Team

After listening to this week’s guest lecture, I have deeper insights into a successful team. First, people on the team have to have different skills. Secondly, a team needs a decisive leader. Lastly, team members should be able to argue about their own opinions. Based on past experiences, I feel that the leader is the critical factor for a team. During my internship in L’Oreal, I have an excellent boss. She has high demand on her subordinates. However, the interesting thing is that all the staff work happily even though they have to work over-extendedly. I feel there are three reasons for her success.

First, she herself works very hard. Every morning, she will be in the office no later than 7 am and in most of the cases, she’s the last one who leaves the office. She is the model for the whole office. Secondly, it is that she is decisive and fight for the benefits of the division. She is the head of the controlling team. Often times, there may be different opinions on budget between controllers and brand managers. Brand managers often put marketing at the first place while controllers have to consider the appropriate allocation of money among various parts. If more than necessary is assigned to the marketing department, the market return won’t look good and it is controllers’ responsibility. She always does a good job in negotiating with the brand managers and allocating the right amount of money to a certain part. Her every movement makes sense to her people. Her expertise and her decisive characteristics make her people respect. Thirdly, she listens to other people’s opinion and cares for the people. It usually takes time and efforts for brand controllers to set the budget. On the other hand, the market changes quickly and the top management may give a different order when the budget is done. It is really frustrated. However, when changes in the budget are required by her boss, she will go to the brand controller first and listens to their thoughts on the changes instead of forcing them to change. Also, she remembers every controller’s birthday. Furthermore, on every holiday, she will warp some gifts for her people. The staff all feel that the boss sees their contribution and hard work. Therefore, although the work is tired, few people quit the job. Also, her controlling team has better performances than other controlling teams of the company. I feel that in workplace, most of the people will compromise to their boss for their job. However, in some cases, people work under great pressure and with negative feelings. Thus, even if on surface, people work hard, the performance is hardly satisfied and the productivity is not that high. However, if the boss or the leader is great, the working atmosphere will be better and thus, the efficiency will be improved. For instance, if the boss is charming, people will love to work with him or her.

I feel very lucky that she can be my boss for my first internship. My friends once told me how afraid she was to see her boss. For start-ups, it is CEO chooses the team. There are greater chances that the team can work efficiently because at least, the CEO likes his or her people. In big companies, sometime, the boss cannot choose people and the people may not follow the boss they like. In this case, it tests staff’s ability to manage people. I am not sure what is the key to the quick adaption to a new team?