Pecking Order Poison: The Superchicken Trap For Teams

Why brilliant individuals don’t make brilliant teams

There’s a TED Talk by Margaret Heffernan that starts with chickens. She tells the story of a scientist who wanted to increase egg production. So he did what seemed logical: he measured the number of eggs each hen laid, selected the most productive ones the superchickens and bred them together in one flock. The rest were left as a collaborative group. He kept both flocks under observation for six generations.

Superchickens

The collaborative flock flourished. They laid more eggs, grew healthier, and became socially well-adjusted.

The superchickens? By generation six, only three were still alive. The rest had pecked each other to death. That’s w hat unchecked competition does.

Of course, we can’t extrapolate from chickens to people. Humans are a different species with different social structures and even our understanding of animal behavior is limited. Most animal studies don’t hold up in humans. But it’s still a very good story, and it illustrates the point beautifully.

We think we want superstars. We chase the A-players, the high performers, the outliers. But when we build teams out of superchickens, we forget something essential: performance isn’t individual. It’s relational.

What matters isn’t just how good you are on your own. What matters is what happens between people. That’s where ideas collide, trust builds, conflict resolves, and momentum is shared. That’s where real work lives.

A team of brilliant individuals who can’t connect will sabotage each other consciously or not. A team of solid humans who trust, listen, challenge, and support? That’s where the magic is.

It’s like rugby. You need the fast and the strong. The heavy and the light. And sometimes, you need that rare player who is both strong and fast. Rugby teaches us this: difference isn’t a weakness. It’s how the team works.

But even that isn’t enough.

A team of stars who won’t pass the ball and seek individual glory will not win the World Cup.

Because real performance isn’t brilliance it’s connection.

We don’t need superchickens. We need flocks. Diverse, collaborative, gritty flocks.

Because what makes a team strong isn’t the feathers. It’s the flock.