Build an efficient team
Introduction
This is no longer the era of individual heroism. Everything needs to be done by a team.However, due to the lack of key points in team building in startup companies, the collective goals of many entrepreneurial teams are unclear, and the team is scattered and lacks cohesion.Some members work like monks for a day, and even if there are KPI assessments, the company’s goals are still not achieved.The relationship between employees is indifferent, especially there is little cross-department cooperation.The company atmosphere is poor and employees have no sense of belonging.The organization lacks vitality, bad employees are difficult to eliminate, and good talents cannot come in.The founding team is stuck in its ways and lacks the courage to innovate itself.
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To solve the problem of team inefficiency, we need to calm down and think deeply about the underlying problems, explore the root causes of the problems, and then find solutions to the problems.Sometimes, I am too familiar with the business model, and my thinking will become inert. I have to step out of the company, look at the company from an outsider’s perspective, and look for development strategies.
1. Team selection
Only by clarifying the company’s positioning can we determine whether the company needs a team and what kind of team it needs.What is the ultimate meaning of a company’s existence?Create social value, serve customers or be responsible for shareholders?Start with the end in mind and think about the ultimate shape of your company.Some types of business do not require a team, such as craft production, painting and other industries that rely on individual expertise.However, the vast majority of business models in the world require team support.Only by gathering a large number of people to work together can we make our business bigger.
The next step is to determine the company’s products and business. Only by determining the business can we determine what kind of talents the company needs.The founding team determines the type of product or service more based on the team’s original intention and resource endowment, while the goal of the business team is to sell the product or service and needs to find the right people based on the product.Different business types require different teams. It is also a 2B business. Alibaba China Supply’s customers are located in the economic development zone, with a customer radius of 1-3 kilometers.However, Meituan’s customers are shops on the same commercial street and require completely different teams.
In addition, the business scope of team members must also be clearly defined based on the company’s products and business forms.Many companies with rich product lines are accustomed to having their sales teams carry a product manual to sell all the company’s products. However, some high-quality products do not sell well.The reason is not that customers don’t pay, but that business staff only promote products with high commissions.
2. Core idea
Only when an army has a military spirit can it fight wherever it wants.The same goes for the company team. They must have a unified core idea so that they can think in one place and work hard in one place.This core idea is the company’s mission, vision and values.Tell employees the company’s original intention, where it is going and how it will go.The company’s mission should clearly express the organization’s ultimate goal. For example, Alibaba’s mission is to make it easy to do business in the world.The vision should convey the value provided to customers or how to position the organization, while the values are the action guide for company members.
Some company founders believe that it is not necessary for a startup to develop a complex core idea. This is seriously wrong.Indeed, there is no evidence that all large companies today have formulated their core ideas at the beginning of their establishment, but core ideas are undoubtedly an important guarantee for the long-term development of the organization.The sooner you start formulating your core ideas, the better it will be for your organization.
The core ideas are not static and need to be constantly updated and upgraded according to the progress of the times and organizational development.Ali’s core ideas are also constantly updated and iterated.
3. Talent guarantee
A team is composed of individuals. How an organization selects and retains talents is extremely important. One of the main tasks of a founder is to find outstanding talents to join the organization. Especially for early-stage startups, introducing various outstanding talents to join the company is more conducive to organizational development than internal training.Liu Bei visited the thatched cottage three times to invite Zhuge Liang to come out and lay the foundation for dividing the world into three parts.
The company must also develop a complete promotion system to ensure that outstanding talents can stand out. The promotion system is also an important guarantee for cultivating a reserve army for the organization.Jack Ma requires every leader to have two training targets to prevent the company’s development from being affected after the leader leaves.
Everyone has his or her own multi-faceted nature, and we should give full play to everyone’s strengths and employ people without hesitation.But everyone must be equal before the system. Zhuge Liang beheaded Ma Di with tears, and Ma Yun beheaded Wei Zhe all to maintain the authority of the organization.
4. Transparent trust
In his book “Principles”, Ray Dalio strongly recommends that companies should ensure information transparency based on trust, which plays an important role in improving organizational efficiency, controlling potential risks, and increasing employee motivation.The practice of Bridgewater Associates is to save the video of every meeting for employees to browse and refer to. The practice of a traditional domestic state-owned enterprise is to send meeting notices on the intranet before the meeting, no matter how big or small, and after the meeting, all employees must sign and circulate the meeting minutes.
Information transparency can ensure fairness and justice within the company to the greatest extent, reduce corruption, and at the same time provide transparency and trust, and can also form a good communication mechanism and collaborative process.Google AdWords is the greatest product in Google’s history created by Google’s transparent culture and employee self-motivation.
5. Under organizational flattening
The U.S. military’s smallest front-line combat team of 4 people can directly call for air support. Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei also proposed that “people who can hear the sound of artillery can call for artillery fire.” Organizational flattening has become a consensus. It is easy for the front line to call for artillery fire. To ensure that the front line can call for artillery fire, it is also necessary to simplify the decision-making process and ensure timely response of decision-making institutions from the internal system and seamless cooperation of the coordinated forces.Front-line calls can no longer be made, and the decision-making body has approved it, but the coordination force has fallen behind. The front-line troops have been harmed and have to ask the coordination force over and over again: For the sake of the party and the state, please help your brothers.
If the coordinated troops do not actively cooperate, the resources are limited and I will lose them if you use them. If you win, there will be no spoils for the coordinated troops.Organizational flattening still provides systems that are conducive to organizational flattening.
6. Keep the passion alive
To ensure that the team always maintains passion, we must focus on three aspects. First, we must have the core idea of motivating the team’s infinite fighting spirit and “walking for heaven” to inspire heroes to go through fire and water for the great cause of Liangshan.The second is to have a long-term incentive plan. For enterprises, setting up equity incentive plans is an important means. Huawei and Alibaba have complete equity incentive plans.Third, short-term incentives should give the team a sense of gain.”Dividing money on a big scale and eating meat from a big bowl” is an important guarantee to ensure the completion of “walking on behalf of heaven”.
7. Continuous focus
In an interview in 2016, Ren Zhengfei said that Huawei has been unswervingly targeting the “city wall” of the communications field for 28 years.In addition, many companies are greedy for big things and seek completeness. They blindly develop new businesses across fields and industries without doing a good job in their main business. In the end, they do nothing well and are wiped out in the fierce market competition.Only if you can endure loneliness and temptation can you dig the widest moat.
8. Result-oriented
A vision that is not guided by concrete results is empty talk. When the United States launched its moon landing program in 1961, President Kennedy did not say: “We have a great dream of landing on the moon.” Instead, he specifically said: “Before 1970, humans will land on the moon in a spacecraft and return safely.”
After you have the overall goal, you should break down the task into small goals, continue to work hard, and track the results.NASA has proposed seven missions including near-Earth flight, near-moon flight, unmanned cabin lunar landing, and manned lunar landing to complete the lunar landing mission.On July 20, 1967, humans finally landed on the moon.
Published at: Nov 5, 2019 · Modified at: Jan 14, 2026
