When Bain & Company asked senior executives from 308 large companies how they form teams for their most important initiatives, most told us they assemble teams based on whoever is available. Only a small minority indicated that they consistently create all-star teams, comprised of their very best talent, to tackle their company’s highest-priority issues. This is an enormous missed opportunity: we found that the best companies are more than 25% more productive than the rest due to the way they deploy, team and lead scarce, difference-making talent.
How to Manage a Team of All-Stars
Teaming people with different skills and perspectives together almost always produces more output than the sum of those individuals acting alone. But with star talent, this relationship is more extreme: productive power increases geometrically with the percentage of star players on a team. A five-member team, comprised entirely of A-players, can produce 16 times as much output – or the same output in one-sixteenth the time – as the sum of five average players working individually. And the best companies are more than 25% more productive than the rest due to the way they deploy, team and lead scarce, difference-making talent. Yet research shows that only a small minority of companies consistently create all-star teams, in part because they are so hard to manage. To reap the benefits of these extraordinary teams, the best companies take a disciplined approach. They aren’t afraid to assemble all-star teams to tackle mission-critical initiatives. They reward team performance commensurately. And they use multiple means to manage team member egos.