Team building

Companies become more and more complexity, what means they become more and more interconnected and as a result, the working structures become strongly cross-departmental. Shorter development times as well as an optimized product quality management, customer-oriented service concepts and flat hierarchy are essential requirements in order to cope with market conditions, which are constantly changing.



Based on these factors, it is very important for companies to have excellent skilled employee in order to manage all these different difficult situations and issues, because all employees decide about success and failure of their company, not only one team member. When people, with very different personalities and backgrounds, are working for the same organization or department, the company can run into problems when these personalities clash.



Because of that, it is very important that each team member knows their own skills and abilities in order to use synergies as well as similarities to enable a successful collaboration in their team. The individual behavior and the awareness of each employee are critical factors to get on with colleagues and have a successful collaboration. Finally, clear goals and distinct distribution of roles enable an efficient collaboration and are the basis for a good team work. It is useful to use the complementarity of the different characters of each employee in order to improve the team success.



For employees, it is easy to recognize this theoretically, but the practical implementation is often difficult. Only the practical experience helps employees to understand the process of team building exactly and give rise to a better team orientating as well as a better self-image. The participants have fun to learn and discover new silks and they are involved actively in a process, which includes a lot of facets of the human awareness, which means thinking, action and emotional and physical experience.



In order to become a successful team building process, a specific team composition and clear goals are important. It is recommended to analyze the company well as well as the structure of each department, the basic conditions of the team and the aims. A demand-orientated training is also important as well as information, if participants have any fears or suggestions. During the training process the outcomes have to be fixed and after some months, a follow-up is necessary.

A team building process is in different phases in a process meaningful and can support theses phases successfully. Especially, teambuilding is very important during the structure of new project groups, cross-departmental cooperation, implementing of new employees and structural changes.  These points are important for all organizational-ladder.



The team motivating for new goals increases, the existing communication structures will be improved and the solving of conflicts will be revised. As a result, teams could reach a higher identification with the company culture and a better we-feeling. Likewise, all these points promote homing processes, motivation, team strategy, the creating of behavioral codes as well as the balance of the self-image and the image of others.



For instance, leaders are supported to build and create new working and project teams and an employee can train abilities like communication skills and empathy and as a result, the overcoming of conflict and stress situations.



Some companies offer such training in NZ and in Auckland, for example:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/corporate-team-building-retreat-ideas-2000.html

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_52.htm

Additionally, if such trainings are offered in the nature, for example in a forest, the motivation will increase and the creativity will foster because of the unfamiliar and foreign environment.

Team building

Crowdfunding and the Pebble Watch success

Crowdfunding and the Pebble Watch success

Crowdfunding was growing as the globalization was taking place in our daily life, giving way to fund a diverse range of innovative projects in relation with music, films, fashion, design products and software, which are the most popular ideas to kick start .

 It is an open call over the internet to find financial resources to start a new business idea in exchange for a benefit like a future product, service o reward. Websites like RocketHub, Kickstarter, and IndieGoGo are the most popular platforms to get investments and contribute to invest, where the creators explain their project profile, showing monetary goals, business plan and the time line to develop it.

One of the most famous crowdfunded projects was the Pebble E-paper watch, a smart watch which can be integrated with smartphones. It  was launched in Kickstarter and raised $10,266,845 in one 37 days. The project was successful as they finished to deliver the product 10 months after they had closed the crowdfunding campaign.

Two years after the debut in Kickstarter, the watch still being in sale and the company is growing.

“Eric Migicovsky and the team that built the Pebble blazed trails and launched an entirely new product category into the market long before Google, Apple or Samsung came along”. Huffinton Post

Team building activities.

Team building Activities.

 

1. Are they useful?

- Yes, because people today need to be more caring and learn to be more collaborative. Nowadays most employees work by themselves because the world is very competitive social. Then they are forced to have to beat other people and to be the best person in their field. They learn how to beat other people since they are children. As a result, they are selfish and autocratic. In my opinion, employees have to learn how to help other people and to collaborate with their peers, not just be combative. So team building activities are useful because that can help them to be unselfish people and more collaborative.

