Optimizing Synergies With Strength Versus Weakness Distribution

This is not checkers; this is motherfuckin' chess.

           - Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Generally speaking, a greater emphasis is placed on fixing weaknesses rather than improving strengths. However, this may be the wrong criteria for analytics in a variety of scenarios. In the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, Mr. Horowitz talks about the hiring process, specifically the strength versus weakness tradeoff. He notes a common mistake is "valuing lack of weakness rather than strength." A person who has little or no visible weaknesses is consistently viewed as superior to someone who has obvious weaknesses, and the strengths are then subsequently dismissed. However, this may not be the best way of comparing individuals, businesses, etc.

For example, person A has no apparent disadvantages but is decidedly average across the board. On the other hand, person B is terrible at X (and is quickly dismissed), although she happens to be excellent and Y and Z. Too often person A is favored over person B based on the "feel test" when it should be the other way around.

This problem is very situational. Ultimately, the decision maker must decide which weaknesses are acceptable and can be dealt with and/or improved on in order to determine what is the best course of action. While predominantly we tend to avoid weaknesses, we may be better off looking at the strength-weakness tradeoff from a different perspective. Specifically, is it worth improving strengths instead of trying to cover up weaknesses? Many times the answer is yes.

I often see this problem among team athletics. For example, in the spirit of the World Cup lets say there is a soccer team with the following talent distribution amongst starters:

• 4 excellent players
• 4 average players
• 3 poor players

Keep in mind soccer has 11 starters. The above talent distribution is rather common as soccer tends to have parity amongst teams. That is, each team has a fairly similar mix of talent. No team has 11 all-stars and no team has 11 terrible players.

So what does the coach do? For the sake of this example, lets say all 10 field players can play offense, defense, and midfield at a level equal to their overall talent level. How does the coach arrange the lineup in order to give the team the best chance to win?

Similar to the aforementioned discussion, too often a coach tries to cover up weaknesses by putting one excellent player at offense, two excellent players at midfield, and one excellent player at defense, thereby having an average offense, average midfield, and average defense in an attempt to cover up any and all weaknesses.

But perhaps the coach should consider a different strategy. Perhaps the coach should put all the excellent players on offense and accept having a poor defense, or perhaps the coach should put all the excellent players on defense and accept having a poor offense. Or maybe the coach should put all the excellent players at midfield. Why might these strategies of grouping the talent together and accepting certain weaknesses be superior to being average across the board? The answer has to do with synergy.

Synergy is the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. In simpler terms, two people working together can produce a greater effect than each can individually. One plus one can equal three with synergy. On the soccer field, the four excellent players are better off working together than being spread apart, unable to utilize each other. While this may come with one or two weaknesses, focusing on having strengths as opposed to hiding weaknesses often produces superior results.

This is also true for organizations in business. Being great at one aspect of your business is likely better than be average at everything. And even if you have a few weaknesses (which is likely no matter what), you can distinguish yourself by standing out in certain areas.

- Joe