The Team is Flat : Introduction

Contributed by BL

Foreword: The title of this series of articles is inspired by Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat”. It is originally presented as a talk which I have given in Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. The slides of the presentation (both in English and Mandarin) can be downloaded here. I have decided to write the transcript of my talk into a series which I write here. (Updated on 9 Jan 2006)

0. Introduction

I begin with a set of characteristics which I feel that it’s essential in any enterprise, whether you are organizing a business plan competition or any start-up for that matter. These four characterists are team, idea, cash and cashflow. They represent different features of an enterprise which most of us would have encountered. Let me say a few more words about these four characteristics. The team is the group of people who you work with. The idea can be a technological innovation or business whim which you have to pursue your enterprise. I distinguish cash and cashflow into two different aspects of an enterprise. Cash is the amount of money which you need to start your business and cashflow is the way on how you manage your revenue and expenditure in the accounting sheet.

We did a poll and found that most people have very different ways of laying out these four characteristics. From our simple poll, most people would revolve between “team, idea, cashflow and cash” and “team, cashflow, idea and cash”. Notice that the team is placed in the first important key attribute of an enterprise and cash is usually the last. Of course, between cashflow and idea, there exist an interesting debate which should come first. I should leave that debate to another time and concentrate on the most important aspect of an enterprise, which is the team.

For simplicity, we generally define a team as either a group of people forming one side of a competitive game or sport or two or more people working together for a common cause.

Why Team?

“I am a winner because I’m good at what I do and because I am surrounded by people who think they are.”
– Jose Mourinho, Football Manager, Chelsea FC

Before I go on with the strategies involved in flattening the team. It is important to acknowledge that a good team is a necessary ingredient in any enterprise. Do take a pause for a moment and think about the following. If you have a team member who is corrupt and cares for himself more than the company, the cashflow of the company will go haywire. Worse, a good piece of innovation can go to the drain. Hence a team with members who share at least some basic decency and principles are necessary. Otherwise, your company will be broken apart. If you have a team member who is not on the same page with the policies decided by the management, it will send confusing messages to your clients and investors. Hence it is important that you have a good team.

Once you have the good team who shares the same goals and vision like you, you will find that the company will be able to face challenges in the midst of good and difficult times. Sometimes, winning is about believing. With a team who believes in themselves, they can overcome the most difficult obstacles. Of course, there must be diversity in the team in both skill sets and attitudes that it will allow them to make the wise decisions for the business.

Cultural Divide

Cultural values are essential to how a team’s genetic makeup is made up of. There is clearly a difference between Asia and the west (North America and Europe). My belief is that we should not idolize or pander to countries who are more successful than ours. It is important to sieve out good cultural traits from different parts of the worlds and weed out the weaknesses. A synergy of values helps to bring out the best in people.

In Asia, the family is an important core to an individual’s life. We focus a lot on relationships and our core values revolved around loyalty, trust and humility. If you look closely to how Asians operate in a project, you will find that they are more process-oriented than vision-oriented. What do I mean by that? The Asian will always try to work out the details behind an operation and not care about the big picture. This becomes a problem for the team if their leader lose the perspective of what objectives they are fighting for.