Forward thinking accountant & friend Karl Roberts did a fantastic mini video series last week, on the top 3 things in business he’s learnt…

No 3 really resonated with me:

• Build a great team you can trust

It’s not as simple as throwing a few people together. They’ll spend loads of time together at work & must have similar values, treat each other with respect & be willing to hold each other accountable.

It takes the right people, sitting in the right seats, all pushing in the same direction to move an organisation forward at scale.

Image you’re the Oxford cox in the boat race. You know you’ve got the strongest and fastest team. But 1 of your team decides to sit the opposite way & row against his teammates.

You’re not going to win or get anywhere fast. Are you?

But that’s all it takes. 1 member of your team can adversely affect the performance of the business, if their activities go against what the rest of the team are trying to achieve.

4 years ago when we closed our retail shops and moved into a business unit (flipping from 80% consumer focused to 80% business focused). We suddenly found we had the wrong team.

It’s took years of training, learning & bringing new people on board, before we finally felt we had the right team to drive the business forward & become a world leading office solutions business.

…don’t discount the power of team