By Oluwole Dada
Leading a team should result in cooperation and collaboration amongst members of the team. The more united your team members are, the more formidable they become and the more the results you will get from them.
In 2002, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard orchestrated Hewlett-Packard’s $25 billion merger with Compaq. Her decision was controversial as it was met with resistance from the board, employees and shareholders. What followed became an example of how division can destroy value. This led to internal politics which created two camps – the “HP Way” traditionalists and the “new vision” proponents. The result of this division included HP’s stock price which declined by 50% during Fiorina’s tenure, low employee morale and high turnover rate, productivity and potential innovation were lost to internal strife and eventual ouster of Fiorina as CEO by the board in 2005.
On the other hand, there was Alan Mulally who transformed Ford Motor Company during the 2008 financial crisis. He used his ability to unite everyone across the company to survive the 2008 crisis without bailout. Ford avoided government assistance unlike its competitors such as GM and Chrysler. Walking into his first leadership team meeting, Mulally found executives who barely spoke to each other, protecting their individual fiefdoms. In his reaction, he instituted a simple but powerful practice: weekly Business Plan Review meetings where leaders were required to help each other solve problems, not compete. The result was stunning. Ford reported a pre-tax profit of $8.8 billion on a net income of $20.2 billion in 2011 which happened to be the third consecutive year of the company’s increased operating profit. He also had regular town hall meetings, ensured transparent communication and alignment among employees. One other thing Mullaly’s approach achieved was the introduction of successful car models like Ford Fusion and Focus. Mullaly was indeed a transformational leader – Ford was the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy during the crisis.
To succeed as a great leader, you must avoid leading a divided team. Any attempt for any member of the team to cause division must be seriously dealt with. Your approach as the leader will determine if there will be unity in your team or otherwise. You must also put policies and procedures in place that will create shared goals and responsibilities. Netflix’s Reed Hastings eliminated individual performance bonuses in favor of team-based metrics, leading to greater collaboration and innovation. Individual behavior must be discouraged while collaborative behavior must be rewarded. An example of this is Google’s peer bonus system which allows employees to reward colleagues from other teams who have helped them succeed.
Unity is an essential factor for high performance in any endeavor. The biblical story of the Tower of Babel, as referenced, provides a powerful metaphor for team unity. The feat of this construction was achieved because of a united team. Even God recognized their unity and realized the only way to stop them is to cause division amongst them. Another example of an organization where unity played a role in its turnaround was LEGO. When Jørgen Vig Knudstorp took over as LEGO CEO in 2004, the company was losing $1 million a day. His major actions included creating cross-functional innovation teams, established “play labs” where designers and marketers worked together and he implemented a “One LEGO” culture focused on collaborative decision-making. By 2013, LEGO had become the world’s most profitable toy company. Knudstorp’s secret was unity and teamwork “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” he often said. “But teams eat culture for lunch.”
Unity in your team will achieve much more than division. No one goes to war with a divided army and returns successful. Every leader must be deliberate about the harmony of his team. There are teams today who are performing far below their potential and the reason is because everyone is having diverse interests. On resumption as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, Satya Nadella knew that one of the problems of Microsoft is its “stack ranking” system that pits employees against each other. His first move was to eliminate this divisive practice and instead, he introduced shared success metrics and created cross-platform development teams. He also ensured that collaborative behaviors are rewarded. This is one of the actions that has seen Microsoft’s revenue increased from $86.8B in 2014 to $211.92B in 2023 and its market value increased from $220 billion in 2011 to over $3 trillion in 2024, driven by innovations born from teamwork.
Never ever incite anyone in your team against the other. They will surely get to know and this will not put you in their good books.
Remember that a divided house cannot stand, but a united team can move mountains. Your role as a leader isn’t to cause division in the room – it’s to create the conditions where your team’s collective intelligence can flourish.
Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.
