To Say Business Success Comes from Teamwork is a Myth
In just about every business book that you read, teamwork is touted as the magical ingredient for success.
Many consulting companies have been built on the concept that teamwork is essential for business success. They have been very successful in creating the enduring myth of teamwork and feeding their bank accounts.
Unfortunately, the consultants and the business school professors fail to understand that teams are not the best way of ensuring profits. They made it even worse by promoting the concept of “self directed teams.” This immediately lowered the productivity, innovation and accountability of teams.
Now this may work fine in the areas of low labor productivity such as the public service or academia but has failed dismally in small businesses.
Ultimate business truth
Business success comes from strong leadership, clear objectives and individual accountability.
It doesn’t come from running your business like a commune
The team members sink to a universal mediocrity and this is reflected in their performance.
Some of your best performers don’t want to work in a team because it limits their achievements. If you force them to work in a team you will eventually lose your better performers and create a dysfunctional team as a by-product.
In small and medium-sized businesses, teamwork just doesn’t work. My experience is that small businesses that promote teamwork produce lousy profits. The reason is clear. The team is only as strong as its weakest link. Large corporations can afford a few weak links but small businesses are too vulnerable for that sort of failure.
When you have a team and one member of that team produces poor performance, the whole team and your business will suffer.
Your business is a place of work, it is not a country club or a place where the staff get paid appearance money.
Forget about all the HR touchy-feely stuff. You are the risk taker not them or any other member of staff.
Your objective is to make money and anything or anyone who negatively affects that goal should not be working for you.
Ultimate business truth
A business is not a democracy.
The staff can have a say but not a vote.
You are the leader and you make the decisions.
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