What Wins – The Team or the Strategy?

Those of you who have read Jim Collins’ “From Good to Great” know that he really stresses on getting “the right people on the bus”, before you even decide where the bus is going.

Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and president of Pixar & Disney Animation Studios, has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review as saying, “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will make it work.”

Here’s a thought that I came across that is quite the contrary, and therefore provocative, written by Christian Mayaud of the Verticom Group: “A Mediocre Management Team with a Great Strategy will outperform a Great Management Team with mediocre strategy EVERY TIME”. (His blog is http://www.sacredcowdung.com/ – the name sets the tone.) According to Mayaud:

• “A competent move in the wrong direction will destroy a company faster than an incompetent move in the right direction.” (True.)
• “A mediocre management team with a great strategy is often called a great management team.” (Hmmm….probably true.)
• “So, even if there were such a thing as a ‘Great Management Team’, how would you know if you found it?” (Ouch, that hurts!)

I was playing with these thoughts, and came up with this (pardon the extremes, but sometimes it takes extremes to clarify your thinking).

• Great team, great strategy – We have a winner!
• Poor team, poor strategy – Don’t even wake up for that thought.
• Poor team, great strategy – Given the finite window of time, either they will beat the hell out of the competition or beat the hell out of each other.
• Great team, poor strategy – well, at least they’ll all be great buddies, nursing each others’ wounds after the battle is over.

(That’s just my thought for the day, and tomorrow’s another day. Don’t take it too seriously. )

Work at your idea, and work at your team – that’s the only real way to win.