What NBA Team Performance Can Teach Executives

Around the 18^th of Feb. our local public radio station aired a study and discussion (probably an NPR program) that had looked at various NBA team performances but with an interesting twist. The researchers studied the performance of several NBA teams when selected players were on the floor versus the team’s performance when the player was not on the floor, perhaps expecting to gauge the positive impact the player in question had on scoring. What they found on occasion was a reverse effect. The team did better when certain players, players good in their own right, were not playing!

That reminded me of a comment made several years by a representative of the Chicago Bulls about their prize player, Michael Jordon, that they paid him what they did, not because he was a great basketball athlete, which he was, but because he sparked the team and caused everyone on the team to perform better as a team. That attribute is valuable. That was worth a lot, and the Bulls recognized it! Great insight. (What should we pay players to not play?)

It’s a lesson that boards and organizational leaders need to grasp. To optimize the performance of a team, the leader must pay attention to the “chemistry”—the interpersonal behaviors between staff/team members that play off each other to spark optimum decision-making and creativity. Several scholars of team dynamics have written about it, from J. Richard Hackman to Jon Katzenbach, to Meredith Belbin, but it sometimes seems that organizational leaders have failed to read or learn. It is a vital competency leaders must acquire to create great teams. 

Thought - Have you ever asked (or sensed you should) a member of your senior staff not to attend a meeting so the meeting dynamics will be better?!