SECRETS OF GREATNESS:  Part II in a series

TEAMWORK!  Harmony, cooperation, synchronized effort.  It's difficult, but it can be learned.  How?  Watch the great teams closely-then join one of your own.

Sony slept through the dawn of digital media.  Now CEO Sir Howard Stringer and his polyglot crew are trying to make Sony sizzle again.  It's still hard to believe that Sony lost its leadership in portable music players so quickly.  Sony, after all, not only invented the Walkman but also owns half of Sony BMG, the world's second largest music company, and the whole reason that Sony bought music and movie companies many years ago was to acquire content to support its devices.  The missing ingredient was software.  "The bridge between content and hardware is software, and that was something we didn't master," Stringer admitted in one of a series of frank conversations with FORTUNE in New York and Tokyo.

It may be tempting to recruit all-stars and let 'em rip.  Don't do it.  Dream teams often become nightmares of dysfunction.

The most common paths to failure:

Signing too many all-stars

Failing to build a culture of trust

Tolerating competing agendas

Letting conflicts fester

Hiding from the real issues

BOOKLET:  Six legendary teams , including the Macintosh group at Apple that changed our world.

From Wharton to War, as told by Jim Vesterman, page 105

While working in consulting and private equity, Jim Vesterman thought he was a good team player.  Then he joined the Marines.  "In many ways there's probably no better preparation I could have had for the business world than joining the Marine Corps.  The Marines teach you how to be both a leader and a follower," says Vesterman . "When I'm working with a group now, I can honestly say that I think about the team first.  The 'I first' approach has been drilled out of me."

All Shapes and Sizes, page 112

Teams are where you find them-and just about everywhere you look.  Here are some offbeat examples of teams that work:  Tony Soprano's Mob, Cirque du Soleil, space shuttle crew, and the Cubs dynasty.

RAZR's Edge, by Adam Lashinsky, page 124

How a squad of engineers and designers defied Motorola's own rules to create the phone that revived the company.  In reality, the RAZR-a play on a code name the geeks themselves dreamed up-was hatched in colorless cubicles.  It was a skunkworks project whose tight-knit team repeatedly flouted Motorola's own rules for developing new products.  They kept the project top-secret, even from their colleagues.  They used materials and techniques Motorola had never tried before.  After contentious internal battles, they threw out accepted models of what a mobile telephone should look and feel like.  In short, the team that created the RAZR broke the mold, and in the process rejuvenated the company.

The Soul of a New Team, by Josh Hyatt, page 134

MySQL and Wikipedia have figured out how to manage a world-wide workforce that doesn't meet.

Pack Mentality, by Paul Hochman, page 145

Cut deals with the enemy, maximize liquidity, and other free-market lessons of long-distance bike racing.

Next Stop, Lhasa , by Abrahm Lustgarten, page 154

It took 40 years and $4.2 billion to build a railway into Tibet - China 's train to the top of the world is an engineering marvel and a tool of political domination that will change this magical place forever. FORTUNE has the world's first close look at the railroad, which marks the achievement of a goal set by Mao Zedong more than 40 years ago as part of a strategy to dominate the region and integrate it more successfully with China .  In the next few weeks the Chinese Railways Ministry, which declined numerous requests for interviews over the past nine months from FORTUNE, will lead several groups of international journalists on a junket to Tibet to preview the train.  But FORTUNE got the unauthorized, exclusive story first.

Departments

FIRST The Guiltiest Guys in the Room   The jury didn't have to see Enron's Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling as evildoers to convict them.  What the verdicts mean for American business  Shaking the Foundation   Homebuilders have a special interest in the outcome of the immigration debate  Leading Indicators   Really bad math at Fannie  60-Second Briefing   What's driving the stock exchange merger binge?  Making Ambulance Chasers Look Good   The indictment of class-action firm Milberg Weiss is aimed straight at its leadership  Question Authority   The President's assistant for homeland security, Frances Tagos Townsend, talks about bringing CEOs into the loop  DISPATCHES This Year's Model   Malcolm Bricklin, who brought you the Yugo, is betting that cars from China will rock the U.S.A.  One Brick at a Time   Lego's new CEO has a fresh approach to making toys-and money  COLUMNISTS Street Life   All's well at the other Enron, EOG Resources  Value Driven  A Study in CEO greed:  How an academic exposed the latest stock option scandal INVESTING There's Still Zip in Energy Stocks   Even now, some oil companies have plenty of room to run  Commodities:   Is the Boom Over?  Beyond the Fundamentals   Legg Mason's Michael J. Mauboussin finds financial wisdom in unconventional places BUSINESS LIFE It's a Wrap   June is for weddings, graduations, Father's Day, and (not least) our gadget expert's guide to the best new gear.  A selection for any budget, from golf and video to the ultimate iPod accessory.

 

For further information please contact:
Susan Brown Williams
212-522-0133
susan_williams@timeinc.com

Phil DiIanni
212-522-6282
phil_diianni@timeinc.com

 

 

Back to index