Why brilliant teams sometimes fail

Have you ever assembled a team you thought consisted of the most talented individuals, only to discover that it just – somehow – didn’t work? The results fell flat? And then, to make everything even more confusing, you found out that another group, a strange mix of people who barely seemed to fit together, who had next to nothing in common, produced astonishing results?

Forbidden

Mark Granovetter, a Stanford University professor best known for his work in social network theory and economic sociology, has proposed a concept called the ‘Forbidden Triad’. It works like this. 

Imagine you’re good friends with Person A and Person B, but that A and B have little or no connection with each other. In normal circumstances, if you’re close to both, they’re probably likely to end up meeting. And the three of you may well form a solid triangle of friendship.

But, if A and B never meet, that triangle (triad) of friendship will never solidify. It will never ‘close’. It will become what Granovetter called forbidden. And yet that gap — that missing connection — is often where new ideas sneak in.

Strong vs Weak

People like to stick close to people like them — the ones who share their values, their backgrounds, their ways of thinking. They form clusters held together by ‘strong ties’ of common experience. And of course, other clusters, based on other common experiences, also form and are held together by their strong ties. 

The one thing all these clusters have in common, though, is that they are made up of people. So they all share a common humanity, and this gives them – however loose or flimsy – a connection: ‘weak ties’ that connect the different clusters.

It’s in these weak ties that the secret to innovation lies. One example: Broadway musicals.

Musicals

In the early 2000s, social scientists Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro studied 474 Broadway musicals released between 1945 and 1989. They analysed the collaborations and relationships between producers, librettists, choreographers, and everyone else involved in the creation of each show. What they were looking for was the key to why some succeeded and others – regardless of the talent involved – flopped.  

 What they discovered was that when the key creatives were tightly connected and knew each other well, success was not guaranteed. Instead, it was the teams that combined trusted relationships with a few fresh faces — the ‘weak ties’ — that created the most innovative and successful results.

In short: too much familiarity breeds safety; there’s no tension. And without tension, there’s no spark, no touch of strangeness to spark creativity. 

Beyond Broadway

It’s a principle that applies far beyond Broadway. To take just three recent examples:

·               Apple

The already strong partnership of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak gained extra momentum when investor Mike Markkula — initially just a weak tie — joined the team and opened doors to funding and markets.
 
 

·               Google

The company has long encouraged employees to spend up to 20% of their time on personal projects not related to their everyday work, projects they believe could most benefit the company. The result has been breakthroughs such as AdSense and Google News.

·               Pixar

In 1999, owner Steve Jobs shook things up by insisting that everything from meeting rooms to bathrooms, mailboxes and the cafeteria be so arranged that writers, engineers, and artists couldn’t help meeting each other. The resulting cross-pollination of ideas has been an acknowledged contibution to such hits as Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Inside Out.

The power of weak connections

Diversity isn’t just about nationality or gender — it’s about crossing boundaries. About intentionally cultivating weak ties. That means meeting people in other fields. Joining cross-department projects. Talking to people outside your usual domain — even on social media. 

Teams connected only by strong ties may feel safe — but they will rarely surprise. It’s when you add a few weak ties that new perspectives, ideas, and energy will start to flow. Whether it’s Broadway, Silicon Valley, or your company, the rule holds true: 

 Innovation thrives when the strong and the weak ties meet. 

And mingle.