I’ve been thinking a lot about teams recently, inspired by the 2016 dramatic series ‘The People Versus OJ Simpson.’ One of the most compelling aspects of the program was the portrayal of the so-called Dream Team — the group of legal heavyweights retained by OJ to represent him.
Led by Robert Shapiro and later Johnnie Cochran, the team included F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, Barry Scheck, Peter Neufield, and Robert Kardashian. Each of these larger-than-life lawyers had huge egos. Their meetings were portrayed as contentious, emotional, and often angry — in terms of team dynamics, hugely dysfunctional. Many experts would have predicted they would underperform. However, the interesting thing was that they exhibited a clear unity of purpose.
These top legal minds recognized they were facing a mountain of evidence against their client. They knew they had a daunting task and that they would have to be resourceful and creative. And critically — they knew their time together was finite. Once the trial was done, they wouldn’t have to put up with each other. This created a very strong incentive to perform.
What do we take away from this? For leaders, it’s always worth remembering that a key ingredient in effective teamwork is the clarity of the challenge or task and the time frame involved. Bringing together the best people might contribute to success — but only if the task and time frame are crystal clear. By contrast, a sports team assembled from star players often fails when those stars cannot set aside their egos for the longer-term goal of winning a league. The task is farther out and the team hasn’t yet learned to collaborate. As a result, they are often beaten by teams with fewer stars.