Talent overload can fast-track failure - just look at Formula 1

You only need to look at F1 and the rivalry between the Mercedes drivers Nico Rosbery and Lewis Hamilton to recognise this.

Recruiting the best in the industry is the aim of every firm in the region. So you initiate a search for the brightest talent, pack your team with high-fliers and wait for profits to take-off. But instead of hitting new heights, the team is dysfunctional and nothing is achieved. The reason for this nosedive in productivity? An overload on talent.

It sounds counterintuitive, but this phenomenon has been seen in workforce studies in a wide variety of industries. For example, a 30-year Formula One study has suggested employing two high-status employees is a fast-track to failure.

After analysing every Formula One driver between 1981 and 2010, Paolo Aversa of the Cass Business School found that where there were two top drivers competing in the same team, there was a detrimental effect on each of their individual performances. This tension was highlighted when earlier this year, Nico Rosberg collided with Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix, a collision that ruined the British driver’s race and damaged his chances of winning a second Formula One world title. Where they should have been a team, these Mercedes drivers were instead preoccupied with beating each other.

Away from the racetrack and into the office, the findings shed light on why teams with equally talented employees do not always hit the heights of their past promise, and why star performers at one firm fade when they are lured to another.

A typical mistake in assembling a team is to consider it as a sum of the quality of individual parts, presuming that success will come when the talented individuals come together and collaborate. Instead, what you may find is that two talented professionals turn what looked like a promising partnership into a fight for internal supremacy.

According to Mr Aversa, a clash of egos is one obvious reason for this internal wrangling and consequential decline of individual and team performance. In an attempt to resolve this, managers can either favour one of the employees (to halt the tussle for the top spot) or refuse to side with either (thus promoting internal competition, but highlighting its ineffectuality). However, neither of these positions result in positive outcome. “The first strategy of selecting one individual as top is likely to demotivate both team members as the favoured employee eases off their rivalry and the ‘defeated’ colleague loses their ambition by no longer being permitted to compete,” says Mr Aversa.

“In the second case, where the issue is left unresolved, internal conflict is likely to remain and indeed escalate. The resulting antagonism often leads to the failure of intra-team collaboration, eventually triggering an aggressive duel to the detriment of one or both employees.”

The clash between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the early days of Apple is a good example. The company looked a promising venture from the start, but Steve Jobs fled after fierce confrontations with his associates. Mr Jobs’ comeback was only successful because upon his return he was the leader, and his “team” was focused on making the best out of his genius, rather than being riven apart by the internal competition between two talented leaders.

Conflict in the workplace is an obvious hazard for a star-studded team, but just as harmful to performance is the inefficient use of resources. “By carefully weighing the impact of favouring one employee over another, teams slow down their decision-making process. In hyper-competitive settings, where teams need to focus their resources quickly and respond to change in the competitive market, getting bogged down in internal politics can sap a team’s energy and performance,” says Mr Aversa.

Before managers consider cutting the most-gifted employees to resolve these issues, they must consider alternative ways of managing the situation.

If you employ two star individuals, you have to make each aware of where they stand from day one. Competition, conflict and expectation can lead to success when managed correctly.

Ehsan Razavizadeh is the regional director and the head of the Dubai Centre of Cass Business School, City University London.