Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast

Stacking Talent vs Separating Out Talent 4-8-26

3 min
•Apr 8, 202611 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Scott Becker discusses the strategic choice between concentrating top talent in key business areas versus distributing talent across multiple divisions. He argues that stacking elite performers creates powerful competitive advantages, while spreading them thin results in mediocre performance across the board.

Insights
  • Concentrating top talent in strategic areas creates disproportionate competitive advantage versus spreading talent evenly across weaker areas
  • Leadership decisions to distribute talent often stem from misguided fairness concerns rather than performance optimization
  • Best talent should be paired with best customers, best products, and best opportunities to maximize organizational impact
  • Weak areas with weak talent are inevitable; the goal should be to create excellence in core areas rather than mediocrity everywhere
  • This principle applies across industries—sports, healthcare, and general business management
Trends
Talent concentration strategy as competitive differentiation in business managementShift away from egalitarian talent distribution toward performance-based resource allocationApplication of sports management principles to corporate organizational structureFocus on building power teams rather than balanced team distributionStrategic customer and product line prioritization based on talent availability
Companies
Becker
Scott Becker's company used as case study for stacking editorial and sales talent to build strong teams
People
Scott Becker
Host discussing talent stacking strategy and sharing perspective on organizational management
David Pivnick
Upcoming guest to discuss similar talent stacking and organizational strategy topics
Quotes
"If you have great talent, you largely want to stack that talent and stack that talent so that you can do whatever you're doing in a great and fantastic way."
Scott Becker
"You put your best people on your best customers, your best clients, your best people on your best product lines, and you don't end up separating them all out and turning yourself into lots of mediocre lines."
Scott Becker
"What you've really done is you've left your most talented players to really naked without other highly talented players. And it's really a stupid way to coach. It's a stupid way to do business as well."
Scott Becker
Full Transcript
This is Scott with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity podcast. Today's discussion is Stacking Talent versus Separating Out Talent. Here's the discussion. I'm watching this most closely in business and in sports. We'll have a deeper podcast with David Pivnick on a similar subject today and get his thoughts on the same subject. But here's my view. If you have multiple talented players, there's two choices that a manager or leader or coach has to make. First, do they stack those players together and put them on the same line, the same service area, the same business area? Or do they separate them out and try and make the different service lines all okay and then build from there? So here is my perspective on this. My perspective is if you have great talent, you largely want to stack that talent and stack that talent so that you can do whatever you're doing in a great and fantastic way. Where I see managers ultimately take their most talented people and separate them out into multiple different places, which will end up is that multiple different places in your business, they're not very strong, that are relatively weak because they don't have enough great leaders and enough people. I'd rather you as a business or company stack a couple of areas. In Becker's healthcare, it was stacking editorial efforts and the sales team and really building great sales and editorial teams. In other companies, it might be something else. In hockey, I see maybe the stupidest coach of all time in the Blackhawks coach who is taking his best player on line one and putting his next best player on line two, the next best player on line three. So we end up with three awful lines versus one great line that becomes a power line and then building from there. I get the stupidity of it, the thought like, oh, don't want my third line to be so bad. But what you've really done is you've led your most talented players to really naked without other highly talented players. And it's really a stupid way to coach. It's a stupid way to do business as well. You want to stack your best talent, your best players, keep them moving in the right direction, keep things growing and grinding. Here is, I have a clear thought in this. You put your best people on your best customers, your best clients, your best people on your best product lines, and you don't end up separating them all out and turning yourself into lots of mediocre lines. Incredible stupidity. Thank you for listening to The Becker Business, The Becker Private Equity Podcast. I would love to hear anybody's thoughts on this, 7-7-3, 7-6-6, 5-3-2-2. Please give me your thoughts whenever you want. I'd love to hear them. Thank you for listening to The Becker Business, The Becker Private Equity Podcast.