Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations (22 page)

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinkers and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double—

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

“Tinker to Evers to Chance” remains part of the American lexicon as a phrase for an easy series of actions by a trio that results in success—in the case of those old Cubs infielders, the double play, “the pitcher’s best friend” for its ability to clear the bases and put two outs on the board.

Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance may not have been the greatest double play combination of all time—though Andy Coakley, who played with them and went on to coach baseball (and Lou Gehrig) at Columbia University, believed they were—but they were the first to perfect the play, and to have a great promoter in the journalist Adams. They have also enjoyed a fame unmatched by any other great double-play trio, such as the Dodgers’ Bill Russell, Davey Lopes, and Steve Garvey in the 1970s, and Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, and Ted Kluszewski of the “Go-Go White Sox” of 1959–1960.

For our purposes, what makes Messrs. Tinker, Evers, and
Chance interesting is not just that they made a whole lot of double plays—fifty-four of them between 1906 and 1910—and helped lead the Cubs to four pennants in those years, but their almost machinelike consistency. In an era when lousy field conditions led to endless numbers of errors, this consistency made them a synecdoche for hall of fame–level play (and indeed, all three did make the hall, together, in 1946). Each of them not only played his own position well but also played the interfaces of their positions to each other as well as they can be played—that is, each not only successfully fielded the ball as well as anyone in the game but they also placed and timed their throws to each other with unequaled accuracy for the era. And, as it was still the dead ball era of Major League Baseball, they got a lot of practice fielding grounders—and a lot of chances to make errors.

But this is only half of the story. What makes the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance trio illuminating is that they performed their historic feats of timing and coordination despite the fact that shortstop Tinker and second baseman Evers basically
hated
each other. In fact, in September 1905 a fistfight broke out between the two of them on the field—and it is believed that they didn’t speak to each other again until a radio show in 1938—thirty-three years later. In other words, for fully half of the time the trio played together as baseball’s most celebrated well-oiled defensive machine, two of the players didn’t even communicate with each other. Yet they still defined the art of turning the play at second and firing the ball off to first ninety feet away to beat the running batter there.

This is the essence of the Instrumental Trio—three individuals who do their job, largely independently and at the top of their craft . . . and then combine those labors into a larger production along predetermined lines. When everything goes well, the results are greater than the sum of the three parts.

One of the reasons why we associate these Instrumental Teams with sports is that such teams are the most visible and have the
most celebrated successes in that area. The Montana/Young-Craig-Rice trio with which we began this chapter is yet another famous example. Unlike with comparable trios in other fields of endeavor, we can watch the entire functionality of a sports trio unfold over a matter of seconds—and immediately know whether it has been successful or not.

Sports trios also give us a good understanding of the architecture of Instrumental Trios, as it is basically the same whether found in a research laboratory, a code-writing department, a new product development group, or, most of all, in the trades. We’ve already looked at the 2+1 trio; by comparison, an Instrumental Trio might be called a 3+1, in which the +1 is not another team member or leader, but the rules of the game, project, or corporate function. It is these rules that act as both the disciplining agent for the interactions and as the setter of the boundary conditions for the operation itself.

In essence, in this tightly circumscribed world (infield defense, line of scrimmage offense, application code writing, scientific experimentation, consumer testing, product assembly and testing, service and repair, construction, roofing, and so on), the overall goal is established, the common rules are in place. Now the actual process itself can be divided into three parts and handed out to the specialists of a trio in each area, who are free to use their skills and craft to achieve the best possible outcome.

As with Serial Trios, the greatest advantage of Instrumental Trios is that you don’t have to compromise on the players—because all of them are basically independent operators, it is possible to simply go out and get the best talent at each job. Moreover, because there is little need to help them improve at their own jobs, the members of the trio can devote more time to perfecting their interfaces—a process that is, in turn, helped by the fact that the role of this trio is itself severely circumscribed by the overall rules. Get the ball to second base, conduct the spectral analysis, make the handoff,
get the shingles up to the roof, acquire the target . . . and it doesn’t really matter if you don’t get along with the other two members of the team, as long as each of you gets your part of the job done.

Because of this, Instrumental Trios can reach a higher level of performance than any other trio type—indeed, because their goals are usually so carefully defined, these trios can sometimes reach a level of perfection almost unimaginable for any other trio type. Just watch an Olympic-level relay team.

Another advantage of Instrumental Trios is that they are less dependent on their individual members. With the rules carefully defined and the members independent parties, it is relatively easy to replace one or more of them almost seamlessly. The new trio might not be quite as good as the earlier one, or it might be even better—but it can certainly still go on with a new set of members. That’s what happened to baseball’s most famous double play combination. After a decade together, Chance was hospitalized with a brain injury he received on the field, and in short order Evers was named player-manager of the Cubs . . . which so infuriated Tinker that he asked to be traded to the Cincinnati Reds.

That was the end, except in the lexicon, of Tinker to Evers to Chance. Nevertheless, the Chicago Cubs still fielded an infield in 1913, including Tinker’s replacement, Evers, and, eventually, Chance. And they still turned a lot of double plays—just not as famously. Seventy years later, the Cubs would field another double play combination that was likely as good as their legendary predecessor and featuring a better player than any of the originals, Ryne Sandberg. It was the same game, with the same rules, just new names.

