Three - It's a Really Good Number

Growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I had two brothers close in age; within five years. John was the oldest, Mitch the youngest. I was in the middle. We came of age on a farm where a primary input was physical labor. We worked together to provide that labor, and in doing so we came to appreciate and respect each other’s strengths and work ethic. We were effective, and I recall a feeling of being “in a zone” when we cooperated to bale hay, or harvest fence posts, or do construction projects, etc., etc. And there was something particular about being together as the three of us that was not present if just two of us. The third added something.

That recollection is my first experience with a concept I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

Now, many years later, reviewing business plans for startups, I notice a similar pattern nearly every time. The plan is usually the work of one person. The author. The accountable one. The smartest person in the room. Sometimes brilliant.

But brilliance comes with its own dysfunction. It is too ready to rely on one. There is a problem with one. A genius alone cannot multiply their own brilliance. One raised to the first power is still one. But three people, even if not equally brilliant, multiplies their effectiveness many times. It’s better than two, because two has no checks to balance its overreach. It’s better than four because there can be no tie votes.

After leaving the farm, I eventually found my way to a robotic startup where I was the least brilliant in a group of three. An accomplished and durable team that answered directly to a visionary genius; who despite his genius, couldn’t stay out of his own way. But this essay is not about the genius. It’s about the three.

You could say it worked because we were friends. Chuck, Terry, and Joel. But our work as a team predated any friendship. Our roles had only soft boundaries. Engineering. Sales. Operations. We won a lot. But we also found ourselves in situations that needed collaboration and attention. The client was nuts. The supplier over-promised. The boss’s performance demands couldn’t be met.

But there was a best outcome. And we – the three – were in charge of finding it and doing the unglamorous work of making it real. It was clinical. The work was hard. Mistakes happened. They could be expensive. We didn’t blame. We worked. With three, there was nowhere for one of us to hide from the other two. If one of us had screwed up, we all knew who.

We started as co-workers. We became colleagues based on mutual respect. And after nearly twenty years, acknowledged our friendship.

I left that job not fully realizing what I was leaving behind. The company’s way of finding best outcomes lived in the three of us; not in its process manuals and software tools. While there was plenty of brilliance, there was no group of three to make it multiply. The brilliant people were driving.

But again, without realizing it, I became one of three involved with the acquisition and turnaround of a complex manufacturing facility. And again, with brothers; this time with John and another brother Leland, ten years younger. We pooled our resources, both financial and intellectual, and collaborated in a storybook success buying a distressed factory and rejuvenating it to profitability in a short time. Upon reflection we acknowledged to each other that no two of us could have done it without the third.

Despite these “in the zone” experiences, I still had not identified the magic of three.

Four years later, I backed into the leadership role at the robotic company, immediately prior to the financial panic of 2008-9. Preparing for that role, I attended a leadership program at the University of Chicago. Linda Ginzel, a clinical professor of managerial psychology at Booth and among the most decorated teachers in that institution’s history, made the case with precision. The most effective team size, supported by research across military and organizational settings, is three. I sat in that classroom and recognized everything she was describing. I’d been living it since the hay fields.

What Linda Ginzel offered in that class, faith had always claimed with authority. The Holy Trinity — three as one, one as three — is perhaps the oldest and most credible argument for the number. If the divine nature of God is expressed in three, it seems reasonable that the most effective expression of human collaboration might follow the same pattern. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. After learning it, I didn’t need further convincing.

My experiences since have also been validating. Of five startups or turnarounds that I’ve advised over ten years, two have accepted and acted on the commentary to establish a team of three “existentially involved” with the enterprise. Those two have experienced healthy prosperity. The other three accepted the commentary, but for a variety of reasons have been unable to act on it. For each of them, prosperity remains elusive. And in each of those cases, when I check in, the leadership is routinely overwhelmed. I wish there was a way to have them experience being “in the zone” like I have with John, Mitch, Chuck, Terry, and Leland.

Perhaps it was luck. Perhaps it was intuition. I was never particularly into the number three, other than fascination by its particular character of being the only prime number in immediate sequence with another prime number. But for some reason, its benefits lurked in the shadows of my life until being revealed late. So, then, it’s my job to reveal it to others early. So here you go. Three. It’s a really good number.