[zbentley]

That depends on how you define talent.

Is "talent" some immutable, innate, static thing? If so, no: teams that do well don't have to start with individual talent.

Does "talent" encompass the ability to learn and grow and change what you're best at/what you enjoy? If so, then sure, having members with the ability to do those things is important to a team's success. But that's not what most people think of when you say "talent".

In a good environment, a team of novices can grow and learn to produce great things--even without the presence of talented/experienced/whatever mentors/leaders. In an unhealthy environment, not only are the novices doomed to failure/making things worse, but so are experienced folks. Determining what constitutes a good environment (and how to foster one) is important--that's what I think the article is saying.

[iateanapple]

> In an unhealthy environment, not only are the novices doomed to failure/making things worse, but so are experienced folks.

Is that true though? I can think of plenty of counter examples where lots of quality work has been done in very toxic environments.

[zbentley]

So can I. But I don't think I'd call those environments/teams high-functioning.

This is roughly the same reason that LoC or features delivered/day are bullshit metrics. They can be skewed by a tiny minority of people doing most of the work. When that is the case, you don't have a high-functioning team or organization; you have a few massive liabilities tipping the scales.

Edit: what I mean is that experienced folks in those environments are "doomed" in a different way than novices. Novices won't gain new skills. Experienced folks will instead feel unappreciated and burn out, or feel over-appreciated and succumb to narcissism. Both outcomes happen at the expense of the team.