2. How can they help a business?

- Team building can improve social relationships of employees. It can also help them to achieve results, meet goals, accomplish their tasks, break down barriers and create a sense of unit. If they do team building activities, they can develop themselves, leadership ability, learn how to have conversations lots of times with their peer, have the ability to work close together to solve their problems and so on.

3. Find an example of a team.

-One small company in Korea had problems between its employees. Upper management weren’t understanding the behavior of the work force and the work force also had complaints. Then the magnate of that company sent them to team building activities. At first, they still misunderstood each other but when they did one special activity, they could understand each other. The activity that changed there thinking was acting. As they played other positions, they could understand their tasks were difficult and that their behavior was bad for them. After that activity, they had lots of conversation and they could understand and respect each other.

 

 4. Team building activity in Auckland

 

- There are many activities in Rainbow’s End. One of the activities is Amazing Race. Teams race around the Rainbow’s End field and compete with other teams. They can improve their skills to complete their tasks by helping each other. Another activity is Crime Investigation. Their teams work to solve a crime so they can develop their skills of cooperation and innovative problem solving.

They offer opportunities to people who want to improve their team building abilities. They can get a wonderful opportunity of reaching goals and improving teamwork by playing games.

Larry Ellison, one of the influent tycoon of the tech industry

 Larry Ellison, known as the co-founder and actual CEO of Oracle Corporation, is one of the magnate who has the most influenced the tech industry, the business world and our daily lives. He is born in 1944 (17 august) in New York City. During the 1970s, he worked for Ampex Corporation and conducted a database project for the CIA named “Oracle”. In 1977, cooperating with two partners, Larry Ellison founded SDL, Software Development Laboratories which would become Oracle Systems Corporation three years later. The company is now known as the second-largest software maker after Microsoft.With its own brands of database system, Oracle helps everyone about every time you used a credit card, book a hotel online or get a prescription drug.

Last year, Ellison funded the U.S. sailing team in the America's Cup sailing race. He took a big gamble that finally paid : after loosing 8-1 against the NZ Team in a 17-race competition, the Oracle Team USA made the greatest comeback ever seen since 1983 and finally won the race. It is estimated that Ellison spent more than $100 million on the catamaran to catch up.

Teambuilding

Team building is a very useful and helpful activity, which helps to create a good atmosphere at work place, schools, sport teams, religious or nonprofit organizations. A team is an important, dynamic unit working together to achieve success in accomplishing a goal.  Team building is pursued via a variety of practices, and can range from simple bonding exercises to complex simulations and multi-day team building retreats designed to develop a team. Team building is said to have benefits of self-development, positive communication, leadership skills and the ability to work closely together as a team to solve problems. Cooperation and communication is a very important condition for a successful team building exercise. Activities should have been chosen very carefully depending on team members. There are many opportunities for team building activity in Auckland, like cooking courses and a lot of outdoor activities. A very common activity could be a great kiwi BBQ at the Beach in summer. It would be a chance to create a tasty BBQ together and to play a lot of Beach games. With both structured and informal activities to keep the group entertained, there will be plenty of opportunities for competition or simply sitting back and mingling with your colleagues. 

BBQ at the beach

Teambuilding

Working in a team is very important. But therefore the team morale should be good. Great teamwork helps in achieving solutions for the most difficult situations in organisations and encourages people to perform more effectively. Teambuilding courses can be used to improve the working atmosphere. If you are looking to build a great team, the foundation lies in selecting the right approach and planning a team building activity that gives results. A team building activity should be chosen carefully to deliver benefits to the organisation and team members.

For example the team could do a cookery course together. There are many advantages of sending teams on a cookery course. It is not a competitive thing and brings people together. Also it helps to break down barriers and cuts across ages, backgrounds and cultures. You don’t need special abilities for cooking. Anyone can take part and they can participate as much or little as they want. Furthermore it feels natural compared to other team-building activities. And at the end there is a tasty meal on offer.

The event group is a nationwide team building company, which offers unique corporate team building activities, fun team building games and stimulating leadership team building challenges in Auckland.

One team building activity in Auckland is “What a Production”.

