of energy. If you have 12 people on a team and they each have 10 units of energy, you would expect to get 120 units of output. That’s what an average team will do. Worse teams will do worse. A great team will take the same inputs and get a non-linear outcome. The result won’t be 120; it’ll be 360.No matter where you’re going, great teams will get you there multiples faster than average teams. </p>

<p>Here is a quote by Steve Jobs on the importance of assembling “A” players. </p>

<p>I observed something fairly early on at Apple, which I didn’t know how to explain then, but I’ve thought a lot about it since. Most things in life have a dynamic range in which [the ratio of] “average” to “best” is at most 2:1. For example, if you go to New York City and get an average taxi cab driver, versus the best taxi cab driver, you’ll probably get to your destination with the best taxi driver 30% faster. And an automobile; what’s the difference between the average car and the best? Maybe 20%? The best CD player versus the average CD player? Maybe 20%? So 2:1 is a big dynamic range for most things in life. Now, in software, and it used to be the case in hardware, the difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1; maybe even 100:1. Very few things in life are like this, but what I was lucky enough to spend my life doing, which is software, is like this. So I’ve built a lot of my success on finding these truly gifted people, and not settling for “B” and “C” players, but really going for the “A” players. And I found something… I found that when you get enough “A” players together, when you go through the incredible work to find these “A” players, they really like working with each other. Because most have never had the chance to do that before. And they don’t work with “B” and “C” players, so it’s self-policing. They only want to hire “A” players. So you build these pockets of “A” players and it just propagates. </p>

<p>Building a team is more complicated than collecting talent<sup>1 </sup>. I once tried to solve a problem by putting a bunch of PhDs’ in a room. While comments like that sounded good and got me a lot of projects above my level, they were rarely effective at delivering actual results. </p>

<p>Statements like “let’s assemble a multidisciplinary team of incredible people” are gold in meetings if you work for an organization. These statements sound intelligent. They are hard to argue with. And, most importantly, they also have no accountability built in, and they are easy to wiggle out of. If things don’t work out, who can fault a plan that meant putting smart people in a room. </p>

<p>Well … I can. It’s a stupid plan. </p>

<p>The combination of individual intelligence does not make for group intelligence. Thinking about this in the context of the Jobs quote above, “A” players provide a lot more than raw intellectual horsepower. Among other things, they also bring drive, integrity, and an ability to make others better. “A” players want to work with other “A” players. Accepting that statement doesn’t mean they’re all “the best”. </p>

<p>In my experience solving difficult problems, the best talent available rarely led to the best solutions. You needed the best team. And the best team meant you had to exercise judgment and think about the problem. While there was often one individual with the idea that ultimately solved the problem, it wouldn’t have happened without the team. The ideas others spark in us are more than we can spark in ourselves. </p>

<ul><li><span>1 </span><p>A play on a quote by Bill Belichick </p> </li> </ul>

<p>Innovation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Doers and thinkers from Shakespeare to Jobs, liberally “stole” inspiration from the doers and thinkers who came before. Here’s how to do it right. *** “If I have seen further,” Isaac Newton wrote in a 1675 letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, “it is by standing on the shoulders […] </p>

How Performance Reviews Can Kill Your Culture

<p>Performance reviews are designed to motivate and bring the best out of our teams, but they often do the opposite. Here’s how to bring out the best in your people. *** If you ask people what’s wrong with corporate workplaces, it won’t take long before you hear someone mention something about being put into a […] </p>

<p>An interview with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos touches on the timeless lessons he’s learned for business success. The three big ideas are (1) thinking on a different timescale, (2) putting the customer first, and (3) inventing. What we’re really focused on is thinking long-term, putting the customer at the center of our universe and inventing. […] </p>

<ul><li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter </a> </li><li><a href="/knowledge-project/">Podcast </a> </li><li><a href="/membership">Learning Community </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/books/">Books </a> </li><li><a href="/speaking">Speaking </a> </li><li><a href="/about">About </a> </li> </ul>

<ul><li><a href="/mental-models/">Mental Models </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/learning">Learning </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/reading/">Reading </a> </li><li><a href="/smart-decisions/">Decision Making </a> </li><li><a href="https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/">Intellectual Giants </a> </li> </ul>

<ul><li><a href="/sponsorship">Sponsorship </a> </li><li><a href="https://rethinkworkshops.com/">Workshops </a> </li> </ul>

<p>Hosted by <a href="https://pressable.com/">Pressable </a>. See our <a href="https://www.fs.blog/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy. </a><br/>Farnam Street participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. </p>

<p>We're <a href="https://syruspartners.com/">Syrus Partners </a>. We buy amazing businesses. </p>

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

The Importance of Working With “A” Players

The A Player

The Leader With A Team

Individual Intelligence Vs Group Intelligence

Stop Preparing For The Last Disaster

The Limits of Crowd Wisdom

When Safety Proves Dangerous

Bite‑sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

The Importance of Working With “A” Players

The A Player

The Leader With A Team

Individual Intelligence Vs Group Intelligence

Stop Preparing For The Last Disaster

The Limits of Crowd Wisdom

When Safety Proves Dangerous

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career