The Upside of Recruiting Your Rivals
招募竞争对手的好处

Brian Uzzi first heard of the teams through Satyam Mukherjee, who worked in Uzzi’s lab as a post-doctoral researcher and is now at India’s Shiv Nadar University. “Satyam was recruited to play cricket in college but ended up doing a PhD in physics after a knee injury,” says Uzzi, a Kellogg professor of management and organizations and codirector of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) and the Ryan Institute on Complexity. “We were doing research on teams in science, and he wanted to look at how patterns of collaboration played out on sports teams.”
布赖恩·乌齐最初是通过萨蒂亚姆·穆克吉了解到这些团队的，萨蒂亚姆曾在乌齐的实验室做博士后研究员，现在在印度的希夫·纳达尔大学工作。“萨蒂亚姆原本被招募去大学打板球，但膝盖受伤后转而攻读物理学博士学位，”乌齐说。乌齐是凯洛格管理与组织学教授，同时是西北大学复杂系统研究所（NICO）和瑞安复杂性研究所的联合主任。“我们当时正在研究科学团队，他想看看合作模式在体育团队中是如何体现的。”

Their original line of questioning resulted in a study showing that it was not only the collection of individual talent that led to team wins but also teammates’ history of winning together.
他们最初的研究问题导致了一项研究，显示不仅仅是个人才能的集合促成了团队的胜利，队友们共同获胜的历史也起到了作用。

That work led Uzzi and Mukherjee to consider a related question: What happens when players who leave their team for a new one—whether through trades, free agency, or “auctions” in cricket—play against their former teammates?
这项工作促使乌齐和穆克吉考虑一个相关问题：当球员通过交易、自由球员签约或板球中的“拍卖”离开原队加入新队时，他们与前队友对阵会发生什么？

“If you play against someone you know,” Uzzi says, “you know their strengths and weaknesses and can better strategize around them. You might know how the team reacts collectively and the sort of advice the coach will give—the overall playbook.”
“如果你和一个你认识的人比赛，”乌齐说，“你会了解他们的优点和缺点，从而更好地制定策略。你可能知道球队整体的反应方式以及教练会给出的建议——整体的战术手册。”

In short, players going up against their former teams or teammates may be able to anticipate how key elements of the competition will go and come up with tactics to win.
简而言之，面对前球队或前队友的球员可能能够预判比赛中的关键环节，并想出取胜的战术。

Then there’s the psychology factor: “The original team may want to show they made the right decision in trading you to someone else,” Uzzi says, “but you want to perform at a high level to show they didn’t and to protect your self-esteem.”
还有心理因素：“原来的球队可能想证明他们把你交易给别人是正确的决定，”乌齐说，“但你想要高水平发挥，以证明他们错了，同时保护你的自尊心。”

Yet there can also be disadvantages for players going up against former teammates, as Uzzi notes: “You might forget what your teammates were like, or there might be new players on your old team. Or they might get in better shape. Or have a new team mindset.”
然而，乌齐指出，面对前队友的球员也可能存在劣势：“你可能会忘记队友的习惯，或者你的老队伍里有新球员。或者他们可能状态更好，或者有了新的团队心态。”

To understand what happens when players compete with their old teams or former teammates, Uzzi, Mukherjee, and Northwestern colleagues Yun Huang and Noshir Contractor (also a Kellogg professor of management and organizations) studied the IPL’s cricket players, teams, and match outcomes. They found that when a team was familiar with more players on the opposing team, it was significantly more likely to win a match against that team.
为了了解球员在与旧队伍或前队友竞争时会发生什么，Uzzi、Mukherjee 以及西北大学的同事黄云和 Noshir Contractor（也是凯洛格管理与组织学教授）研究了印度超级联赛（IPL）的板球运动员、球队和比赛结果。他们发现，当一支球队对对方球队中的更多球员熟悉时，该队赢得比赛的可能性显著增加。

When “recruiting a player, franchise owners should not rely solely on the player’s ability but also leverage the rivalry between former teammates,” the researchers write. The same could be said for academic, business, and other types of organizations looking for a competitive edge.
研究人员写道：“在招募球员时，球队老板不应仅仅依赖球员的能力，还应利用前队友之间的竞争关系。”对于寻求竞争优势的学术界、商业界及其他类型的组织来说，这同样适用。

Team ecosystem matters  团队生态系统很重要

The researchers analyzed data from over eight seasons of the Indian Premier League, from 2012–2019. The league is a relatively new one in India, devoted to shorter-form matches, rather than the traditional days-long competitions.
研究人员分析了 2012 年至 2019 年印度超级联赛八个赛季的数据。该联赛在印度相对较新，专注于较短形式的比赛，而非传统的持续数天的比赛。

