A few months before I got married, I spoke to a family friend. He’d been around the block and shared a reflection about marriage and careers.
He shared that the effect he’d seen was fascinating as it was binary more often than not.
After marriage, strong performers either became superstars or went through a severe regression in their performance.
In effect, 1+1 was either much greater than 2 or it was..0.
I’ve thought about that reflection over the years – in marriages and in teams.
Strong teams are generally a sum of their parts. The complementary skill sets come together to make them great.
And, in most other cases, you can’t help get the feeling that the team’s performance is less than the sum of its parts.
All in all, a useful rule of thumb. Teams/partnerships either work great… or not.
There’s rarely middle ground.
