>>you also have to start being realistic about what value having a really high-performing team of 10 or 20 people somewhere deep down in your org chart really gets you: not that much.
Seriously questionable conclusion. It is exactly those types of teams that will create the next generation of outside-the-box product/service that will lead the next generation of profit for the company. E.g., it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon's data management team was such, and now AWS basically is the golden goose while their core biz is marginally profitable and has many problems (counterfeiting, stuffing, fraud-rife review system...).
That said, the value of such teams is often squandered by higher management that too often sees the new product line as cannibalizing their existing cash cow products. Fixing that problem is more key than fixing the problem of deadweight, or at least as important.
I'm no Apple-head but my impression was that Jobs' leadership focused not at all on deadweight, but on being the first to cannibalize their own products with new innovations.
Seriously questionable conclusion. It is exactly those types of teams that will create the next generation of outside-the-box product/service that will lead the next generation of profit for the company. E.g., it wouldn't surprise me if Amazon's data management team was such, and now AWS basically is the golden goose while their core biz is marginally profitable and has many problems (counterfeiting, stuffing, fraud-rife review system...).
That said, the value of such teams is often squandered by higher management that too often sees the new product line as cannibalizing their existing cash cow products. Fixing that problem is more key than fixing the problem of deadweight, or at least as important.
I'm no Apple-head but my impression was that Jobs' leadership focused not at all on deadweight, but on being the first to cannibalize their own products with new innovations.