Chapter 8. Michael Phelps and The Redeem Team: Superstar Performers and Winning Teams

“We’re guaranteeing a gold medal. We’re bringing it back.”¹

That’s what 20-year old Carmelo Anthony predicted after a single practice with fellow members of the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team before the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.

Media analysts and basketball experts quickly dismissed Anthony’s boast as little more than “youthful indiscretion” from a professional basketball player. But by the time the Olympic torch over Spiros Louis Stadium in Athens was extinguished a month later, his words hung in the air like a foul odor.

By then, the fourth installment of the Olympic Dream Team had become a nightmare. It lost three of eight games and finished with a disappointing bronze medal. The defeats were more than the total number of losses sustained by the U.S. team in all previous Olympics combined.

How could the one-time kings of the sport—the team that won 12 of the previous 14 gold medals—have fallen so far? It wasn’t difficult to figure out.

Between the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the games in Athens four years later, the rest of the world simply caught up to the United States in terms of strategy and skills and surpassed it in other areas. Shooting and passing—disciplines that Team USA traditionally dominated—had eroded precipitously by the time the team landed in Athens. In an embarrassing early-round, 92–73 loss to Puerto Rico, Team USA shot just 3-for-24 from 3-point range and had nearly as many turnovers as field goals.² Afterward, The New York Times lamented, “The United States men’s basketball team traveled all the way to Greece to find out they aren’t even the best squad in their own neighborhood.”³

Of all the shortcomings of Team USA, however, one stood out more than any other: teamwork. Lacking cohesion, the players worked more like individual freelancers than as a well-disciplined unit. They frequently wound up out of position on the court and misread assignments during the flow of games. Instead of following the script that their coaches suggested, players relied on the raw talent that made them superstars in the National Basketball Association (NBA). But those capabilities were simply no match for the well-coordinated team attacks unleashed on the Americans by Lithuania, Argentina, and, of course, Puerto Rico. The United States rallied in the bronze-medal game to avenge its early-round loss to Lithuania, but the win provided little solace.

More than attitude, most of the Americans simply lacked the skills and the understanding required to play team basketball. While the style doesn’t feature the dazzling drives or signature dunks seen in the NBA, it does showcase a more unselfish play that leads to better shot selection, tougher defense, and improved rebounding. These were the very things that toppled Team USA in Athens and denied Anthony the gold he so confidently predicted.

Like Team USA in 2004, organizations that are dominated by superstars often encounter a loss of unity and purpose, leading to internal strife. Without shared organizational goals, employees focus more on their own glory than on organizational pursuits.

But the opposite scenario does not necessarily produce any better results. In an organization that values the collective without regard for the individual, creativity is stifled, new ideas are smothered, and groupthink prevails. This can limit an organization just as much as a lack of teamwork and prevent it from capturing new opportunities or foreseeing trouble ahead. And it may force high-performing individuals to leave.

That’s precisely what Gary Burrell and Min Kao did after helping Allied Corporation develop pioneering navigation technology, leveraging the satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) developed by the United States government. Frustrated by their employer’s reluctance to recognize the worth of their invention and pursue commercial applications for it, the two left and went on to form Garmin, now the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer personal navigation devices.⁴

Stories such as these abound in the annals of companies big and small. Take the ad world. Thirty years ago, Dan Wieden and David Kennedy were young, brash, talented—and frustrated. Working for advertising giant McCann-Erickson (and later at the smaller firm of William Cain), the duo felt constrained and hemmed in as members of the agency’s worldwide team. No matter how they tried, they couldn’t persuade the account teams to push their clients to consider more creative print and broadcast advertising. So the two struck out on their own, along with a scrappy, up-and-coming Oregon shoe company that was looking to make a name for itself. That company was Nike. Not long after, Wieden came up Nike’s most famous campaign: Just Do It.

McCann-Erickson could have had this glory, had it only listened to its bright young stars instead of depending on the opinion of the collective team.

What the examples of Team USA, Garmin, McCann-Erickson and others suggest is that instead of emphasizing individual achievement over teamwork or vice versa, organizations should do both. In this case, that means providing incentives and opportunities for individual superstars to shine while building a foundation for improved teamwork.

So how does an organization best do that?

