The Thing You Probably Don’t Know About High-Performing Teams

4 min readNov 26, 2022

High-performing teams are awesome. Whether it’s in sports or business, being in a high-performing team just feels good. You’re the envy of everyone on the outside looking in.

Plenty has already been written about the benefits and traits of high-performing teams, like a shared purpose, trust, communication, diversity, the list goes on. This short story isn’t about that.

There is one thing you probably don’t know yet about high-performing teams. It’s behind the curtain on the backstage where most of us don’t see it. Without it, we wouldn’t have high-performing teams at all.

Do you know who the most successful sports team of all time is? It’s not the hugely talented Chicago Bulls who won 6 NBA championships during 1991–98, or the New York Yankees with their 5 World Series during 1949–53. And it’s not the highly successful Australian womens field hockey team of the 90s with their 3 Olympic and 2 World Cup gold medals either!

It’s the All Blacks rugby team from New Zealand. They ’ve won more than 75% of the games they’ve played over their 100-year history. How could a team from a country with little over 5 million people consistently win against more rich, more resourceful, and far more populated countries? While cultural factors and natural talent play a big part, there is something else that has helped make the impossible possible here.

There are examples of unlikely and super human success in business too. Think about some of the most successful product launches of all time. For many of us, one in particular springs to mind — the iPhone. Apple had seen moderate success with the Mac and the iPod was changing the way we consumed music but they were hardly smashing it compared to other tech companies at the time. So what made the iPhone so successful? Like the sports teams mentioned earlier, it wasn’t just talent. Steve Jobs actually pushed back on the idea of Apple creating a phone for some years before giving it the go-ahead.

The one thing the All Blacks, Chicago Bulls, Yankees and iPhone team all had in common which set them apart was a captain and leader willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the team.

Now you might be wondering what sacrifices Michael Jordan made during his time as captain of the Bulls. The short answer is very few. MJ was without doubt the most valuable player, but not the best leader. The Bulls with MJ as captain played for six seasons without making it to the NBA finals, let alone winning anything. It wasn’t until his far lesser-known teammate Bill Cartwright was made co-captain that they started winning. Bill wasn’t the most talented player on the team nor was he the most inspirational leader, but he ensured all the little things a team needs got done to perfection. He sacrificed himself to ensure the team had everything it needed to succeed.

The same can be said for the 2011–15 All Blacks. Their captain Richie McCaw was by no means the most talented player or outwardly inspirational leader. You could tell he hated giving speeches and doing press conferences but was willing to sacrifice himself for the team. With meticulous precision and bloody hard work he ensured his team had the environment and conditions for their best chance of success. And succeed they did, winning two Rugby World Cups under his captaincy.

So what about the iPhone… who was the unsung hero there? As a product manager I’d love to say it was one of us. At a stretch you could say Steve Jobs was the de facto product manager considering he must have deeply understood all aspects of Apple, from design to marketing, sales to finance, manufacturing, legal and partnerships. There were no doubt more than a few unsung heroes on that team but from what I’ve read and heard, it was Bob Borchers (in charge of Product Marketing) who we have to thank for taking on the co-captaincy and ensuring all those little details were taken care of. Especially during the 6 months from the ‘fake it till you make it’ demo until the actual launch. Bob appears to have been across the finer details of almost everything to do with that launch but all most of us remember is Steve Jobs on stage doing that now famous demo.

The point here is this. In almost every case I’ve looked at, whether it be in sports or in business, there is a captain (or co-captain) taking on what seems to be an unfair burden so the team can accomplish heroic feats. But that comes at a personal cost to those unselfish and unrelenting individuals. And often, at least in digital and tech businesses, those individuals are product managers and product leaders. I care about my fellow product managers. So one of my aims in life is to make the lives of future product leaders (aka captains) just a little bit easier, through the use of automation and digital tools. You know you need it. So watch this space!

In the meantime, if you’re a product manager or product leader who is (or wants to be) in a high-performing team but would like some help to do that in a sustainable and scalable way without burning out, I’d love to listen! 🚀

References:

The Thing You Probably Don’t Know About High-Performing Teams

Written by Tim Nunn