team

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.

If you're doing something new you've got to have a vision. You've got to have a perspective. You've got to have some north star you're aiming for, and you just believe somehow you'll get there, which kind of gets to the passion point. You've got to be able to take a step back and not be so caught up in the day-to-day that you don't have a sense of the broader tectonic shifts, and maybe you have to make some adjustment, which is why the perspective part is important. You've got to stick with it, because these things are not overnight successes in almost all cases. I think one of the problems I think we had more recently with the Internet boom is that they tended to be overnight successes, and people didn't really have the time to be tested in a time. They're going to go through ups and downs, and so as a result I think people lost some of that perspective. But ultimately, even though all those different factors are important, I'd say people are the most important, and if you really got the right people, and you've got them working together as a team, whether it's in business, whether it's in science, whether it's in politics, you can make a big difference. If you don't have the right people, no matter how smart you are, no matter how good your idea is, you're not going to get very far.

You're only as strong as your team, and people typically don't spend enough time recruiting. One of my challenges was always being like a professional recruiter, always looking at people as free agents and figuring, "Okay. They may be doing this now over there, but they seem like they have the perspective and skills that could be helpful here. How do we figure out a way of bringing them into our fold?" Constantly being on the lookout for talent is a critical variable, I think, particularly in these emerging markets.

What do the best college sports teams do? Recruit the best players all the time! When a business is short-staffed, that is the worst time to recruit because you are desperate. It is much better to recruit and network all the time, so the pipeline is full when you need it. Just like college sports teams, when you recruit the best you get a reputation for excellence and great players (employees) want to be on your team. Recruiting gets a whole lot easier when you have a reputation for being a great place to work.

First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.

If I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could. I'd put off everything else to fill my bus. Because things are going to come back. My flywheel is going to start to turn. And the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people.

Celebrating creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy. Imagine a team winning the World Series without champagne spraying everywhere. And yet companies win all the time and let it go without so much as a high five. Work is too much a part of life not to recognize moments of achievement. Make a big deal out of them. If you don't, no one will.

"To love(the same thing is important in the team building and cooperation) is not to look at one another, but to look together  in the same direction.(Exupery )

Break impossible goals into smaller achievable steps that you or your team can accomplish.

If small groups are included in the decision-making process, then they should be allowed to make decisions. If an organization sets up teams and then uses them for purely advisory purposes, it loses the true advantage that a team has: namely, collective wisdom.