The Problem of Too Much Talent....

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jcalhoun
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From Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ch-talent/

The Surprising Problem of Too Much Talent
A new finding from sports could have implications in business and elsewhere
October 14, 2014 |By Cindi May

Whether you're the owner of the Dallas Cowboys or captain of the playground dodge ball team, the goal in picking players is the same: Get the top talent. Hearts have been broken, allegiances tested, and budgets busted as teams contend for the best athletes. The motivation for recruiting peak performers is obvious — exceptional players are the key to team success — and this belief is shared not only by coaches and sports fans, but also by corporations, investors, and even whole industries. Everyone wants a team of stars.

While there is no denying that exceptional players like Emmitt Smith can put points on the board and enhance team success, new research by Roderick Swaab and colleagues suggests there is a limit to the benefit top talents bring to a team. Swaab and colleagues compared the amount of individual talent on teams with the teams’ success, and they find striking examples of more talent hurting the team.

The researchers looked at three sports: basketball, soccer, and baseball. In each sport, they calculated both the percentage of top talent on each team and the teams’ success over several years. For example, they identified top NBA talent using each player’s Estimated Wins Added (EWA), a statistic commonly employed to capture a player’s overall contribution to his team, along with selection for the All-star tournament. Once the researchers determined who the elite players were, they calculated top-talent percentage at the team level by dividing the number of star players on the team by the total number of players on that team. Finally, team performance was measured by the team's win-loss record over 10 years.

For both basketball and soccer, they found that top talent did in fact predict team success, but only up to a point. Furthermore, there was not simply a point of diminishing returns with respect to top talent, there was in fact a cost. Basketball and soccer teams with the greatest proportion of elite athletes performed worse than those with more moderate proportions of top level players.

Why is too much talent a bad thing? Think teamwork. In many endeavors, success requires collaborative, cooperative work towards a goal that is beyond the capability of any one individual. Even Emmitt Smith needed effective blocking from the Cowboy offensive line to gain yardage. When a team roster is flooded with individual talent, pursuit of personal star status may prevent the attainment of team goals. The basketball player chasing a point record, for example, may cost the team by taking risky shots instead of passing to a teammate who is open and ready to score.

Two related findings by Swaab and colleagues indicate that there is in fact tradeoff between top talent and teamwork. First, Swaab and colleagues found that the percentage of top talent on a team affects intrateam coordination. For the basketball study, teams with the highest levels of top performers had fewer assists and defensive rebounds, and lower field-goal percentages. These failures in strategic, collaborative play undermined the team’s effectiveness. The second revealing finding is that extreme levels of top talent did not have the same negative effect in baseball, which experts have argued involves much less interdependent play. In the baseball study, increasing numbers of stars on a team never hindered overall performance. Together these findings suggest that high levels of top talent will be harmful in arenas that require coordinated, strategic efforts, as the quest for the spotlight may trump the teamwork needed to get the job done.

The lessons here extend beyond the ball field to any group or endeavor that must balance competitive and collaborative efforts, including corporate teams, financial research groups, and brainstorming exercises. Indeed, the impact of too much talent is even evident in other animals: When hen colonies have too many dominant, high-producing chickens, conflict and hen mortality rise while egg production drops. So before breaking the bank to recruit superstars, team owners and industry experts might want to consider whether the goal they are trying to achieve relies on individual talent alone, or a cooperative synergy from the team. If the latter, it would be wise to reign in the talent and focus on teamwork.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Cindi May is a Professor of Psychology at the College of Charleston. She explores mechanisms for optimizing cognitive function in college students, older adults, and individuals with intellectual disabilities. She is also the project director for a TPSID grant from the Department of Education, which promotes the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in postsecondary education.
TheLionKing
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Too much ego often is a detriment to a team.
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jcalhoun
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Hey all,

Oops. Posted that a little too soon.

I was thinking about the article above in regard to the Baltimore Stallions of 1994, the Lions of 2005, and the 1989 Eskimos: three teams who were positively loaded with talent, but who failed when it counted to teams who played better as teams.

I also wonder if the presence of star players creates a double-edged sword problem where if the star is shut down, the non-star players (unaccustomed to stepping-up and being game-changers --for lack of a better term) simply wilt under the pressure, as Calgary did in the 2012 Grey Cup when Cornish was keyed-on and neutralized.

Conversely, Geroy Simon was always keyed-on in big games, but the extra attention he received usually resulted in opportunities for other players who, more often than not, stepped-up.

Anyway, rambling thoughts for a Wednesday morning.

Cheers,

James
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Fascinating stuff, James.

It's a shame the researchers didn't study any teams in football, which is arguably the sport that requires the greatest amount of what they call "collaborative, cooperative work".

