The Myth of Star Performer - Why Are We Still Trying to Figure Out Everything By Ourselves?

Think of a star performer at work. They’re superheroes, right?

They seem to swoop in and save the day when others are confused or stuck. They can lift roadblocks single-handedly. They consult, yes, but then they’re decisive and drive others to act. Their confidence puts everyone else at rest. Is this you?

If it is, chances are you’re holding yourself and your team back. Research says groups that build and utilize strong bonds are the real heroes in cracking complex problems.

High-performance teams don’t necessarily have the best personalities, technical skills or even critical thinking capabilities, according to researchers in a 2014 study called “The Strength of Strong Ties in Collaborative Problem Solving.” Instead, it’s the amount of information flow within a group that determines how well a team performs. Given the multi-faceted, information and technology-driven problems we’re facing in public and private sectors these days, this is no surprise.

“Accessing the right piece of information is central to solving complex problems. This information, however, often only exists in the form of advice, expertise, implicit knowledge, or experience and flows through social ties,” write the authors. The study found that strong ties among teammates predict strong performance.

What, might you ask, are strong ties? It’s not about friendship, though feeling cordial is one kind of strong bond. Strong ties involve frequent interaction, a sense of mutual trust and a shared mission. They share everything they know about a problem and layer that knowledge to get a high-resolution picture of the problem everyone can share. Such collaboration reinforces and builds new strong bonds among the team, further boosting the team’s ability to solve problems.

Contrast this deep collaboration with our legendary star performer who draws on weak ties to push their projects forward. They’re defining the problem and creating the solution in a small group or, often, alone. They will ask others’ opinions with narrow or closed-ended questions and only once that individual feels a strong sense of personal confidence in knowing the problem and options. The relationship is often one-way and temporary – a weak tie, indeed.

The star performer's blind spots remain intact, unchallenged – limiting their ability to solve the problem. A high-performing team not only collects more knowledge than the star individual, but they also get a broader picture of all the unknowns around a problem and have more people invested in finding answers.

Again, these networks of weak ties offer no performance benefit, according to the study. The result of the star individual’s initiative will only ever be as strong as that person’s capacity – their expertise, experience and cognitive ability. Complex problems are complex precisely because they involve multiple perspectives, so if we’re relying on the performance of one individual or a weak team to crack the code, we’ll be waiting a long time or never find the right answers.

If meaningful collaboration makes intuitive sense, and the science supports that sense, why don’t we do more of it? We still honour the idea of the individual star performer in setting our workplace culture and reward structures. We follow these star performers, praise them and promote them. People then mimic the heroic efforts or, at least, refrain from speaking up when a star performer is missing a piece of the puzzle.

However, just throwing together a bunch of people in a room is no substitute. A team relying on weak bonds is, also, not set up for performance. The tools and experts in co-design can help teams interlace their understanding of a problem using mapping, facilitated inquiry, exploratory and participatory research along with iterative approaches and feedback. All these tools create much more intimate and meaningful bonds in teams than those formed around the typical boardroom table or through an open brainstorming session.

So if you’re worried you’re a star performer (ironic, yes), then take this as an excuse to relax a bit. It’s better you don’t try to fix the world yourself. Spend the hours of overtime instead on gathering the right team around you and handing over the keys. Use some design tools such as system mapping, but most importantly let people build an understanding of the problem together. You’ll find higher performance and fewer grays.