5 Counter-Intuitive Truths for Building an Unbeatable Team

Introduction: The Hidden Key to Team Engagement

Managers consistently misdiagnose the root cause of disengagement. Confronted with the fact that only 33% of employees are engaged in their work, they treat symptoms with short-term incentives while ignoring the underlying human hunger for growth. They search for the right techniques to energize their people, believing the goal is a stable, optimized state of high performance.

The secret to unlocking an unbeatable team, however, lies not in stasis but in managed disruption. The key is creating an environment centered on continuous learning and personal growth. Based on profound insights from management expert Whitney Johnson’s work on building “A-Teams,” these five surprising truths reveal how the best bosses cultivate teams that thrive, innovate, and win by systematically developing their people.

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1. Stop Trying to Hire the “Perfect” Candidate

The single most common hiring mistake is recruiting the most proficient candidate—the person who can “do the job on day one.” While this feels like a safe, efficient bet, it is a deeply flawed strategy. An employee hired at the peak of their learning curve has no room to grow; they are starting at the finish line. Boredom and disengagement are not just risks; they are inevitable.

This strategy actively sabotages long-term retention. Data shows that over 40% of employees who voluntarily leave their jobs do so within six months, often due to a lack of meaningful challenge. The foundation of an A-team is hiring for potential, deliberately placing people at the bottom of a new S-curve of learning where the runway for growth is long. When Meredith Kopit Levien was hired by Forbes CEO Mike Perlis, she was not yet an expert, but he saw her potential. As she recalls:

He gave me the space to . . . figure it out.

Hiring for growth creates loyalty and extends the period of high engagement. It shifts the focus from filling a role for the short term to making a strategic investment in a person for the long term. But this initial engagement is only the beginning of an employee’s journey, which, if not managed carefully, can lead to a different kind of risk—one that comes not from inexperience, but from mastery.

2. Your Best People Are Your Biggest Flight Risk

The S-Curve of Learning provides a powerful model for an employee’s journey. It begins with the slow, difficult slog of a beginner, accelerates into the steep and exhilarating “sweet spot” of high engagement, and culminates in the high plateau of mastery.

Counter-intuitively, this stage of mastery is a danger zone. When work becomes too easy, boredom corrodes motivation. Highly capable employees who feel unchallenged will not stay put. If they cannot find a new learning curve to climb within the company, they will find one elsewhere, making your most proficient people your biggest flight risk. As Saul Kaplan, founder of the Business Innovation Factory, describes his own career:

“My life has been about searching for the steep learning curve because that’s where I do my best work: swinging like Tarzan from one curve to the next.”

This proactive approach to growth stands in stark contrast to the stasis found at typical companies. At WD-40, management actively encourages employees to leap to new challenges, resulting in a staggering 93% employee engagement rate. Their CEO’s philosophy is simple yet powerful: “Jump! Don’t worry. There’s a net…” Once an employee masters one curve, the best bosses don’t try to keep them there; they help them find the next one, even if the leap required is unconventional.

3. To Leap Forward, You Sometimes Have to Step Back

The linear career path is a myth. The most impactful careers often look more like a slingshot than a ladder, where a deliberate backward pull generates powerful forward momentum. A lateral or even backward move can be the most strategic step for long-term growth, allowing an employee to jump from the top of one S-curve to the bottom of another to acquire a critical new skill.

Dan Shapero’s journey at LinkedIn is a masterclass in this principle. As a Vice President of Sales, he managed a thousand-person team and a billion-dollar business. But to achieve his long-term goal of becoming a tech CEO, he knew he needed product experience. He made a radical move: he stepped down to become an individual contributor in product management with zero direct reports. His new boss, Kevin Simon, was previously two levels below him in the org chart. This “step back” was a visceral act of ego-less ambition that allowed him to gain the expertise he needed. His former boss, Mike Gamson, didn’t hoard his talent; he championed the move, explaining his philosophy:

“The company wins when I put the company next.”

True growth is rarely linear. The best managers understand this and build pathways for talent to develop in unconventional ways, prioritizing the long-term health of the organization over their own team’s short-term efficiency. Often, the very constraints of such a move are what spark the most profound growth.

4. Don’t Give Your Team Everything They Need

While a manager’s job is often seen as removing obstacles, strategic limitations can be a powerful catalyst for innovation. Constraints in time, money, or expertise force people to become creative, resourceful, and focused. They create the necessary “friction” to push against, propelling them up the learning curve.

Consider Liz Wiseman, who was tasked with building Oracle University just one year out of business school. Her lack of experience was a significant constraint that forced her to “leverage all available resources” and think unconventionally. This creative pressure, born of necessity, led to massive success.

Constraints prevent the complacency that comes with comfort. When a task is too easy or resources are unlimited, teams can stagnate. By introducing thoughtful limitations, a manager encourages their people to push beyond their perceived limits, fostering the very ingenuity and drive that defines a high-performing team. This cultivation of resilience is critical, because even the most capable teams will face moments of crisis, and it is how a leader handles those moments that truly defines a culture.

5. Your Culture Is Defined by How You Handle a Crisis

When Alan Mulally took over a struggling Ford, he discovered a culture of fear. During his weekly business plan reviews, every project was coded “green” for weeks, signaling all was well. In reality, leaders were terrified to admit problems.

Then came the turning point. A senior executive finally had the courage to code a major project “red.” The room went silent, bracing for the CEO’s wrath. Instead, Mulally began to applaud. His response transformed the company’s culture overnight:

“That is great visibility. Who can help with this problem?”

Mulally later identified this as “the defining moment for the transformation of the Ford culture.” This single act made it psychologically safe to be honest, shifting the focus from assigning blame to solving problems collaboratively. As people reach the top of the S-curve and become masters, they get out of practice with the struggle inherent at the bottom. Failure becomes threatening. It is the manager’s job to create stretch assignments with a real risk of failure and, more importantly, to support the team when it happens. This is how you build a culture where problems are fixed, not hidden.

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Conclusion: Are You Building a Team or Just Filling Roles?

These five principles are not a menu of options; they are an integrated system for cultivating human potential. Hiring for potential (Truth 1) is meaningless if you have no plan for what happens when your people reach mastery (Truth 2). Managing mastery requires creating pathways for unconventional moves, like stepping back to leap forward (Truth 3), a process often ignited by the creative power of constraints (Truth 4). And none of it is possible without a culture that makes it safe to take the risks inherent in learning, where failure is treated as data, not a disgrace (Truth 5). This system requires a long-term focus on growth, not just short-term efficiency.

The ultimate question for any leader is this: Are you managing your team like a chess master, developing every piece for its future potential, or are you just playing checkers?

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