What They Don't Teach in Business School

Richard Branson on What They Don't Teach in Business School 

By: Richard Branson

  A lot of people ask me about the Virgin brand -- what’s our secret? What’s the enduring magic formula? The truth is, we started with a really simple idea that has developed over time. When I opened my record store, I thought it might be a success if I made it a cool place to hang out and kept prices low. I hoped that the combination would make the store popular and that the resulting sales volume would make up for lower prices. These basic notions formed the beginning of what people now call brand values. At Virgin, ours include providing good value for money and a great customer experience

.

  I firmly believed back then, and still do now, that you can apply those values to any business situation. That’s why I wasn’t afraid to launch an airline -- I thought the principles we’d relied on in the music industry would make the airline successful.

  Today Virgin has become one of the most diverse brands in the world as we have continued breaking into new markets and shaking them up for the customer’s benefit. And our brand values are the glue that holds it all together.

  That doesn’t mean our business is a complete free-for-all, as my team often reminds me. Though we receive proposals for almost every imaginable product and service – drinks, plastic surgery, clothing, restaurants, care for the elderly, even funeral services – we have a central team that evaluates each idea to see if it fits with our values and what consumers expect of Virgin. Sometimes the debate is fierce!

  Sometimes we take a risk and it doesn’t work. For example, we started a consumer electronics business

in the U.S. in 2002, but we found it difficult to differentiate our products from those already available. We also learned that we are better at delivering the Virgin magic by creating an overall customer experience rather than simply selling a product.

  And then sometimes our risk-taking pays off in dividends, such as our turn-around of Britain’s ntl:Telewest cable business, which became the successful, customer-focused business now known as Virgin Media. This major effort involved moving some of our best people into that business and changing the focus from quarterly sales targets to longer term goals that involved keeping customers happy and loyal. (Keeping both customers and employees

happy is good for the business, and not a cost that can be cut!)

  We are often told that the Virgin brand is one of the most powerful brands in the world; my current goal is to make it one of the most trusted.

  How am I tackling this rather large task? I’ve gathered our top people, both in the Virgin businesses

and from our central brand team, which is headed by Catherine Salway, group brand director. She has put together a structure to ensure that every company in the Virgin Group is aware of our values and also our customers’ expectations. We provide brand training for all our businesses and supply the tools they need. We set targets at all our call centers for customer satisfaction and measure them on a quarterly basis. We bring together all our marketing departments to share ideas. And every new business

gets all this help right from the start.

  Catherine recently wrote a strategy paper called “Virgin Rising,” laying out how we will make Virgin even stronger in the future. She argued that, regardless of how respected Virgin has become – we now operate in 29 countries, employ 50,000 people and serve millions of customers every month – we cannot be complacent. She highlighted core areas that all Virgin companies must treat as priorities in order for the brand to flourish. These include everything from Virgin brand basics to connecting with customers online. She also emphasized collaboration among Virgin companies, entrepreneurialism, ethics – and also music, fun and rock 'n’ roll! In essence, she showed us how to reach our new goal.

  I often mention people like Catherine – not sales statistics or the bottom line. I truly believe that the people working at Virgin are the heart and soul of our brand. The simple concept of offering customers a better experience, and having fun while you do it, attracts very bright and enthusiastic people. So while we have fantastically creative marketers who develop brilliant ad concepts, we also have wonderful people who deal with our customers every day. This emphasis on people is what really makes Virgin special.

  In business schools, brand values are often discussed in terms of marketing, as though they are an end result of a scientific process, rather than embedded in a business’s beginnings. Thankfully, I’ve learned that in the real world of business, it’s better to rely on creativity, intuition and empathy. You can try to build a brand using a hands-off, theoretical approach, but you’ll do far better – and have more fun – if you stick to Virgin’s dynamic values.

12 C's for Team Building

Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams

How to Make Teams Effective

 

 

By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide

 People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than yourself. It has a lot to do with your understanding of the mission or objectives of your organization.

  

  In a team-oriented environment, you contribute to the overall success of the organization. You work with fellow members of the organization to produce these results. Even though you have a specific job function and you belong to a specific department, you are unified with other organization members to accomplish the overall objectives. The bigger picture drives your actions; your function exists to serve the bigger picture.

  You need to differentiate this overall sense of teamwork from the task of developing an effective intact team that is formed to accomplish a specific goal. People confuse the two team building objectives. This is why so many team building seminars, meetings, retreats and activities are deemed failures by their participants. Leaders failed to define the team they wanted to build. Developing an overall sense of team work is different from building an effective, focused work team when you consider team building approaches.

