The thinking is the same among managers of sports teams and corporate recruiters: if you want better performance, bring in more talent. And why not? If some talent is good, more talent should be even better. However, new research shows that an excess of top-tier talent can drag down team performance, particularly when team members must work closely together.
"When individuals within a team don’t have to rely on each other to get their work done, maximizing talent is a really good strategy," says Professor Adam Galinsky, who coauthored the study with Roderick I. Swaab and Michael Schaerer of INSEAD, Richard Ronay of VU University Amsterdam, and Columbia Business School doctoral student Eric Anicich. "But when team members are interdependent, you can get the too-much-talent effect."
There are three potential relationships between talent and performance, Galinsky explains. The first is linear: adding more talent translates to better outcomes. The second results in diminishing marginal returns: bringing on additional highly talented team members produces smaller and smaller benefits. (Diminishing returns can also have a negative effect on the bottom line, because of the high costs of hiring top talent, Galinsky notes. This can be seen with Hollywood movies that seem overstocked with stars; adding big names may increase revenues but decrease the film’s profitability.) And the third results in the too-much-talent effect: adding more talent actually lowers the team’s performance. The likelihood that a team will experience the too-much-talent effect depends on the degree to which its members must coordinate — or, as Galinsky puts it, whether the team is playing baseball or basketball. In baseball, nine players hit in an assigned order; when one player hits does not eliminate another player’s turn to hit. In basketball, however, when one player shoots, all of the other players lose a potential opportunity to shoot. And when it comes to winning, basketball requires a much higher degree of cooperation. Basketball players must pass the ball so that their team can get as many shots as possible, whereas each baseball player can hit a home run no matter how well or how poorly teammates are hitting.
The researchers tested their hypothesis that too much talent would drag down performance by analyzing team and player data from 2002 through 2012 for both the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. They found that in basketball, there was a too-much-talent effect. In contrast, in baseball, adding more and more talent led to better and better performance Just like the 2012 Los Angeles Lakers — which had a disastrous start after adding top players Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to an already star-heavy team — corporate teams working closely together can experience the negative effects of too much talent. "If you have too many people and they all want to be stars, coordination goes down," Galinsky says. "But if you have a bunch of star programmers all working on their own projects, and they don’t need to integrate their programs with each other, then more stars is probably better."
Unfortunately, there is no way to predict when a particular team is nearing the too-much-talent threshold. Galinsky suggests thinking like a coach. Most teams need people with different skills to accomplish various tasks — a basketball team, for example, needs players who can rebound and excel at defense in addition to star shooters. "Having a range of skills, is critical," he says. "When you have interdependence, you need role differentiation." One warning sign that a team is nearing the tipping point? Too many team members are vying to perform the same tasks, while other tasks — those that aren’t in the spotlight — aren’t getting done. Many managers and team members have witnessed the too-much-talent effect firsthand. "Have you ever seen status conflicts erupt in your organization?" Galinsky asks. "Have you seen a situation where many people on a team are suspicious of each other and they’re not integrating their behavior very well?" Faced with hiring decisions, managers should ask themselves a question: What will be the effect of adding another star to this team? In general, Galinsky says, it is better not to model your team after the All-Stars — in which every player wants the ball, and no one wants to play defense.
Adam Galinsky is the Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business and Chair of the Management Division at Columbia Business School.