The star and the system: the architecture of talent and team resilience

The question is not whether a business needs talent. It is whether a strong individual creates value for the whole system, or the system begins to work only for that individual.

An exceptional specialist can raise a team up, but can also overshadow it. When knowledge, relationships and decisions are concentrated in one person, the company grows only to the limits of that person's capabilities, while the fear of losing them takes precedence over the resilience of the whole structure. The opposite extreme, mechanical equality that refuses to recognise different contributions, also drives capable people away.