It starts with performance metrics, incentive structures, and resource allocations that are geared toward individuals and teams. But it doesn’t stop there. Organizational culture—measurable by few, but potent for all—plays a major role in determining the balance between individuals and teams.

How would your employees, for example, answer this question: “Will I become more successful pursuing my own ideas or working closely with a team?” The answer reveals a lot about your organization’s mindset.

At Cisco, the answer is simple: “Yes”—you have to do both.

Cisco employees must excel at both individual responsibilities and team collaboration. Collaboration is not an excuse to pawn off responsibilities on team members or an opportunity to take credit for their work. Employees need to shine in their own light. At the same time, however, organizational objectives supersede individual achievements and goals.

This duality, of course, requires that Cisco encourage individual contributions and foster team performance.

Cisco evaluates individuals on how they challenge the status quo, disrupt existing businesses, and open their minds to new ideas, among other things. And Cisco’s incentive structure reflects this philosophy. The company can reward superstars with bonuses that are not 10 or 20 percent more than that of the average employee, but double or triple that of the average employee.

Additionally, employees are measured on how they work across organizational boundaries and act in a selfless way to achieve shared goals. That includes both rank-and-file employees and senior executives. Cisco CEO John Chambers requires that in addition to individual excellence, candidates for senior executive promotions have made meaningful contributions to a cross-functional leadership team.

But how—and when—does the company use both individual superstars and collaborative teams? It depends on the situation. Some initiatives require the passion, creativity, and quick thinking of a talented person. Others need the cross-functional expertise, complementary skill sets, and diverse resources of a team. As projects evolve over time, these requirements may sway one way or the other, so Cisco can adjust accordingly.

Consider Cisco’s entry into the Sports & Entertainment business, for example. As recently as 2006, Cisco wasn’t in this market in any meaningful way. That changed when one company dreamer fired up his Internet browser to kill some time.

StadiumVision: When Individual Superstars Dream Big

Each year at auto shows in Paris, New York, and Detroit, the world’s leading automobile companies show off future vehicles known as concept cars. Designed to excite the buying public, these cars showcase the latest in design and technology.

Similarly, technology companies often develop prototype products that they, too, hope will excite buyers and stimulate developers. In many instances, they produce videos, white papers, and other materials to showcase the latest in their thinking.

One day while surfing Cisco’s internal web site, company marketing manager Stuart Hamilton came across a video that stimulated his interest. The video showcased how networking technology could be applied to enhance the experiences of sports fans at ball parks and stadiums. The fans’ infectious passion for sports and unbridled enthusiasm for technology struck a chord with Hamilton.

“That looks kind of cool,” he said to himself.

The more he thought about the video, the more intrigued the long-time company veteran became. So he began searching for additional articles, PowerPoint presentations, press clippings—anything that contained information about Cisco’s involvement with sports technology. Hoping to get additional insights, Hamilton tracked down Chief Demonstration Officer Jim Grubb, whose team produced the video. “How much of the video is real?” Hamilton asked.

“It’s aspirational,” he was told. “We need people to get behind it.”

Hamilton sensed an opportunity. Knowing Cisco was concerned with over-promising and under-delivering on any idea, he put together what he calls an “unsolicited proposal for a job that didn’t exist.” The mission: serve as Cisco’s chief investigator for sports and entertainment opportunities. Armed with little more than curiosity and enthusiasm, Hamilton began gathering information on sports technology.

With the blessing of then Cisco treasurer and avid sports fan Dave Holland, Hamilton started posing questions, not only to Cisco’s thought leaders, but also to sports franchise owners around the world. “What would enhance fan experiences?” he asked. The ideas he collected ran the gamut from fan-friendly web sites to dedicated television stations to touch-screen interactive displays. Some of the ideas were compelling. A few were even theoretically possible. But none of them revolved around the equipment that Cisco actually made. So Hamilton turned his attention to Cisco technology and customer relevancy. And video seemed to be the answer.

Team owners, he discovered, were interested in putting wireless networking and Internet-enabled cameras throughout their stadium venues to provide fans exclusive video of on-field action and access to instant replays. They thought that would attract technologically-savvy fans who might otherwise stay home to watch sports on high-definition televisions. Hamilton thought that some of the ideas team owners envisioned were novel, but not really practical. He worried about fans at baseball games glancing down at their video-enabled mobile phones while a pop-up foul ball loomed over head. Instead, he formed an idea for something that appealed to their business sense. Why not, he proposed, use video technology to help sell more hotdogs, route stadium traffic, or promote upcoming events? On a May 2007 flight back to California after visiting yet another franchise owner, Hamilton sketched a proposal on the back of a napkin for a product that would later become known as Cisco StadiumVision.

