A new study at the Harvard Business School takes the spotlight off the “top performers” and focuses it on the other folks who make it possible for the star to shine. According to the researchers, “Stars need to recognize that despite their talent, knowledge, experience, and reputation, who they work with really matters for sustaining top performance.”
The real breakthrough is that it isn’t just their immediate team impacting these high performers. It’s their colleagues organization-wide. Companies basing their hiring practices on the assumption that top performers can go from company to company making the same magic happen may be in for a disappointment. The researchers claim:
Our study debunks that myth. Star analysts rely a lot on the quality of the colleagues that their organization provides to sustain top performance. They cannot simply replicate their top performance in any organizational context.
Although the study looked at financial analysts, additional research is looking at different jobs and industries, including top managers at GE.
