3.4 244 "Show me what you got"
1. "Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people."
Saban wasn't alone in seeking to build a high-performance culture by not just trying to develop but also identifying high performers.
As Steve Jobs said, "The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A-players. People said they wouldn't get along, they'd hate working with each other. But I realized that A-players like to work with A-players, they just didn't like working with C-players."
Leadership, no matter how effective, goes only so far. In sports, a team with great players and a decent coach will almost always beat a team with decent players and a great coach. That's why the best college coaches -- like Saban -- are, first and foremost, great recruiters.
Developing skills, building team cohesion, creating an innovative culture, driving performance, focusing on results -- all those things are important. But so is adding more great employees, because superstars love to work with superstars, and success attracts success.
