What's the Future of Work?

Chapter 6. Escaping the Superstar Syndrome

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There’s a meme going round Silicon Valley that there are programmers with 10x the productivity and impact of an ordinary programmer. I don’t doubt it. Sports show us the extraordinary impact that a superstar can have on the success of a team. As my friend Bob Poole used to say whenever we watched an NBA Finals series, “The team with the most superstars wins.”

But there’s a key word there, and it’s not “superstar.” It’s “team.” The TEAM with the most superstars wins.

Success in today’s world, whether of sports or business, requires assembling a team of people who can work together to achieve something extraordinary. And yes, to achieve something extraordinary, it helps that some of those people be superstars. But here’s another lesson from sports, the best players “make their teammates better.” Selfish superstars rarely win.

All of this is by way of introducing the role of talent in the Next Economy.

Superstar vs. Team

Here are some of the unfortunate changes in business that have resulted from focusing only on the superstar while ignoring the team:

1. Companies have made a deliberate choice to reward their “superstars” incredibly well, while treating ordinary workers as a cost to be minimized or cut. Top US CEOs now earn 373x as much as the average worker, up from 42x in 1980.
2. The bonds of loyalty that once united ...