An All Star team isn’t necessarily the OPTIMAL team. Team chemistry matters and optimally allocating your resources to germinate good leaders and managers within your company is paramount for success. There is some logic (though often short-sighted) in plucking single players out of another environment and putting them with other “All Star” individuals of excellent talent on to your team. You can even convince yourself that you’ve put together the ‘best team’ possible. However, what is best for the whole venture doesn’t mean maximizing every single piece. You have to be prudent about where you are investing your money and resources. You can very well be dooming your team and/or venture by assembling “All Stars” instead of building a long term value generating team. A team that has cultivated productive chemistry over time will beat out a more talented team of individual ‘All Stars’ every time. * Understand that one of the greatest drivers of success in any field is chemistry…chemistry that leads to long term value * Review of the different gears of leadership versus management * Work with company culture to drive and shape a chemistry that best generates long term value of your venture * Discuss how extending that chemistry and culture to those you work with outside of your organization…your vendors, distributors, manufacturers, etc. is critical for success. * Learn from those who have hired an individual for headlines or because they are of some singular talent or maybe a one hit wonder: Those were choices were not long term value generating choices for the venture, they were self serving short term plays that have foreseeably lead to failures. * Optimize resource allocation: * Invest time, money and resources in what matters most to building value in your venture * Develop and deliver your core product * Create and support a LOYAL, repeat customer base * Find the right people to internally to generate valuable chemistry and emulate that externally * Find the resources and partners that you can leverage to bolster your own team’s chemistry to grow the long term value in your venture * Cultivate All Stars within your own organization