In this week’s round-up of leadership quotes, we look at the views of business magnate Henry Ford, Team GB Olympian Adam Peaty and multi-award-winning business leader Terence Carvalho on the importance of looking after and working with teams in the pursuit of success.
Teamwork is vital to the success of any organisation. To enjoy a lengthy and indeed meaningful career, one must be able to work well with others, which is why teamwork in professional settings is so important.
Henry Ford
American industrialist and business magnate, Henry Ford, who established the Ford Motor Company, spoke a great deal of the importance of teamwork in his successes.
Ford once said that “coming together” constituted a “beginning”; “keeping together” marked “progress”; and “working together” equalled “success”.
It is all well and good discussing teamwork within an organisation, but creating a team-based environment can be a challenge, and it requires contribution from senior leadership, middle management where applicable, and employees.
A key aspect is engaging individuals and making them aware in how their efforts can influence the potential success of the team, and how the success of the team contributes to the overall performance of the company.
If employees are not aware of how their work equates to organisational successes, they will not have a team attitude. To instil that understanding, leaders can pitch to their teams the bigger picture of the organisation and the target marketplace, the strategy and the vision of where it is they want to go, key business processes, and who the target audience is.
Ford also said: “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”. Today’s leaders would do well to heed this advice.
Adam Peaty
An Olympic athlete such as swimmer Adam Peaty is an individual who knows all about winning. If you as an entrepreneur wish to know the link between business and sports, these are good people to ask.
Peaty collected two gold medals and a silver at this year’s delayed Olympic Games in Tokyo, taking his overall Olympic medal record to five, following his gold and silver medals at Rio 2016.
When asked during a television interview about his ‘secret’, Peaty’s response was far removed from sporting rhetoric about fitness and mindset, and instead focused on the team behind him.
“When you’ve got a winning team behind you, winning is easy”, is what he said.
Every successful individual has a team behind them that helps make it all possible, and Adam Peaty is a fine example of that.
Terence Carvalho
Terence Carvalho has been in positions of management since the age of 18. Along the way, he has led several high performing teams within a range of hospitality settings and collected numerous awards.
Carvalho is currently general manager of Becketts Southsea, a restaurant and hotel located in Portsmouth. Since his 2019 arrival at the business, a hospitality setting that was once prone to a less then complimentary review has transformed into an enterprise that has scooped six awards within two years.
However, Carvalho refuses to take all the credit for himself and the influence he has had on the business. On the contrary and on multiple occasions, he has spoken of the importance of the entire team in making Becketts successful.
In a message to business leaders, Carvalho explained that the role of the one at the top is to look after the team of people around them, because that will reflect the service that they provide to those they serve.
Look after the team, then they will serve customers well. Neglect the team, and they will not. How a leader treats their team ultimately impacts on how successful their organisation can be.
Carvalho puts it well: “As a leader, you must take care of your people, because it often reflects the service they provide to their customers.
“Look after your team and they’ll look after your customers.”
