You can’t make everyone a star performer. I really wanted to believe I could.

The instinct is to think “I’ll just coach everyone up to that level.” But the people who can operate in high ambiguity, synthesize across domains, make sound judgment calls under pressure, they’re fundamentally sparse. That’s what makes them exceptional.

The goal isn’t to make your entire team interchangeable at the highest level. It’s to accept that star talent will always be non-fungible, and build accordingly.

That means two things: First, you need these people on your team. Not later, not “once we can afford it.” If you’re facing problems that could reshape your trajectory and you don’t have anyone who can operate at that level, you’re hoping for luck. Second, you need to use them deliberately. They’re scarce. Burning them out on routine problems is waste. Failing to deploy them on the unprecedented stuff is also waste.