Hamilton’s idea called for the removal of the aging analog displays and televisions from stadiums and for the installation of new digital screens that could be programmed to address a myriad of needs. “Fans can upgrade seats at self-service kiosks and, using tablet PCs in the luxury suites, watch replays, check scores, answer sports trivia, order food or team merchandise, even check traffic before heading home,” explained Fast Company magazine in 2010.⁵ More than mere digital signage, StadiumVision is a programmable, networked solution that offers unprecedented flexibility and control over the content and distribution of information. Even teams with no money to spend on advanced technology liked the idea of using video inside their facilities to generate revenue.

After months of personal interviews, Hamilton was confident that his idea would sell. With no dedicated budget, no engineering staff, and no salespeople, he and a colleague looked to other sports-minded executives at the company for help.

“Let’s see what you can do,” they told him. So Hamilton pulled out his Visa card and called in some favors. He even traded some baseball tickets for lab space, software talent, and equipment. Soon, his ragtag team of conscripts and volunteers assembled a prototype of StadiumVision, cobbled together from Cisco routers and switches, digital signage screens, Unified Communications, and Scientific Atlanta video equipment. By August 2007, Hamilton began showing the prototype to any willing Cisco executive. They liked what they saw but asked tough questions. How many customers do you have? How many patents, marketing slogans, or ad ideas? The answer, of course, was zero.

In some companies—read most—that would have been the end of the line for Hamilton’s dream. Without customer momentum or engineering support, ideas from left field have little chance of a thorough vetting, let alone long-term success. But not at Cisco.

Instead of watching his dream sink like a fly ball in center field, Hamilton worked with Holland and others to rally company-wide support around StadiumVision.

“In many companies, ideas that are generated outside of the traditional power structure never get off the ground because there is no mechanism to bring the right people together to evaluate it,” says Holland. “We, however, have mechanisms in place that can make the most of ideas brought to us by advanced thinkers.”

Because of the backing he received from management at the company, Hamilton confidently approached the NFL and proposed that Cisco showcase StadiumVision technology at the league’s biggest venue: the Super Bowl. The league immediately turned him down. But Hamilton persisted. Based on a successful test in late 2007, the Arizona Cardinals gave the green light to display the technology on 30 video screens during the game—a very small opportunity at a very big event. Luckily for Cisco, Hamilton’s StadiumVision idea debuted without a hitch, resulting in the technology’s first customer.

Based on that success, Cisco’s Sports & Entertainment business was off and running. Executives quickly lent engineers, marketing support, and even project managers—virtually everyone Hamilton needed to turn StadiumVision into a more commercially viable product. He, meanwhile, continued to make contacts that would turn into new business leads.

More than mere dollars, Cisco now realizes that the high-visibility sports businesses is a perfect showcase for its integrated video, mobility, and collaboration solutions. So the company has given Hamilton even more resources and support.

Since unveiling StadiumVision, Cisco has attracted a host of marquee customers, including some of the biggest names in the sports business. In 2008, for example, the New York Yankees signed a deal for 1,000 StadiumVision displays to be installed inside their new $1 billion baseball park. Then in the fall, the Dallas Cowboys football team signed on to put 3,000 screens inside their brand-new park. Other successes followed.

Thanks to broader support he received inside the company, Hamilton can solicit funds and secure immediate buy-in to his plans. He can also tap the expertise of thought leaders throughout the company and secure their commitments. More than anything, he can get visibility when he needs it and air cover when he doesn’t. And he’s not alone.

Throughout Cisco, star performers like Hamilton have helped the company in innumerable ways. That includes engineers, salespeople, managers, financiers, marketers, and others. Because Cisco gives them a great deal of latitude, they often lead the company to opportunities that it might have otherwise missed.

As invaluable as superstars are, however, an organization still needs its teams to amplify their work, scale initiatives, and drive cross-leverage between different functions. Key to building winning teams is cultivating an environment in which stars thrive but teamwork triumphs.

