The missing link

In life, sports, COVID-19 and engineering

Imagine you are a football (soccer) coach and you need to strengthen your team, what of the two actions would you pick? Investing in a mega-star player, or making sure your weak players are better trained - tactically, physically, mentally?

This one of the questions Chris Anderson, a former professional goalkeeper turned soccer statistics guru, and behavioral analyst David Sally addressed in their book "The Numbers Game- Why Everything You Know About Football is Wrong."

Their answer is very clear: "A football team has 11 players on the field at any one time. Suppose one is a superstar and your worst player is maybe only 45% as good as the superstar. Because football is a sport where everyone on the field depends on everyone else, that 45% player can make one mistake and completely negate the skill of the best player."[1]

They actually analyzed this statistically: They looked at the top football clubs in Europe and showed that, if those teams upgraded their poorest players instead of their best players, they would score more goals and win more games, a lot more.

Football is clearly a weak-link game.

This is in contrast to basketball: Even the greatest basketball teams often have one and sometimes even two players who are barely better than mediocre. What matters in basketball is not how good your fifth player is, it’s how good your superstar is. Basketball is probably the most superstar driven team sport.

Basketball is a strong-link game.

Compare Leo Messi to Michael Jordan, for example

David Sally: "What Jordan could do on a basketball court was Jordan could guarantee, or virtually guarantee, that he could get the ball; you couldn’t really stop him, right? He could go to the back court, pick up the ball, he could dribble it forward, he could break double teams, you could try to send three guys at him, but then you’re really, you’re really opening yourself up, he could go and get a shot. Leo Messi is so good that sometimes, rare times, where, in fact, he can dribble the length of the pitch. But the fact is that in most instances, he really can’t. He needs those eight beautiful passes to set him up and then he can do something amazingly transcendent with it."

In fact, recently we got evidence of this very difference. The Netflix mini-series "The Last Dance" showed time and again how dominant Michael Jordan was in Chicago Bulls' continuous success, and the production actually struggled to give space to other "secondary" players.

On the other hand, one of the sad (sport) pictures of the last summer is Leo Messi after Barcelona's defeat 2:8 to Bayern Munich at the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals. As much as he is a great player, and as much as he wanted and tried, he couldn't pull it out alone.

I came across this weak/strong Link concept while listening to a podcast hosted by the "Munk Debates" with Malcom Gladwell, author of several best-seller books ("The Tipping Point", "Blink," "Outliers"). Gladwell evokes this theory while speaking about the challenges of COVID-19: “ We have pursued a strong-link strategy over the past 50 years. Yet, it was the overlooked weak links that hobbled the nation's response to COVID-19. COVID-19 is a weak-link problem - This is because, as strong as hospitals and health systems are, they were damaged by a weak link in the supply chain for tests, masks and medical supplies.“ 

In fact, because of the contagious aspect of this pandemic, it's not that some people's lives can continue "as normal" while others suffer. The whole world came to a stop, we all into it together - as long as the weakest link is weak (or at least until herd immunity).

This led me to think of different aspects of our personal and public lives in terms of strong/weak links. Take education for example: Should a country/city/school invest in its brightest students - as they are the ones that will bring in scientific breakthroughs and associated prestige - or rather in its weakest pupils, the ones who need the most support to succeed?

In general, is a society/company/team,

as strong as their strongest stars,

or as weak as its weakest elements?

On the eve of Yom Kipur we get at least some response to that question. This Jewish Holiday - the Day of Atonement - is all about personal accountability and self-reflection.

Having said that, its opening ceremony Kol Nidrei, starts with a declaration of inclusiveness and togetherness.

We are often as strong

as our communities are

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On a different note, earlier this week, we hosted a technical meetup at Veriest. Over 100 people from different countries - across North America, Europe and Asia - gathered to share their professional knowledge and experience.

I based my welcome notes on the weak/strong link concepts above. In my view, as much as there is space for individual breakthroughs, any engineering work - be it a building, a dam, a car or a semiconductor chip - is a weak-link game: It's only as strong as its weak link: You may have a fancy car, but if you have a little tire puncture, you won't go far...You may have a state-of-the-art chip, but one little bug may turn it into a very expensive key-ring.

I also believe this applies on how we treat our professional communities. In parallel to the healthy competition on "who's the best", there is enough room for very open knowledge sharing.

The challenges we all have to deal with are extremely complex, and the higher the general level of knowledge and expertise will be, the better the chance we have to cope with it.

Source:

[1] David Sally and Chris Anderson's words were adapted from here: https://medium.com/propfiat/is-debate-football-or-basketball-df308c09a494