The results are only unexpectedly poor if you assume individual ability directly composes into team ability. I think this was a common assumption in the 1980s, but I believe that managers nowadays will not be surprised by these results.
I think most people would be surprised to find negative correlation between individual ability and team ability, unless they've read this book or something like it. Weak correlation, perhaps, but outright negative correlation is truly surprising.
From what I can tell, the only finding here is that teams with individual aptitude as the sole selection criteria performed poorly in competition against teams that had more traditional selection process. This would be an expected result for me.
Teamwork is important.
Also, sometimes certain people just work really well together, and one of them may not seem all that great on their own.