That’s easier said than done, given the structural and cultural impediments present in many organizations. Until a few years ago, that included Cisco.

For instance, when Executive Vice President Rob Lloyd took over the North American sales organization in 2005, morale was high, and execution was thriving. He recognized that he had plenty of individual superstars but thought the organization could benefit from better teamwork—the kind he relied on as a youth playing hockey in Canada.

Lloyd joined Cisco in 1995 after creating one of the largest, independent computer dealerships in all of Western Canada. At its peak, Professional Computing Center of Calgary boasted $350 million in annual sales. When he joined Cisco, Lloyd hoped to merge the skills he picked up as a superstar entrepreneur with the lessons he learned as a team player on the hockey rink.

When Stars Align with Teams

Twenty-billion dollars in three years’ time.

That’s the audacious goal Lloyd set for Cisco’s North American business in 2005. Just back from a successful three-year stint running Cisco’s European operations, Lloyd was infused with confidence and eager to get started when he took over Cisco’s largest region.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Sales in the United States and Canada were growing quickly thanks to the rapidly expanding economy, and Cisco’s product portfolio was brimming with new routers, switches, and video products, too. Because of these and other factors, customers were in a buying mood.

But $20 billion in annual sales by 2008? Even Lloyd’s most trusted lieutenants thought that was a bit of a stretch—literally. At Cisco, ambitious objectives are often called “stretch goals” because the only way to achieve them is to extend oneself beyond what was once considered possible. When Lloyd arrived in 2005, Cisco’s North American sales totaled $13.3 billion. As confident as they were, the men and women inside the North American sales organization didn’t see any feasible way they could sustain the kind of growth required to reach $20 billion in annual sales in just three years. In fact, they were concerned that the law of large numbers would surely catch up to them one day. The absolute best they thought they could reach was $18 billion in annual sales—and even that was a stretch.

One reason for this skepticism was a lack of effective teamwork within the sales organization. Employees were simply more focused on individual accomplishments than on winning teams.

At this time, Cisco was solely organized around precisely defined geographies and product lines. There was little coordination between people working in different territories, even among those catering to a single customer who happened to have operations in multiple locales.

That was especially true of sales leaders, who enjoyed a great deal of direct authority and autonomy. The best of these individuals Cisco rewarded handsomely, so they stayed in front-line, customer-facing roles throughout their careers.

As a result, the company enjoyed consistent sales growth and high customer satisfaction but did not transfer field knowledge and customer intimacy between different parts of the company. This limited Cisco’s ability to scale its expertise and prevented the company from capturing enough opportunities to attain Lloyd’s $20 billion goal.

Lloyd believed that he could extract greater yields from individual superstars if he changed their roles. Instead of selling Cisco equipment and managing salespeople, he reassigned several of them to develop new solutions with individuals from other parts of the company. That had never been done before, but it was precisely what Lloyd thought the company needed.

When he began recruiting sales leaders to join his efforts, Lloyd encountered some initial pushback. Most liked their jobs and were wary of risking their careers on an unknown opportunity. In addition, they didn’t like the idea of relinquishing direct authority over subordinates in favor of influencing people who did not report to them.

“When Rob approached me about the opportunity, I wasn’t thrilled,” says then-sales director Larry Payne. “From leading a sales organization to doing a crazy special project? I didn’t know what it would mean for my career. I was told it was more visible and more important. But with no direct reports, I wasn’t sure.”

But Lloyd persisted. He promised Payne and other sales leaders that this would be good for their careers and beneficial to Cisco. He was not necessarily looking for sales leaders with market expertise, but for those who could build teams, identify opportunities, analyze data, foresee potential challenges, and collaborate effectively—all in the name of creating new deliverables that would help overcome the two-billion-dollar sales gap. He found these qualities not only in Payne, but also in Blake Sallé, a sales director in Washington, D.C, and nine other sales superstars from his organization.

In 2006, these leaders began to recruit their virtual teams. With no direct reports, they had to enlist the support of people throughout the company—many of whom they had never worked with before—to build their end-to-end solutions.

The teams first scanned for opportunities. Based on this, they generated hypotheses about how Cisco could make a greater impact in the markets. Then they did a deep analysis of customer buying habits, market trends, competitive threats, and the like. From there, they divided these opportunities into two categories: “just do its” and “figure it outs.” The teams executed on the former and investigated the latter with pilot programs.