Twelve Cs for Team Building

  Executives, managers and organization staff members universally explore ways to improve business results and profitability. Many view team-based, horizontal, organization structures as the best design for involving all employees in creating business success.

  

  No matter what you call your team-based improvement effort: continuous improvement, total quality, lean manufacturing or self-directed work teams, you are striving to improve results for customers. Few organizations, however, are totally pleased with the results their team improvement efforts produce. If your team improvement efforts are not living up to your expectations, this self-diagnosing checklist may tell you why. Successful team building, that creates effective, focused work teams, requires attention to each of the following.

• Clear Expectations: Has executive leadership clearly communicated its expectations for the team’s performance and expected outcomes? Do team members understand why the team was created? Is the organization demonstrating constancy of purpose in supporting the team with resources of people, time and money? Does the work of the team receive sufficient emphasis as a priority in terms of the time, discussion, attention and interest directed its way by executive leaders?
  Read more about Clear Performance Expectations.
• Context: Do team members understand why they are participating on the team? Do they understand how the strategy of using teams will help the organization attain its communicated business goals? Can team members define their team’s importance to the accomplishment of corporate goals? Does the team understand where its work fits in the total context of the organization’s goals, principles, vision and values?
  Read more about Team Culture and Context.
• Commitment: Do team members want to participate on the team? Do team members feel the team mission is important? Are members committed to accomplishing the team mission and expected outcomes? Do team members perceive their service as valuable to the organization and to their own careers? Do team members anticipate recognition for their contributions? Do team members expect their skills to grow and develop on the team? Are team members excited and challenged by the team opportunity?
  Read more about Commitment in Team Building.
• Competence: Does the team feel that it has the appropriate people participating? (As an example, in a process improvement, is each step of the process represented on the team?) Does the team feel that its members have the knowledge, skill and capability to address the issues for which the team was formed? If not, does the team have access to the help it needs? Does the team feel it has the resources, strategies and support needed to accomplish its mission?
• Charter: Has the team taken its assigned area of responsibility and designed its own mission, vision and strategies to accomplish the mission. Has the team defined and communicated its goals; its anticipated outcomes and contributions; its timelines; and how it will measure both the outcomes of its work and the process the team followed to accomplish their task? Does the leadership team or other coordinating group support what the team has designed?
• Control: Does the team have enough freedom and empowerment to feel the ownership necessary to accomplish its charter? At the same time, do team members clearly understand their boundaries? How far may members go in pursuit of solutions? Are limitations (i.e. monetary and time resources) defined at the beginning of the project before the team experiences barriers and rework? Is the team’s reporting relationship and accountability understood by all members of the organization? Has the organization defined the team’s authority? To make recommendations? To implement its plan? Is there a defined review process so both the team and the organization are consistently aligned in direction and purpose? Do team members hold each other accountable for project timelines, commitments and results? Does the organization have a plan to increase opportunities for self-management among organization members?
• Collaboration: Does the team understand team and group process? Do members understand the stages of group development? Are team members working together effectively interpersonally? Do all team members understand the roles and responsibilities of team members? team leaders? team recorders? Can the team approach problem solving, process improvement, goal setting and measurement jointly? Do team members cooperate to accomplish the team charter? Has the team established group norms or rules of conduct in areas such as conflict resolution, consensus decision making and meeting management? Is the team using an appropriate strategy to accomplish its action plan?
• Communication: Are team members clear about the priority of their tasks? Is there an established method for the teams to give feedback and receive honest performance feedback? Does the organization provide important business information regularly? Do the teams understand the complete context for their existence? Do team members communicate clearly and honestly with each other? Do team members bring diverse opinions to the table? Are necessary conflicts raised and addressed?
• Creative Innovation: Is the organization really interested in change? Does it value creative thinking, unique solutions, and new ideas? Does it reward people who take reasonable risks to make improvements? Or does it reward the people who fit in and maintain the status quo? Does it provide the training, education, access to books and films, and field trips necessary to stimulate new thinking?
• Consequences: Do team members feel responsible and accountable for team achievements? Are rewards and recognition supplied when teams are successful? Is reasonable risk respected and encouraged in the organization? Do team members fear reprisal? Do team members spend their time finger pointing rather than resolving problems? Is the organization designing reward systems that recognize both team and individual performance? Is the organization planning to share gains and increased profitability with team and individual contributors? Can contributors see their impact on increased organization success?
• Coordination: Are teams coordinated by a central leadership team that assists the groups to obtain what they need for success? Have priorities and resource allocation been planned across departments? Do teams understand the concept of the internal customer—the next process, anyone to whom they provide a product or a service? Are cross-functional and multi-department teams common and working together effectively? Is the organization developing a customer-focused process-focused orientation and moving away from traditional departmental thinking?
• Cultural Change: Does the organization recognize that the team-based, collaborative, empowering, enabling organizational culture of the future is different than the traditional, hierarchical organization it may currently be? Is the organization planning to or in the process of changing how it rewards, recognizes, appraises, hires, develops, plans with, motivates and manages the people it employs? Does the organization plan to use failures for learning and support reasonable risk? Does the organization recognize that the more it can change its climate to support teams, the more it will receive in pay back from the work of the teams?
  Read more about culture change.

