There’s only one ball in a basketball game.

It doesn’t work if everyone on a team needs the ball in their hands to contribute. An effective offense certainly needs scorers, but it also requires players who can distribute and are comfortable working off the ball.

Similarly, a work team can’t be made of group of clones. Even if they’re all great individual contributors.

As a fairly aggressive and motivated person myself, I was initially frustrated when I realized how many of the people around me didn’t seem to have the same passion I did. They just didn’t seem to have the same interest in growing into new areas and taking on challenges.

But as I’ve come to understand office dynamics a bit better, I’m beginning to think that this is an asset rather than a hinderance.

If everyone was like me, there would be a long list of problems.

Just to take one example, we have a guy who has been around forever and knows about every project we’ve ever done and the associated relationships.

There’s no way I could do that. This guy, and a whole host of other people, seem to be happy coming to work for years on end and doing almost the same thing every day. They aren’t the “go-getters” that the company needs on the front line to drive future business, but they’re exactly the type of people who are needed to keep a tidy house on the back end.

And they do something I certainly couldn’t do. I would go crazy.

It seems like an office needs all of the key pieces. It needs the Type A personalities who always want more, but it also needs the people who are happy to find their role and do it well.

-Brandon