Based on the feedback from these programs, the teams drafted action plans, which were reviewed by Lloyd and his leadership team. With these plans, Cisco could move forward with end-to-end solutions in each vertical market.

Sallé’s team, for example, was focused around increasing security revenue for Cisco. Detailed analysis revealed that the 80 percent of security customers who invested in just one product represented only 15 percent of product bookings. Conversely, just 3 percent of customers—those who purchased at least four products each—generated a whopping 61 percent of bookings. With this information in hand, Sallé’s team drafted plans to refocus Cisco around a security architecture.

Another team was assembled to help increase channel sales. It brought together a dozen specialized systems engineers who devised a new program that scaled expertise. Their suggestion? Pull engineers from the field, where they spent a lot of their day solving problems for specific customers, and reassign them to jobs where they could combine their talents to create solutions that could be used by many customers over and over again.

This kind of teamwork was critical in devising new solutions. Payne, for example, had to learn the value of collaboration.

“Cisco is a very competitive, hard-driving sales culture. When Rob started talking collaboration, I thought it meant to play nice. But when I got into this role, I saw the real value. When you bring the right resources together, you get real results,” says Payne.

And what were those results?

Thanks to their teamwork, Lloyd’s organization reached $22.8 billion in annual sales in 2009—besting Lloyd’s original goal by $2.8 billion, or 14 percent.

By getting his star players to apply their skills in new ways, Lloyd improved teamwork across his organization. In doing so, he saw the business grow by a whopping 71 percent. At the same time, his superstars saw their careers soar to new heights.

Sallé, for example, was promoted to vice president and asked to run worldwide sales for Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group. As for Payne, he earned a promotion, too. He’s now vice president for State, Local, and Education sales for half of the United States.

This success could happen in your organization, too, if you nurture both teams and individuals.

For proof, look no further than the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. While many remember the individual performances of superstar swimmer Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals, Beijing was also the setting for the redemption of the United States basketball team.

Superstars and Teams: A Gold-Medal Combination

After returning from Greece with the bronze medal, USA Basketball went into overdrive to ensure that it would bring home the gold from Beijing in 2008. To inspire greater teamwork, officials turned to famed Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski. A four-time national champion at the college level, Krzyzewski had a reputation for producing well-oiled teams. Krzyzewski’s remedy was simple: “To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.”⁶

Getting superstars to check their egos at the door and enter a game in which they might not rack up many points or play as many minutes was a serious challenge. To accomplish this, Krzyzewski needed to find the right combination of players. Rather than simply gather the most recent NBA all-stars, he chose a group that could work together and leverage one another’s skills. Once the team was assembled, Krzyzewski drilled them rigorously and coached them on their specific roles.

When the team took the court in Beijing, each player knew his duty and accepted his responsibility. No egos prevailed, and no prima donnas emerged. Take Jason Kidd, for example. Like all of his Team USA counterparts, Kidd is a superstar in his own right. The only player in NBA history to record at least 15,000 points, 7,000 rebounds, and 10,000 assists, he is a scoring, rebounding, and passing threat any night he takes the court. But in Beijing, Krzyzewski tasked Kidd with an unusual mission: help bigger, stronger players score by passing the ball to them. It was an unglamorous assignment for a nine-time NBA All-Star. But Kidd accepted his role with dignity and determination. In the entire tournament, he took just seven shots, but wound up dishing out 16 assists, including seven in a key semifinal victory over Argentina.

As a result of this kind of unselfish play, the “Redeem” Team took home the gold with an unblemished 8–0 record.

For one superstar in particular, the victories in Beijing were sweet redemption. Remember Carmelo Anthony, the young man who guaranteed the gold medal in 2004? As a member of Team USA in 2008, he was finally able to deliver on his promise and bring home the gold. “It was like night and day,” Anthony said after Beijing. “It seemed like we were at the bottom in ’04, and in ’08 we were at the top.”⁷

And the reason for the reversal of fortune? Teamwork, according to those who experienced it firsthand. After losing to Team USA in 2008, Spanish co-captain Pau Gasol summed up what he saw on the floor: “It’s not that they’re a lot better individually. As a team they’re working better together.”⁸

Superstar performers or winning teams? How about doing both?