A coach for a rowing-team in the US army, the Military Academy at West Point to be more precise, faced a problem a few years ago: He had twice as many rowers as he had spots in the boat. What he did to identify who the right 8 people would be, was that he let them all undergo thorough, methodic tests and then ranked them accordingly. He then placed the top 8 in one boat, and the remaining 8 in another and then let them train together.
The interesting part is that the second boat beat the first boat two thirds of the time. Howcome?
One could argue that it might have something to do with the personal ego, the 8 rowers in the second boat had nothing to lose and therefore put their ego aside and worked together while the other boat was mostly interested in their ranking and individually contributing as much as possible. I have many questions and I can answer none of them right now.
If someone stumbles accross the full length article, please let me know.
http://hbr.org/product/army-crew-team/an/403131-PDF-ENG
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