Perhaps the much lower volume of games played in football generates far smaller data sets, which would hamper the conclusions that one might more easily draw from the far busier schedules of sports like basketball and baseball.
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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The study is flawed because they didn't account for top notch coaching which in football and some other sports is more important in getting wins than players.
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sj-roc
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DanoT wrote:The study is flawed because they didn't account for top notch coaching which in football and some other sports is more important in getting wins than players.
But they didn't even study any football data in the first place, like they did basketball, soccer and baseball. Along with the smaller data set of game results carrying less statistical significance, this coaching factor might be another reason why they declined to investigate this sport.
...The researchers looked at three sports: basketball, soccer, and baseball. In each sport, they calculated both the percentage of top talent on each team and the teams’ success over several years. For example, they identified...
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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Toppy Vann
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In a rush but here's a quick take.

I don't think the study is flawed but the findings and conclusions exclude what Michael Mauboussin speaks about in his book "The Success Equation: Untangling Luck in Business, Sports and Investing. Get this book.

There is some truth to the chemistry in issue in too much talent but when they speak of soccer they do note that too much talent equates to top performing teams and if you know international football stars you'd be questioning the conclusions that top talent doesn't pass the ball etc.

This book ranks sports on the pure skill - luck continuum and rates basketball with the least luck which is in part attributed to the fact that to be good there you're mostly tall and therefore all teams have these tall stars - some teams more than others.

So for more skill than luck it goes similar:
> basketball > soccer > baseball > football > hockey.

The case is made as that the greater the depth of talent increases and more parity exists the more luck plays a role. Luck is kind of unclear in one sense as it can be something like a team comes out that day and just plays flat collectively.

Luck in the NBA comes in about 48% of the time.

I might be cherrypicking but they looked at five seasons ending in 2011 and luck contributed as follows:
NBA 12%
Premier League 31%
MLB 34%
NFL 38%
Nhl 53% (2012)

The contribution of luck is rising due to more talent and parity. The exception is basketball.

When he puts activities on the luck-skill continuum he puts chess at the highest level of skill, following by bowling, then soccer, baseball, football in a close cluster then hockey and further down the line toward pure luck - investing.

He bases a lot of this on research that shows reversion to the mean. I now see what happened to my parents' mutual funds in the early 70s with top performer and bottom reverting to the mean. This is tied into what he terms the paradox of skill.

Interesting stuff both studies.

I heard the President of Man City speak of the stars and he'd been at Barcelona where he says these top players make so much money only their managers know the numbers. BUT what each star knows is where they place in the room in pay and if there's a sense of being wronged with a lesser guy earning more there is a huge issue.

The top teams too have top stars who can't make the line up each week and you need to read Sir Alec Fergusons book or HBR article on him to see how he so successfully managed this and sat out stars on Saturday home games to say he was saving them for an away guy in Europe which is not easy to do.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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Unless I've missed something here (i.e., that it was factored in), I think that the phenomenon of a salary cap moderates any correlational effect between talent level and team success. We see this vividly in the NFL (and the CFL), where paying a top-talent quarterback $24M (or close to 20% of the player-salary budget) can reduce the level of talent available for other positions. So the phenomenon of how the talent is distributed on a team comes into play. If a team has several extremely-talented players--guys who will demand very high salaries--then the rest of the roster is starved for talent. There might be an optimum combination of amount and distribution of talent so that it might be better to have more players of moderate-to-good talent than fewer players of phenomenal talent; or maybe it's vice versa. This could be modeled statistically.
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DanoT
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South Pender wrote:Unless I've missed something here (i.e., that it was factored in), I think that the phenomenon of a salary cap moderates any correlational effect between talent level and team success. We see this vividly in the NFL (and the CFL), where paying a top-talent quarterback $24M (or close to 20% of the player-salary budget) can reduce the level of talent available for other positions. So the phenomenon of how the talent is distributed on a team comes into play. If a team has several extremely-talented players--guys who will demand very high salaries--then the rest of the roster is starved for talent. There might be an optimum combination of amount and distribution of talent so that it might be better to have more players of moderate-to-good talent than fewer players of phenomenal talent; or maybe it's vice versa. This could be modeled statistically.
A good example of what you are saying would be, I'm guessing, the Seattle Seahawks who have the most talented roster in the NFL in part because they pay their QB a relatively small amount compared to other Super Bowl QBs.
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DanoT wrote:A good example of what you are saying would be, I'm guessing, the Seattle Seahawks who have the most talented roster in the NFL in part because they pay their QB a relatively small amount compared to other Super Bowl QBs.
Thats what I'm betting. IOW, the Seahawks are still a good bet 'SALARY CAP' wise this season but once Russell Wilson gets that QB payday, who knows? IMO, its still better than a few seasons ago when the Sam Bradfords got paid when they were drafted. Huge paydays and how much time can you let them come along? Wilson is that purrfect storm, later round pick and he's OVERSHOT everybodies (except the Seahawks managment and Wilson-himself) expectations. He's due a big raise but will he want the BANK broken and then watch as key components of his offence/defence leave so they can get paid too?
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Toppy Vann
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South Pender wrote:Unless I've missed something here (i.e., that it was factored in), I think that the phenomenon of a salary cap moderates any correlational effect between talent level and team success. We see this vividly in the NFL (and the CFL), where paying a top-talent quarterback $24M (or close to 20% of the player-salary budget) can reduce the level of talent available for other positions. So the phenomenon of how the talent is distributed on a team comes into play. If a team has several extremely-talented players--guys who will demand very high salaries--then the rest of the roster is starved for talent. There might be an optimum combination of amount and distribution of talent so that it might be better to have more players of moderate-to-good talent than fewer players of phenomenal talent; or maybe it's vice versa. This could be modeled statistically.
If you are referring to The Success Equation that is not what Mahboussin is saying.