  Spend time and attention on each of these twelve tips to ensure your work teams contribute most effectively to your business success. Your team members will love you, your business will soar, and empowered people will "own" and be responsible for their work processes. Can your work life get any better than this?

If You Can Dream It, You Can Become It

7 Entrepreneurs Whose Perseverance Will Inspire You

Written by Tom Zeleznock

 Everyone knows that perseverance is important. You’ve probably heard the quote “If at first you don’t succeed, try again” or seen the commercial that talks about falling down 7 times and standing up 8. The lesson, of course, is that few people achieve anything great without first overcoming a few obstacles.

Preaching about the importance of perseverance is easy. Actually experiencing failure and continuing on undeterred; now that’s tough. But the 7 stories below prove that it can be done. These famous entrepreneurs exemplified perseverance. Maybe one of them will inspire you to overcome whatever obstacle is currently standing in your way.

Milton Hershey

Milton Hershey had a long path to the top of the chocolate industry. Hershey dropped out of school in the 4th grade and took an apprenticeship with a printer, only to be fired. He then became an apprentice to a candy-maker in Lancaster, PA. After studying the business for 4 years, Hershey started three unsuccessful candy companies in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York.

Hershey was not about to give up, so he moved back to Lancaster and began the Lancaster Caramel Company. His unique caramel recipe, which he had come across during his earlier travels, was a huge success. Hershey, who was always looking ahead, believed that chocolate products had a much greater future than caramel. He sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for $1 million in 1900 (nearly $25 million in 2008 dollars) and started the Hershey Company, which brought milk chocolate -- previously a Swiss delicacy -- to the masses.


Not only did Hershey overcome failure and accomplish his goals, but he also managed to do it close to home. Hershey created hundreds of jobs for Pennsylvanians. He also used some of his money to build houses, churches, and schools, cementing his status as a legend in the Keystone State.

Persistence is key. But it also helps if you have a solid business plan from the beginning. If you need assistance with your business plan, contact a Growthink business plan writer today.

Steve Jobs

You always hear about a “long road to the top,” but perseverance isn’t limited to the early stages of a person’s career. Oftentimes, failure can occur after a long period of success.

Steve Jobs achieved great success at a young age. When he was 20 years old, Jobs started Apple in his parents’ garage, and within a decade the company blossomed into a $2 billion empire. However, at age 30, Apple’s Board of Directors decided to take the business in a different direction, and Jobs was fired from the company he created. Jobs found himself unemployed, but treated it as a freedom rather than a curse. In fact, he later said that getting fired from Apple was the best thing to ever happen to him, because it allowed him to think more creatively and re-experience the joys of starting a company.

Jobs went on to found NeXT, a software company, and Pixar, the company that produces animated movies such as Finding Nemo. NeXT was subsequently purchased by Apple. Not only did Jobs go back to his former company, but he helped launch Apple’s current resurgence in popularity. Jobs claims that his career success and his strong relationship with his family are both results of his termination from Apple.

Are you building the next Pixar or Apple?  Get expert business planning advice from a Growthink business plan consultant.

Simon Cowell

Nowadays, Simon Cowell is a pop icon and a very wealthy man. But early in life, Cowell faced his fair share of struggles. At age 15, Cowell dropped out of school and bounced around jobs. He eventually landed a job in the mail room of EMI Music Publishing. Cowell worked his way up to the A&R department, and then went on to form his own publishing company, E&S Music.

Unfortunately, E&S folded in its first year. Cowell ended up with a lot of debt, and was forced to move back in with his parents. But he never gave up on his dream of working in the music industry, and eventually landed a job with a small company called Fanfare Records. He worked there for 8 years and helped the company become a very successful label. From there, Cowell spent years signing talent and working behind-the-scenes before launching the “American Idol” and “X-Factor” franchises that made him famous.

Even though he is rich and successful, Cowell continues to work on new projects. This kind of dedication no doubt helped him overcome his early roadblocks.

