[poof131]

Learn that everyone has value. No one is as exceptional as they think.

The guy coding a little slower but who customer success always talks to about problems. Great, he’s enabling communication between teams.

The girl who cleans up behind the “flash” programmer whose prototypes are awesome but doesn’t quite finish.[1] Great, she’s creating production code to be maintained by a team.

The list goes on. People provide value in ways that are not always apparent. I think Peopleware talks a bit about this although I may be mistaken, about the one team member who didn’t seem to fill a role but made everyone happy.[2] If the team wins everyone wins (hopefully in a good org).

The most exceptional teams have people filling roles. Every role is important and provides value. It’s why teams with a ton of exceptional people often implode, because they are all exceptional at only one thing and no one is filling the other roles. So all the members may appear exceptional, but the team is weak. It's a value systems problem.

[1] http://firstround.com/review/how-to-spot-and-magnify-the-pow...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Second-...