Using broadcast quality cameras and sound gear industry professionals guide the team to become a production crew creating a commercial or film/television trailer. It is great to reinforce key messages, introduce new initiatives or for just bringing out hidden skills and talents in the team. Viewing of the final product is done on the day and can be part of an after dinner presentation. So everybody works together and has a great and funny time with a nice result at the end of the day.

Teambuilding activities are very important and useful especially in business. They bring people together and the team can get more team spirit. Teambuilding activities can help in business to get more effective team working and you can receive better and faster results. Also the activities can improve the team morale and the team can figure out their qualities and strengths. The team get to know more about every individual team member and they learn to work together under different circumstances. The team can improve communication, break down barriers and create a sense of unity. In Auckland there is a company called

“the Events Group” which offers a lot of different team building activities like team sailing, art challenges and much more. If you are looking to build a great team, the foundation lies in selecting the right approach and planning a team building activity that gives results. A team building activity should be chosen carefully to deliver benefits to the organization and team members. 

The company also offers a challenge which is called “Can you stand the heat?”. You can cook a 3 course meal together with a celebrity chef. Their events are created just for teams. I think cooking is a very good teambuilding activity because you don’t need previous knowledge about cooking. Anyone can take part and participate as much they like. Also the team can learn to work together in a stressful situation.

Crowdfunding: The Pebble E-Watch

Cowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.

Crowdfunding has the potential to increase entrepreneurship by expanding the pool of investors from whom funds can be raised beyond the traditional circle of owners, relatives and venture capitalists.

A popular crowdfunding platform is “kickstarter”, which is based in the United States.

“kickstarter” allows members to pledge amounts of money towards an idea in return for a reward from the creator.

An example for a successfully funded project is an e-paper watch for iPhone and Android. The project was launched by a company called “Pebble Technology” on April 11, 2012. Their goal was $100.000 but the total pledge exceeded this by far. They received $10,266,845 in total.
The Pebble E-Watch is a watch built for the 21^st century. It is easy to customize with apps such as heart rate monitoring and exercise tracking. The e-paper watch connects with smartphones using Bluetooth, and alerts you to incoming calls, emails and text messages.

The inventors of this watch claim that this is probably where Apple got the idea for the iWatch from.

The smartwatch was released in 2013. It is the most successful product funded through “kickstarter”.
“Best Buy”, an American consumer electronics corporation, began selling Pebble smartwatch in July 2013, and sold out within 5 days.

I would be very interested in this smartwatch because it really makes your life easier as you don’t have to carry around your mobilephone all the time, since the smartwatch alerts you to incoming calls and messages.

Furthermore it is compatible with both Android and iOS which is an advantage compared to the iWatch.

 

Brazilian Crowdfunding

Have you ever heard about crowdfunding practices in Brazil? It’s a good option for a small business and is not necessary to deal with banks' high interest rates.

It arrived in Brazil in 2009 through the website Vakinha, which proposed to raise funds for relatives' and friends' projects. On the other hand, it’s not restricted to business and projects, it also includes personal matters such as purchasing a new car or traveling around the world.

Nowadays, Catarse and Movere are the main crowdfunding websites in Brazil. They choose projects based on art, cinema, dance, music and literature. Creativity, talent and innovation are characteristics of these websites. It’s a challenge to traditional Brazilian mentality that still tends to value a professional education and it may increasing the number of liberal professionals in Brazil. 

CEO Hartmut Mehdorn - Airport Berlin Brandenburg  

              

Overview Hartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn is a German mechanical engineer as well as a German industrial manager. He was born in July 1942 in Warschau. He finished his degree as a mechanical engineer at the University TU Berlin and subsequently, he worked in different positions for the Aircraft Industry before he became the CEO for the airport Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH in 2013.

In his private life, Hartmut Mehdorn is married to the frenchwoman Hélène Vuillequez. He has two adult sons as well as an adult daughter. He is an admirer of the French culture and lifestyle. His hobbies are sailing and golf, philately, the forging of metal and the winegrowing. On the basis of his last hobby, he owns a vineyard in Southern France.