Thomas Edison

When he was a young boy, Thomas Edison’s parents pulled him out of school after teachers called him “stupid” and “unteachable.” Edison spent his teenage years working and being fired from various jobs, culminating in his termination from a telegraph company at age 21. Despite these setbacks, Edison never deterred from his true passion, inventing. Throughout his career, Edison obtained 1,093 patents. And while many of these inventions -- such as the light bulb, stock printer, phonograph and alkaline battery -- were groundbreaking, even more of them were unsuccessful. Edison is famous for saying that genius is “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

One of Edison’s greatest stories of perseverance occurred after he was already wildly successful. After inventing the light bulb, Edison began a quest to find an inexpensive light bulb filament. At the time, ore was mined in the Midwest, and shipping costs were incredibly high. To combat this, Edison opened his own ore-mining plant in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. For roughly a decade, Edison devoted all his time and money to the plant. He also obtained 47 patents for inventions designed to make the plant run more smoothly. And after all of that, Edison’s project still failed thanks to the low quality ore on the East Coast.

But as it turned out, one of the aforementioned 47 inventions (a newly-designed crushing machine) revolutionized the cement industry and earned Edison back nearly all of the money he lost. In addition, Henry Ford would later credit Edison’s Ogdensburg project as the main inspiration for his Model T Ford assembly line, and many believe that Edison paved the way for modern-day industrial laboratories. Edison’s foray into ore-mining proves that dedication and commitment can pay off even in a losing venture.

 

Are you starting a new business?  Get expert strategic advice from Growthink's professional business plan consultants. 

 

George Steinbrenner

Before “The Boss” assumed ownership of the New York Yankees, he owned a basketball franchise called the Cleveland Pipers. The Pipers were part of the American Basketball League, and in 1960, under Steinbrenner’s helm, the franchise went bankrupt.

When he eventually took over the Yankees, Steinbrenner’s struggles didn’t end. Most baseball fans will remember the team’s drought in the 1980s and early 1990s. As the team suffered, Steinbrenner was often criticized for his executive decisions, which included questionable trades and frequent changes to the Manager position. Though his methods were controversial, Steinbrenner stuck to his guns, and it paid off. The Yankees made an impressive six World Series appearances from 1996-2003, and remain Major League Baseball’s most profitable team year after year.

Steinbrenner is known for his shrewd business tactics, but he’s also not afraid to put his money where his mouth is. The Yankees have the highest payroll in baseball, and they’ve been in contention every year since the mid-90s. Even when the Cleveland Pipers went bankrupt, Steinbrenner offered to pay back the team’s investors, a promise he eventually made good on.

Steinbrenner has been quoted as saying, "I never wanted anybody to say ‘I went down a path with George Steinbrenner and lost money.’"
J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is currently the second-richest female entertainer on the planet, behind Oprah. However, when Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in 1995, it was rejected by twelve different publishers. Even Bloomsbury, the small publishing house that finally purchased Rowling’s manuscript, told the author to “get a day job.”

At the time when Rowling was writing the original Harry Potter book, her life was a self-described mess. She was going through a divorce and living in a tiny flat with her daughter. Rowling was surviving on government subsidies, and her mother had just passed away from multiple sclerosis. J.K. turned these negatives into a positive by devoting most of her free time to the Harry Potter series. She also drew from her bad personal experiences when writing. The result is a brand name currently worth nearly $15 billion.

 

What about you? Are you starting a new business?  If you need help with your business plan, contact Growthink's professional business plan writers. 

 

Walt Disney

As a young man, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star Newspaper because his boss thought he lacked creativity. He went on to form an animation company called Laugh-O-Gram Films in 1921. Using his natural salesmanship abilities, Disney was able to raise $15,000 for the company ($181,000 in 2008 dollars). However, he made a deal with a New York distributor, and when the distributor went out of business, Disney was forced to shut Laugh-O-Gram down. He could barely pay his rent and even resorted to eating dog food.

Broke but not defeated, Disney spent his last few dollars on a train ticket to Hollywood. Unfortunately his troubles were not over. In 1926, Disney created a cartoon character named Oswald the Rabbit. When he attempted to negotiate a better deal with Universal Studios -- the cartoon’s distributor -- Disney discovered that Universal had secretly patented the Oswald character. Universal then hired Disney’s artists away from him, and continued the cartoon without Disney’s input (and without paying him).

