What? That is nott at all true. You were talking about fairly large firms. There isn't just one person in charge of big deals. That may, in fact, be part of the problem. The more people you introduce, the more complicated things get.
On the other hand, if only one person is in charge, the more things can go wrong, if he's incompetent or crooked. You always need extra eyes.
As for the sports metaphors, they're irrelevant. We are, I think, talking about big M&A firms. They don't have coaches. And Christ on a crutch, this stuff isn't, or at least should not be, about sports. There are still way too few women in the business.
As for your "mastermind", I just don't buy it. As you move up the ladder, you learn to delegate responsibility. A real "mastermind" develops a strategy, and has his employees implement it. If you head up a firm and you're the "mastermind", there's absolutely no reason you'd need to conduct your business by yourself.
And again, I absolutely disagree that problems couldn't be alleviated by hiring more people. In fact, that's usually an excellent solution. The big deal makers aren't really all that special. I'm thinking Donald Trump. It's fun to watch him make a complete ass of himself.
And while we're on the subject… In my view, one waste of vital man hours is meetings. Even as an art (artt?) historian, I spent--wasted--plenty of time in meetings. I also worked one summer when I was in grad school for a bizarre company that had offices on Wall Street. I was just a temp secretary, of course; I was 22 or something. My boss, whom we called Fat Bill, had Big Plans. He was head of our "division". He had a buddy who was head of another "division".
Almost every day at 3:30, they'd get together to lay plans. Bill had already had me draft an expansion program that encompassed the development of six "arms", the last of which would be a "cutting arm for plans". He actually had me type this stuff up. I nearly cracked a rib laughing.
And THEN he'd have me schedule a meeting for him and his buddy at the Downtown Athletic Club. They'd spend hours there. A "meeting"?? They had adjoining offices.
At least the meetings I had to go to as an art historian were real meetings.
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