A Team Game

What the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate might teach us about building teams and companies

This weekend saw the return of Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United, after more than a decade away. In debates of Messi vs. Ronaldo, a part-Argentinian friend of mine used to say that Ronaldo was the greatest human to have ever played football but that Lionel Messi was from another planet and was, therefore, beyond comparison.

Clearly, both Messi and Ronaldo would walk into any footballing team on Earth and have it be improved by their presence. Growing up, I was always more of a fan of the mercurial wizardry of Messi over the raw power and drive of Ronaldo. Whilst Ronaldo clearly trained harder and wanted it more than anyone else, it was as if Messi didn’t even need to train, didn’t even need to try. Everything with Messi seems effortless. Recently, having become more interested in teams and building them, I’ve taken another view.

Anyone who knows anything about football knows it is a weak-link game. This means that improving your already star-striker with one even more stellar will do less for your overall performance over the course of a league season than will replacing, say, your radically underperforming central midfielder. Manchester United already have a strong striker in Edinson Cavani, so why go for Ronaldo as well?

In company-building, one framework for thinking about people is to classify them into adders, subtracters, multipliers and dividers. Adders simply perform their task and “add” to your organisation. Subtracters might be underperforming but with management and training you can generally turn them into an adder. The hope with dividers is that you identify them as such in short order and remove them from your organisation. The unicorns though, are the multipliers. These are the people who, be it through their collaboration skill, interpersonal ability or wise decision-making, make your company much more than the sum of its parts.

Looking at Messi and Ronaldo through this lens, I would argue that Messi is the greatest “adder” to have ever graced the game. His level of addition might even be so high as to be considered a cheat-code. Ronaldo, on the other hand, is a multiplier. His level of addition on its own is magnificent but the performance, focus and dedication he demands from his teammates (which, as a true leader, are no less than the demands he makes of himself) make them better too.

The effects of multipliers are, of course, greater where the team is larger.
If you find yourself with a multiplier in your team or company, you should do everything in your power to hold onto them and keep them growing. I’ve been lucky enough to know and hire a handful of these people in my career and their impact on a company is astronomical. I look forward to seeing whether Ronaldo will have a similar impact on the already alarming quality of Manchester United.

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