How to create a great team at your shop

We had some great news at work last week when our assessor told us that we had successfully retained our Investor in People status for another three years.

Julia, the same assessor we had three years ago, thanked all the people who took part (a third of our 27 strong team) for being consistently positive, open and honest and keen to make suggestions. Our culture, she said, had improved. “You have some quite amazing people in place,” she said.

Signing up for Investor In People status was one of the steps on our way to become a great company. Another key factor was agreeing our mission to energise independent retailers. Everyone who works at Newtrade knows that the objective of our work is to help local shopkeepers grow their sales and profits. Having a worthwhile purpose in common drives our team work.

Serendipitously I have just read Superteams, a book from team building expert Khoi Tu, that promotes seven rules for getting great performance. He has chosen seven modern fables that will inspire all team leaders.

The first story is about Steve Jobs' most successful investment, which was not Apple but Pixar. He assembled a team whose common purpose turned out to be becoming the digital Disney. Steve Jobs invested $55 million to keep Pixar going and was rewarded with $2 billion when it was sold.

The second story is about how Colin Montgomery led the European team to Ryder Cup success in 2010 by coaxing great performances out of his 12 golfers, overcoming the US and Tiger Woods.

The third story explains how the success of the SAS’s storming of the Iranian embassy in 1980 was a result of great team selection processes.

The fourth story shows how preparation helped the Red Cross to successfully save lives in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in January 2010.

The fifth story shows how the team behind the Rolling Stones and the band work together to deliver successful world tours.

The sixth story is about mastering conflict and explains the background to the Northern Ireland peace process, led by Tony Blair.

The final story says adapt or die and explains how Ferrari built a team that was unstoppable behind Michael Schumacher in 2002.

After every story, Tu provides engaging analysis and a list of things that you can do in your business to build your team. Initially I was sceptical. These stories were all too testosterone charged (perhaps with the exception of the Red Cross example) and almost no women feature in leadership roles.

But on balance they are well chosen to illustrate the seven principles. For example, the Rolling Stones story is well known but Tu tells it in a way that shows how the team delivers behind the scenes. Great results are achieved by many people working together.

Great teams don't happen by accident. They are built by your leadership. If you are interested in building a great team then this book will be very helpful for you. But be warned. Tu says building a better team “requires that you ask difficult questions, make tough choices and take action."

PS Khoi Tu is donating all his royalties from this book to the British Red Cross. Wow!

Digital disruption in the UK wholesale space

“Twenty years ago I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift,” says Jeff Bezos in his most recent letter to shareholders. A blink later and he points out that the company has grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to 230,000 now. But his ambition is the same. “We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness and risk-acceptance mentality that is normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.” Amazon is great at disruption because of its customers focus and the fact that the internet means it needs none (or very few) people between its warehouses and the shopper. The threat of Prime, its membership service, is the biggest challenge facing the UK retail market and the wholesale market by extension. It is both a direct threat and an indirect threat in that is inspiring countless numbers of othe...

Traffic lights: a fuss about nothing

I am sure that FT columnist Michael Skapinker has written about traffic lights food labelling before and his latest article is provocatively called: The food companies that make people fat. He criticises Coca-Cola and Unilever for sticking with guideline daily amounts (GDAs) when traffic lights work much better. Former Walmart Europe public affairs head Bernard Hughes wrote in to support Skapinker. He said: "There isn't ever a perfect information system flowing with beautiful logic. But traffic lights give powerful direction to the busy consumer." But in this age of smart phones surely this debate over the labelling on the packaging is easily overcome. The government can simply issue an app that when held over a bar code provides shoppers with a traffic light system. The supermarkets could do this on their websites. Surely the whole point about the future is that the internet and limitless data storage means that the shopper is being empowered with the informatio...

Sunday trading consultation: fair or fixed? You decide.

My local council, South Oxfordshire, asked me to complete a survey on Sunday trading as a local resident. The deadline is next week. The first question was about the current arrangements and what I thought. There were five options: large shops shouldn’t open six hours is already too long current restrictions are about right large shops should be allowed open for longer no restrictions. My answer was the current restrictions are about right. The next question was about what would happen if the council allowed large stores to open for longer. The menu included 10 options and a space for other. The options were that it would: encourage me to shop more in my local town give me more flexibility impact on my religious or cultural beliefs have a positive impact on my business have a negative impact on my business increase footfall to my business reduce footfall to my business provide more employment opportunities open to me in the local area mean that I need to...

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