In fact he says talent is pretty well distributed and thus luck is more of a factor.
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Toppy Vann wrote:If you are referring to The Success Equation that is not what Mahboussin is saying.

In fact he says talent is pretty well distributed and thus luck is more of a factor.
No, I haven't seen that; I was starting from scratch. What I meant by distribution was distribution of talent within a single team--or whether your "talent total" is concentrated in a few extremely talented players or distributed more widely, with many only-fairly talented players. Perhaps Mahboussin has addressed this.
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DanoT wrote:A good example of what you are saying would be, I'm guessing, the Seattle Seahawks who have the most talented roster in the NFL in part because they pay their QB a relatively small amount compared to other Super Bowl QBs.
Exactly. The Seahawks at present have a more even distribution of talent across many positions on the team than a team like the Ravens who opened the vault for Joe Flacco. And they're able to have this because the cap-busting cost of a top-tier quarterback hasn't kicked in yet. But it will next year, and we may see the loss of moderately-costly players like Marshawn Lynch.
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Too much talent ... a good problem to have. Not easy for a coach, but one has the chance for great success, unlike a team with too little talent.

This brings to mind a situation I read about years ago. The NBA. What is better, a solid team without mega stars, or a team with one superstar (back before NBA teams tried to get three superstars as with Miami)?

The situation was end of game, solid team on defence, trying to protect a one point lead. During a timeout, the coach is going over many scenarios with his hard working team, then looks over at the other bench. The other coach is talking, but just to his superstar. The first coach has a sinking feeling. Well, the superstar scores the winning basket. (So long ago I do not remember the teams, player and coaches, et cetera). My point is that it seems to me talent rules in the NBA. You need to have top level talent. Three superstars can make it work. James. Wade. Bosh. Or Boston previously with Garnett, Pierce and Rondo (Ray Allen was also there).

Too much talent? In this day and age, there are limitations on this "problem." Salary caps in some sports limit the spending. And even with an abundance of talent, as with the free spending Yankees in the time of Derek Jeter, a well managed team can deal with an overabundance of talent, and win championships.

In football, having two exceptional quarterbacks can be a problem. There is something about the dynamics of football that seems to demand one quarterback clearly at the top of the food chain. Having two can divide a team, et cetera. We saw that with Dickenson/Printers, and it probably cost us a title in 2004.

Two or more superstar pitchers? Not a problem. Koufax and Drysdale. Schilling and Johnson. The Mets with Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Gary Gentry and Jerry Koosman.

This is a topic with many angles and many issues. Just some random ideas ...
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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Toppy Vann
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Found this online having travelled a few weeks ago an hour to get the book

http://changethis.com/manifesto/100.03. ... uation.pdf

The paradox of skill means that as talent depth increases in a team and you get more parity across teams luck will play a larger role. Not so much say in world soccer as the rich teams dominate as they buy more game changers.

His book speaks of the special case of basketball where things work a bit differently in that the players are from a sub-set of the population - all very tall.

Mahboussin speaks of how if you are strong - simplify. If you are weak make it more complex.
My example: If you are strong you can run the ball right at their strengths in the D line and the LB crew - just vary the theme. Inside the tackles, attack the perimeter with runs, etc.

If you are weak do as they have done in football - trick plays. Use the spread - in fact was it not said on this board that the spread came from a college coach who was weak so spread the strong opponents out to attack and didn't leave the blocking back as they couldn't block.

This is a longer talk by this guy:

"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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