You need a team

I am convinced that for maximum productivity and peak performance, everyone needs to be part of a team – A group of people working towards a common goal.

A very popular quote goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with a team”.

Many Entrepreneurs fail to move from I to WE, as such even though they move fast initially, very fast. In the long run they cannot really make long lasting impact.

You cannot do it alone!

An Entrepreneur or visionary has to be a strong individual, but rather than always seeking short term maximum profit by refusing to build up a serious company with real staff, she really needs to build out a team that can stick together long enough to do good work that will even yield better profit, but in the longer term.

The essence of having a team is that with a proper team in place, you will reduce the effort each person has to put in, yet you get a multiple effect of results.

You cannot build something serious if you do not have a team! I stand to be corrected, but I am yet to find a billion-dollar company with a staff strength of 1. The most visionary Entrepreneurs are always building up extraordinarily teams with vast array of skills that gets the job done. They seek out and convince really good people to join their endeavours and help them work together.

If you run a business and you merely employ people you tell what to do, people who are not vested in any way in your long term success, then you are a loner. Your team strength is 1.

I think the major type of Entrepreneurs who never build out a team are the Contract-preneurs, the Entrepreneur whose business model is merely: the next contract and you find people like this in every industry. Especially the IT industry. I used to have a friend that was always executing various contracts across the country, never really building a team. These days, he’s fizzled away now… There is just no long term future if you are team-less.

Building a team is hard, it gulps a great chunk of time and resources. You will be betrayed by your most loyal people, there will be internal politics and strive. These are reasons why people shy away from building a team. However, whenever we weigh the pros and cons of team building, the pros always outweighs the cons.