As if that wasn’t enough, Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films. He was told Mickey Mouse would fail because the mouse would “terrify women.” Distributors rejected The Three Little Pigs, saying it needed more characters. Pinocchio was shut down during production and Disney had to rewrite the entire storyline. Other films, like Bambi, Pollyanna and Fantasia, were misunderstood by audiences at the time of their release, only to become favorites later on.

Disney’s greatest example of perseverance occurred when he tried to make the book Mary Poppins into a film. In 1944, at the suggestion of his daughter, Disney decided to adapt the Pamela Travers novel into a screenplay. However, Travers had absolutely no interest in selling Mary Poppins to Hollywood. To win her over, Disney visited Travers at her England home repeatedly for the next 16 years. After more than a decade-and-a-half of persuasion, Travers was overcome by Disney’s charm and vision for the film, and finally gave him permission to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. The result is a timeless classic.

In a fitting twist of fate, The Disney Company went on to purchase ABC in 1996. At the time, ABC was owner of the Kansas City Star, meaning the newspaper that once fired Disney had become part of the empire he created. And all thanks to his creativity (and a lot of perseverance).

 

Now, the one place where persistence is really required is in raising capital. If you successfully raise capital, you can build the business of your dreams. But without capital, you may never get your chance.  If you're raising capital from private investors, you can improve your chances of funding success with a professional private placement memorandum.  Call 800-506-5728 to speak with a Growthink consultant.

The Top Ten Keys to Self-Confidence

If you have the keys to self-confidence, you'll be able to open doors of opportunity that you were convinced were locked - at least to you. So why not uncover the keys, learn how they work, and open those doors? Here are 10 keys. Once you've mastered them, those doors will open much easier.

•  Understand how self-confidence works.

• Self-confidence is a necessary ingredient for success. It sells. It's something you can sense about a person upon entering a room and is evident through body language and speech. It's not just what you say, but how you say it. It's important for you to know that you can create self-confidence. You don't have to be born with it - everyone is capable of learning how to be incredibly self-confident. 

•  Make your confidence goal a priority.

• People who achieve their goals are highly motivated to do so. If you tell yourself you should, could, or would if...then your desire for confidence may remain, but your achievement of it stays just a dream. Once you're committed to your goal, only then can you begin to make it a reality.   

• Change the way you think about yourself.

• You must change the image you have of yourself. Are you aware of what you're thinking before and during times you don't feel confident? If it's negative, you must reprogram your mind. Choose to think positive thoughts.

• Speak positively.

• Do you carefully choose what you'll say before you speak? Most people just dump whatever they're thinking into their mouths. We hear more negative messages throughout the day than positive ones unless we make a conscious effort to do so. Thinking and reacting follow one another. If your thoughts are negative, your speech will reflect it. You choose how you will react to what happens to you in life and you will create what happens next, according to your thoughts, words, and actions.

• Change your body language.

• You've heard the expression, "actions speak louder than words." Body language speaks volumes and is always believed more than what you may say. Closed postures, folded arms, and lack of eye contact give negative messages. Open postures, eye contact, and smiles are inviting and encourage interaction

• Change your voice tone. 

• Thirty percent of communication has to do with the tone of your voice. Record your voice and listen to it. What changes to your voice would you make it sound more confident? Listen to others who you admire. How do their voices communicate confidence to you? 

• Change situations that support your lack of confidence. 

• People either pull you down or build you up. If you find that you're in a situation where you're discouraged rather than encouraged, you're allowing someone else to influence or determine your destiny. Give yourself the opportunity to grow and be happy. It's your choice.

• Practice confidence.

• You must act as you have confidence before you'll have it. You'll be creating new habit patterns for yourself. you've heard the expression, "fake it until you make it." You have to act as if you have confidence. Practice what a confident person would say or do to achieve it.

• Plan confidence-building situations.

• It's must easier to practice building confidence in new situations with people who don't know you rather than with people who already know you and have pre-conceived opinions of you. There's less stress on you.

• Focus on achieving your dreams.

• Lots of people have a dream - but too many people give up on them. They simply stop trying because they don't posses the confidence to continue. An obstacle or two is enough for some. Others are puzzled as they try one avenue after another with little success. Those who are willing to learn the skills to confidence and success will succeed. Aristotle said, "What we have to learn to do we learn by doing." Experience is the best teacher. There are only two ways to learn to do something. The first and most common way is by trial and error. The second way, which is must faster and easier, is to discover your answers from someone who has already learned these lessons and helped many others do the same.

Adapted from an article, 'The Top Ten Keys to Self-Confidence" by Sharlene Talbott, MSW, who is a people skills coach, trainer, and public speaker with more than 20 years experience in helping people achieve their self-confidence, communication, sales and relationship goals.