THE FINE ART OF TRIO MANAGEMENT

Creating and managing trios can actually be easier than doing the same thing for pairs. That’s because trios can exhibit an internal
structure and a level of self-management not typically possible with pairs. They can also usually be created simply by taking a successful pair and adding a third player, compatible or not, who brings the requisite skills.

2+1 trios almost never fail because of internal flaws. If Brattain and Bardeen could do it with Bill Shockley, then your pair can deal with anyone you throw at them. Rather, the surefire way to wreck a good 2+1 team is to make the mistake of assuming they are a true trio, treat them that way, reward them as equals, and, worst of all, force them to stay together. Interestingly, this type of team also has trouble dealing with success, because credit is difficult to distribute.

With the Parallel Trio, whoever takes the inside role has to be highly accomplished. He or she must not only make a major contribution to the project—a trio is too small to have a separate leader-manager—but also alternate between consulting and helping the two outside team members. So, by necessity, Parallel Trios, if they are going to work at all, typically include at least one top-notch player—and you have to focus on finding that person. Add to this the opportunity to add two more top-quality outside members without having to worry about their compatibility . . . and the result is a trio that can be like no other.

Remember in chapter 2 how researchers found that trio formats are exceptionally comforting to their members because the members feel as though they have both a valuable role to play and that their voices are being heard? We believe that these Parallel Trios are the groups researchers are talking about.

As for managing Parallel Trios, set goals and performance milestones—and then get out of the way. Manage loosely, and communicate only to the team leader: you want to reinforce that individual’s authority. At the same time, when you communicate with that leader, speak of the team as a single unit, not as the leader’s venture. When the team leader does update you, ask for a precise description of the two other members’ work to date. That’ll be
your way of determining how well the leader is keeping tabs on the two outsiders.

When the project is completed, you may reward the team leader more, but recognition and honors should be shared equally. That fact should be established from the first to forestall any infighting.

Serial Trios can be treated like Parallel Trios, just extended in time. The biggest mistake that managers make with Serial Trios is to forget to credit that first, departed pair member and instead honor only the final pair.

Instrumental Trios are more recruited than created. The structure of the work is usually already defined, so the challenge is less about finding the right chemistry and more about filling the slot with the best talent available. There can be some challenges here, especially when the performance of one member is clearly inferior to that of the other two: like a precisely tuned mechanism, such a trio can quickly go out of balance if one part carries a different weight. Look at how the grunge band Nirvana quickly found its sound when the old drummer was kicked out and replaced by Dave Grohl.

This raises an interesting question: Is it better to have one or two top-performing members, and the rest lesser players in an Instrumental Trio? Or are you best served by a trio composed of three equally balanced players—even if they are not as high-performing? In sports, the answer is probably the former, but for different reasons: in baseball, for example, the three players have other ways to contribute—such as hitting—that may compensate for weak fielding. In the commercial world, however, an unbalanced team can quickly tear itself apart—so you might be better served by saving the superior talent, if possible, for a different team (say, a pair, or a Parallel Trio, or as the leader of a larger team) and hiring a new third player whose talents are commensurate with those of the other two.

As for managing an Instrumental Trio, you have three basic challenges:

•
      
Keep the trio working at the highest level of productivity and coordination.

•
      
Make sure the trio is never short of the resources it needs to get the job done.

•
      
At completion, assure that all three participants are given full—and just as important—equal credit for the success.

In sports and in most trades, the single most important thing an Instrumental Trio can do is to practice, practice, practice. The team members must continue to perfect their own unique skills, while at the same time working on those interfaces. In business that means training, case studies, quotas, and even competitions. In sports, it means practicing the full array of likely plays over and over, perhaps a thousand times, in spring training, during practices, and in warm-ups before games. As manager, your task is to not only provide the occasions, venues, and equipment for those practices or training sessions, but to also make the team members attend and participate.

Additionally, Instrumental Trios need to be durable. What changes is the composition of these trios. And because they are often made of highly talented and thus highly desirable individuals, you can never be sure how long you’ll be able to keep any of the three you’ve got. They may stay together, like Tinker, Evers, and Chance, for a decade . . . or a headhunter or scout may hire one away tomorrow. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can usually insert a replacement for that lost player pretty easily, and the learning curve to get that new talent up to speed is equally brief.

Finally, track the performance of each trio member—past, present, and future. When the project is completed (or, in sports especially, when an era ends) be gracious and give credit to each member of the trio. After all, these are basically hired guns, and you may want to hire them again.

And that is trios, the most explosive, unstable, and, in many ways, the most interesting, of team architectures. As volatile as they are, when they do collapse they usually revert to pairs, which are the most stable of team forms. And that safe fallback position makes the risk of trios even more worth the attempt.

Next we will look at larger team types, from those with a half dozen members to those with more than a thousand. But ultimately, all of these larger teams can be reduced to pairs and trios—just as nearly all geometric forms can be reduced to squares and triangles. In fact, in these larger arrays, trios can sometimes be made much more stable by surrounding them with other trios and pairs. Thus, all larger teams are basically built from the building blocks we have just described; only the size of the structure varies.

That said, there is one crucial difference between pairs and trios and the larger teams to come: to those building blocks is added the mortar of internal leadership.