Here’s What You Could Do to Build a Five-Star Team:
It’s often hard to believe that behind the largest corporations in the world, such as Facebook and eBay, it all started with the ideas from ordinary people such as us. However, while there may be some names such as Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett that are familiar to nearly all of us, it may surprise you to realise that actually these people had help from others to be as famous as they are today. When we hear about entrepreneurs, it often seems like they are the sole driving force behind an idea and a business. However, more often than not they’ve had many people, if not an entire team to help them achieve their success.
Teamwork is something that we learn from a very early age. We’re generally taught that working as part of a team will only strengthen what we are trying to achieve, and in certain contexts such as sports, it’s essential to work as a team to win events and competitions. Working alongside other people will only add extra skills to whatever it is you’re working on, with each individual bringing their own set of ideas and talents. As naturally social creatures, most of us often prefer to work with other people, and enjoy the social side that comes with it.
Businesses nowadays will express a lot of importance about being able to work well within a team. Any companies hiring new employees will often ask them questions about how they work in a team, about their social skills and also how they integrate with other people. Directors of companies and CEOs understand how paramount it is for new employees to have teamwork skills, as they realise the strength businesses can obtain from working well within a team.
Even if one person has the drive and the ambition to go far in business and be successful in their career, they’ll often need another person with the same set of skills to really make the business work and strengthen their talents. For example, Pierre Omidyar launched eBay but had no idea how successful the business would become. He then spoke to his friend Jeff Skoll who was also a computer programmer to help him move eBay to a more expensive business site. They then both gave up their jobs to work on the site full-time.
On the other hand, it can be beneficial to work as team in order to pull together two different skill sets. It can also be advantageous to not only work as a duo but also to pull in more people to gain more skill sets for the business. For example, with Google, it started as a small team working from a dorm room, consisting of Sergey Brin and Larry Page. When they were content that they had fully formed their idea and we were ready to turn it into a business, they called upon their good friend Eric Schmidt who was a tech legend to bring his talents to the team. They then decided to turn to Omid Kordestani to head up sales. However, since this, Kordestani has now become the Executive Chairman at Twitter.
It’s also important to note that even if one person brings all the ideas and ambitions, they just wouldn’t be able to deal with all the daily work themselves. Even though Mark Zuckerberg is the main name behind Facebook, he had a trusted personal assistant, Anikka Fragodt, who worked alongside him for seven years while he was CEO of Facebook. She’s been described as the most powerful woman at Facebook and it’s been suggested that Zuckerberg wouldn’t have been able to run his day-to-day activities without Fragodt’s help.
While the size of the initial teams varied for different business giants, it may surprise you to learn that Disney was a team of twelve people when it began. After Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks got Roy Disney on board, they then attracted nine top animators who went on to create an array of well-loved characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Snow White and Cinderella. It’s no surprise that such a huge corporation needed a whole pool of different talents to work together to create the cartoon wonders they went on to make.
Take a look at the infographic below to find out more about the teams behind the biggest business corporations we know around the world, and how it’s never just one person behind success. Ensure that you incorporate this into your own business style, and read more about how some of the most successful business people on the planet have made it so big through working as a team. Perhaps you’ll take inspiration from this infographic to use for your own business ideas and successes, and learn from the biggest names in the business world.
(Source: Colonial Life)
Also be certain to read ‘5 Leadership Skills for Long Term Success as a Manager‘
