Steven Sinofsky is a highly talented person, who was regarded to be the key person responsible for the success of Office and Windows 7 in Microsoft. He has unexpected left Microsoft. Some people commented that he could not get along well with other key executives.
http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2012/11/13/microsoft-stock-sinofsky/
Without going into details of the Microsoft episode, I like to pose this general question. For a large organization like Microsoft, what is more important - talented individuals or the ability to work in a team?
What about the public service in Singapore. Should more emphasis be given to individual KPI or the ability to see the bigger picture, of the public good?
2 comments:
Can't have 2 tigers up in the mountain, but the one talented tiger must have the charisma and software touch to lead a team of dumber members for a business to be really successful. No one leader can work alone.
Unfortunately most talents have high self ego, and despise those less endowed than them, leading to team groupthink to ostracize their Head and impede his work.
Ditto with Public Service. Just look at the two high profile current Court cases, the 2 high flying Public Servants are brought down by their own ego and arrogance.
Success had overshot their heads, thinking they could get away with anything as long as they were outstanding in their work. But the Head had offended his team members, and they secretly teamed together to fix him up and finally "sacked" him. The team's power is the secret weapon in their hands, the whistle blower, could easily be used to boot out their Head.
My take is that our public service can find enough talented individuals to set what seems to be "clear" policies from the apex of our Authorities & insitutions, through million-dollar salaries; but they could not find enough good motivated "team players" at the lower levels to see through the implementation and effectiveness of their policies.
Some at the lower levels get still get the "big picture", but lack the "organic" flexibility to get things done fast and effectively ... as such many working in the private sector had to "vomit blood" to get things working with our Authorities.
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