Lesson 4: Manage the “Cowboys” in Your “Pit Crew” | Atul Gawande

Don’t blame Yoko for breaking up The Beatles. John, Paul, and George wanted to go the solo route. It can happen when you have rockstar individuals. Surgeon Atul Gawande calls them “cowboys” — talented, innovative, and driven to do their own thing. But for an organization to thrive, cowboys need to work as part of a team. In this video lesson, Gawande gives guidance on how to keep the band together by managing your talent while harnessing their creativity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Atul Gawande: Atul Gawande, MD, MPH is a renowned surgeon, author, and public health leader whose work explores how humans design and improve systems for better outcomes in complex environments. He is Professor of the Practice of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and holds the John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also serves as Distinguished Professor in Residence at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, which he co-founded and formerly chaired. From January 2022 to January 2025, he served as Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID. Gawande also co-founded Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery and anesthesia safer worldwide. From 2018-2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase healthcare venture. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Gawande is the author of the best-selling books Complications (a National Book Award finalist), Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.