In examining the nearly 500 matches during that period, the researchers identified the number of players who had played for an opposing team in a given match, and the differences between these numbers for each of the competing teams. They not only looked at who won a given match, but also the difference in runs scored by the winning and losing teams.
在审视这段时间内近 500 场比赛时，研究人员统计了在某场比赛中曾为对方球队效力的球员数量，以及参赛双方球队之间这些数字的差异。他们不仅关注了比赛的胜负，还关注了胜负双方得分的差距。

The researchers also controlled for factors like the talent level of individual cricket players—based on statistics such as their batting, bowling (equivalent to pitching in baseball), and fielding percentages—along with team dynamics, such as the number of times players on a given team had played together in the past.
研究人员还控制了个别板球运动员的才能水平——基于他们的击球、投球（相当于棒球中的投手）和守备百分比等统计数据——以及团队动态，比如某支球队中球员过去一起比赛的次数。

Overall, a team’s familiarity with players on an opposing team proved to be far more critical to its success than overall team skill or its players’ prior shared success.
总体而言，一支球队对对手球队球员的熟悉程度，被证明比整体球队技能或球员之前的共同成功经历对其胜利更为关键。

To be specific, the odds of a cricket team beating an opposing team was 1.6 times higher if it had fewer players who had previously played for the opposing team than the other way around. In short, teams that had insight into more members of the opposing team were significantly more likely to win a match against that team.
具体来说，如果一支板球队中曾为对方球队效力的球员较少，那么该队击败对方的几率比反之高出 1.6 倍。简而言之，对对方球队成员了解更多的球队，在对阵该队时获胜的可能性显著更大。

“It shows that winning isn’t just driven by individual talent or team spirit,” Uzzi says. “It also has to do with how much experience players have with teams they’re competing against. That knowledge can come from a ‘broker’ who at one point was on the other team.”
“这表明胜利不仅仅取决于个人天赋或团队精神，”乌齐说，“还与球员对所竞争球队的经验有关。这种知识可能来自曾经效力于对方球队的‘中间人’。”

The results might help explain the famous Miracle on Ice, when the massive-underdog U.S. hockey team beat top-ranked Russia for the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics. Several of the players on the U.S. team had previously trained in Russia and at one point played with many of the Russian players. “In doing so, the Americans may have learned a lot about the Russian team,” Uzzi says, “and that might have helped them come out on top.”
这些结果或许能解释著名的“冰上奇迹”，即 1980 年奥运会上实力悬殊的美国冰球队击败排名第一的俄罗斯队夺得金牌。美国队中有几名球员曾在俄罗斯接受训练，并曾与许多俄罗斯球员同队。“通过这样做，美国人可能对俄罗斯队了解颇多，”乌齐说，“这或许帮助他们最终获胜。”

Recruit for past experience
根据过往经验进行招聘

The findings have clear implications for the way sports organizations build their teams.
这些发现对体育组织组建团队的方式具有明确的启示。

“If you’re recruiting two prospects with similar talents for the same position, you’d probably want the one who’s been on the most other teams,” Uzzi says, suggesting that this could provide a team with more insight into more of its rivals.
“如果你正在为同一位置招募两名才华相近的候选人，你可能会更倾向于选择曾效力于更多其他球队的那位，”乌齐说，他认为这可以让球队更好地了解更多竞争对手的情况。

But organizations beyond the world of sports can apply the findings to their teams, too. Academic institutions are one example. “In a university, you’re fighting to get the best students and funding,” Uzzi says. “That could come from taking top talent from another school and finding out how those schools competed for those things, and then maybe adopt some new practices based on what you learn.”
但体育界之外的组织也可以将这些发现应用到他们的团队中。学术机构就是一个例子。“在大学里，你在争夺最优秀的学生和资金，”乌齐说。“这可能通过从其他学校挖掘顶尖人才来实现，同时了解那些学校是如何竞争这些资源的，然后根据所学采用一些新的做法。”

The lessons are relevant for a wide range of businesses as well. “Apple hired many employees from Tesla’s electric-car team some years ago because they wanted to get started in the business, and they were looking to get those kinds of secrets,” Uzzi says. This practice has spurred many organizations to set guardrails against talent-poaching through noncompete clauses or nondisclosure agreements.
这些经验对各种企业同样适用。“几年前，苹果从特斯拉的电动车团队招募了许多员工，因为他们想进入这个行业，并希望获得那类秘密，”乌齐说。这种做法促使许多组织通过竞业禁止条款或保密协议来设立防线，防止人才被挖走。

Businesses have also tried to protect against this practice by building their internal talent pool through growth opportunities. “Sometimes a really strong organization is one that grows from the inside,” Uzzi says. “They grow their talent up, so they are less likely to leak to other organizations.”
企业也试图通过提供成长机会来建立内部人才库，以防止这种做法。乌齐说：“有时候，一个非常强大的组织是从内部成长起来的。他们培养自己的人才，这样他们就不太可能流失到其他组织。”

And of course, he adds, “it’s also important to evolve, so even if people leave your team, your game will have changed.”
当然，他补充道，“不断进化也很重要，这样即使有人离开你的团队，你的局面也会发生变化。”