Chapter 21
THE INTROVERT AND THE SUPERSTAR HALO
BEING A STAR IS PERHAPS one of the things an introvert is least good at or willing to be. I have often found myself thinking, “But the boss only likes superstar workers!” Is this something that you feel too?
The world of sports is an easy place in which to compare the performances of all sorts of players. Based on the analysis of Michael Lewis, the bestselling sports author of Moneyball and The Blind Side, star players aren’t necessarily the ones who score the most. It looks as if they’re getting the most scores when you just glance at the scoreboard, but if you’re paying attention, the reality is that the score is increasing because they have more opportunities to shoot. Sports legends usually build their reputations on the sacrifices of others. To give you an example, in 2010, the NBA’s Miami Heat already had one star player, Dwayne Wade, but they went further and signed on two more superstars, LeBron James and Chris Bosh. In his moment of triumph during a press conference for his signing, James put out a bold statement: he said they were going to win seven consecutive championships. In the end, though, they couldn’t even manage to win the first championship title. This proved something else Lewis said: “The stars are overrated and the role players are underrated.”
The following year, when many Heat fans were hugely disappointed by the team, the low-profile Shane Battier walked into the limelight and joined the star-studded, championship-losing team. He brought along a colossal change—he helped the Miami Heat win championships for two consecutive years, earning his team the second longest winning streak in NBA history with twenty-seven consecutive wins. Battier has been called the “No-Stats All-Star” by commentators. That year, then current star player LeBron James would ask Battier’s opinion before a game. During an important match, fans would even shout at the coaches from the sidelines, “Get Battier out on the court! How’re we gonna win with him on the bench?!” Even after Battier hung up his jersey and retired, he was rehired by the Miami Heat as the vice president of basketball development and analytics.
When Battier was little, he dreamed of becoming a baseball player, but because he was too tall, he was picked for his school’s basketball team instead. He eventually made his way to the NBA, where he had a fourteen-year-long career as a professional player in the most competitive basketball league in the world. Not long after he was picked for the NBA, Battier discovered his skill sets, talents, and build were far different from other players; he defined himself early on by saying, “My job isn’t to become the best small forward but to be the most helpful one.” Even though Battier thought of himself as simply mediocre and average, and his coaches thought of him as being “super smart and calm, almost alien-like,” the coaching team had discovered during analyses of each of the games he played in that, as long as Battier went out onto the court, the shot rates and scores for each player on the team were much higher. As for defense, perhaps he couldn’t block Kobe Bryant all the time, but as long as Battier was out there playing, Bryant’s scoring rate was obviously lower.
Battier’s qualities proved a maxim for successful teams—it is far more valuable, and often a team’s greatest asset, to have helpful teammates than it is to have a player in the limelight.
THE POWER OF INFLUENCE DOESN’T ALWAYS COME FROM BEING IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Adam Grant is a long-time entrepreneurial consultant. At just thirty-six, he has already carved out a place as the youngest tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business; he is also the author of several bestselling books. In addition, Grant is a consultant for multiple Fortune 500 companies; he’s been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Thinkers50 Most Influential Global Management Thinker. You could say he’s a superstar himself, but if asked, he would probably say there’s no such thing as an all-star team. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about a soccer team that wants to kick its way to the World Cup, a professional NBA team that’s spending a good amount of resources to market itself to the world, or a Wall Street consulting company that pulls in hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single second, Grant tells it like it is: “If the entire team is made up of stars, then it’s a team that’s destined for failure.” Real influence doesn’t necessarily come from being in the limelight. Even an often–ignored introvert who doesn’t catch everyone’s attention can play an indispensable role in a team.
Grant specifically summarizes one important characteristic for being successful—modesty. This single characteristic easily expresses three different aspects of such a person:
They know their weaknesses and where they’re lacking.
They put the benefit of the team ahead of personal benefit.
They study and practice constantly.
Introverts are naturally gifted with characteristics like being low-profile, humble, and group-oriented—all of which are workplace qualifications. The value of these kinds of characteristics lies in them having an impact on and being infectious to the entire vibe of the team. When others see someone showing compassion, altruism, and unselfish behavior, they will then naturally feel moved, feel admiration, and want to better themselves. This is the result of moral elevation within a group. In other words, if there’s a Battier on the team, not only will the entire team’s performance improve, the team’s vibes will also become more harmonious, and members will be more helpful toward each other. An example of this is the under-resourced Butler Bulldogs basketball team, who won their way into the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Championship for two years straight. Players who are carefully recruited by Butler University must abide by their number one rule: be a team player. The words team above self hang from everyone’s tongue, the words are metaphorically on everyone’s jerseys, and they are also carved into the walls of Butler’s gymnasium. If a player doesn’t adhere to or agree with the Butler Way, then the player basically has no choice but to leave the team.
THE ROLE PLAYER STARS
Let’s now go back to the idea that all bosses like a superstar. Let’s look at an industry where money talks the loudest and organizations can offer multimillion-dollar contracts to employees—Major League Baseball. In 2014, the Miami Marlins signed on Giancarlo Stanton for an astronomical sum. After an unexpectedly short three years, the major league underwent a massive change—teams were no longer willing to spend massive amounts to sign star players. The signing market went extremely cold and big-name players who couldn’t negotiate a good price either had to lower their salaries or were forced out. As a result, many A-list players couldn’t find a team.
Tsuhan Fan, a sports writer who is also the senior vice president in business analytics of a major marketing firm, wrote that he discovered the main reason for this change in pay scale. After the teams completed the statistical analysis and estimates for all related pieces of player data, they discovered that signing a single star player using a massive pile of money wasn’t nearly as cost-effective as signing contracts with role (average) players.
This is not just happening in professional baseball teams; other industries are also showing similar trends. Wall Street and Silicon Valley have both gradually walked away from their belief in mythical, managerial superstars. After matching their objectives with complete performance evaluations, employers are discovering what they care about is the level of contribution a player can make and the realistic results of this contribution for the entire team. It’s no longer subjective stars’ traits or haloes that allow them to make the cut.
This is a great piece of news for introverts. As long as they can find their own edge, put all their specialties and traits into play, bring their advantages to the fore, and show everyone what they’ve got, they can become an indispensable part of the team and be their own trailblazers.