To succeed, a company needs to hire the best that it can afford or find. This is a reasonable assumption to make; the best people are able to bring their skills to the table and make the aspect of operations they’re in charge of shine like a diamond. However, there are also those who advocate avoiding over-reliance on “the best,” comparing it to having 300 East 17th Apartments in New York, but not having even a single bit of furniture inside – it looks nice on the outside, but it’s empty and pointless at the core. So this brings up the obvious question: should a business hire the best or avoid it?

The answer is: it depends.

One good reason to avoid hiring an entire team consisting of people that are the best at their fields is teamwork. Just because someone is exceptionally good at what they do doesn’t mean that they’ve got the social and interpersonal skills to match. Some people might be the web design equivalent of Leonardo or Michelangelo, but have about as much interpersonal skill as a crass, uneducated redneck. This means that not only will these people not get along; they won’t be able to cooperate and coordinate effectively. While individual parts might be good, the lack of cohesion means that the final product will end up atrocious. In such a case, it’d be better for the business to hire a group of competent individuals that can work together. It is possible to make a perfect machine with imperfect parts.

However, if the task doesn’t require a team or is merely one step in an overall production “process,” then taking on the best could be a good move. This depends largely on the product and the specific nature of its production. Some products or services don’t really need more than one person working on them and putting them together, which means that a team will only complicate things and slow down the process. Since there’s no need for a team, there’s no risk of a lack of cohesion ruining the product. Sure, it does put a lot of pressure on just one person, but that’s why the company hired the best – because they can handle that kind of pressure and deliver consistently.

So, which approach is better? It depends entirely on the product and the nature of its production. Some products need to be designed by a team, so it’d be better to hire people that can get along with one another. Other products don’t need such an approach and it’d be in the company’s best interest to just hire the single most capable person for the job.