The difficult project “Airport Berlin-Brandenburg”
The airport Berlin Brandenburg is an international commercial airport in Southern Berlin and has been building since September 2006 and should have been finished 6 years later, in June 2012. Because of serious variety technical issues, the opening date could not be observed and was multiple rescheduled. At the moment, the implementing can not be foreseen, but it is said the implementing is expected in 2017. Besides the opening date, the costs increased rapidly from 1,7 mil Euro (2004) to 5,4 mil Euro to the end of 2014.

The reason, Mehdorn became the CEO for the airport Berlin-Brandenburg are his high qualifications, his work experience as well as his marked skills to lead and complete such a huge problematical project. It was assumed that he is the right man for the department of the CEO.

Mehdorns present management style
Currently and because of the big problems at the airport, Mehdorn is criticized not the right CEO for the project. It is heavily criticized, especially by the supervisory committee, his management methods are outdated and he breaks the basic rules of good communication. 

It is said Hartmut Mehdorn is quite reserved with important utterances and he does not communicate the different problems honestly. The supervisory committee says without truthful and straightforward communication it is not possible to have a reliable collaboration. It is important that Mehdorn implements a corporate culture and it is wanted that he shows a more reserved behavior, because his job is to finish this project very fast, nothing else and because of that he get support from the supervisory committee. 

In the past, Mehdorn described his management style with his own words and said: "You can not rehabilitate a company with your hands wrapped in cotton wool, I never wanted to be a diplomat".

Therefore, Mehdorn is a very commanding person, he knows his tasks exactly and obviously, he does not have much confidence in foreign people, so he makes most decisions by himself. Based on his successes in the past as a CEO and with his autocratic leadership style, Mehdorn is used to being in the right and as a result he is quite tenacious, ambitious and does not give the control to someone else.

Mehdorn wants to finish this project stubbornly with all his energy. This is his big strength and that is the reason he became the CEO, but he does not regard that the time has changed. Now, his democratic leadership style is obsolete, the society wants to have a democratic style.

For the future, Mehdorn has to realize that he has to change his behavior, has to talk with his team members and has to speak clearly about facts, rules and tasks and as well as he has to trust his project team and has to create a pleasant and truthful atmosphere in his team.  

Steven S. Reinemund

  

Steven S. Reinemund was born on the 6^th of April in 1948. He was a Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo between 2001 and 2006.

Reinemund spent 22 years working for PepsiCo. During his CEO tenure at PepsiCo, revenues grew by $9 billion, earnings per share were up 80% and PepsiCo’s market cap exceeded $100 billion.

For Steven Reinemund and his team it is really important to be innovative and they have to bring constantly new ideas into the company. This is what leads to the growing of a company.

Reinemund takes a major role in mentoring and teaching staff formally and informally. He also underlines that everyone in the senior ranks do the same.

For Reinemund, the key is making enough new bets to keep customers coming back while delivering strong shareholder returns. He thinks that it is very important that you are happy with your job as a leader. He says that you have to enjoy your job in a company you respect.

Dr. Norbert Reithofer (BMW AG) 

Norbert Reithofer was born in 1956. He studied in munich (Germany) mechanical engineering and later business management. He started his career by BMW at 1987 as leader of maintenance. Reithofer is the chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG since 2006.
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini brand, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. 
Fundamental transformation like new technologies, business fields and service offerings requires innovative strength, flexibility,  new ways of thinking and especially the determination to act said Reithofer in Conference Call Interim Report to 30 June 2013. Reithofer won over his manager colleagues above all with his "excellent strategies", "realistic" management style and "international presence".   

Phil Knight (NIKE)

Phil Knight was born in 1938. He is an American business magnate and the co-founder of Nike. On a trip around the world he discovered the Tiger-brand running shoes. He was so impressed by tquality and low cost and called Mr. Onitsuka, the head of Tiger-brand running shoes, who agreed to meet with him. At the end, Knight had secured Tiger distribution rights for the western United States, and previously served as the chief executive officer of Nike. Phil Knight started his career with selling Japanese Sneakers out of his car boot. But after 40 years his company got to a 12,3 billion sports conglomerate. During the 1980s and the 1990s he changed the rules of the games for sport marketing and turned sports gear into a fashion statement. 
Knight, who describes his own management style as “selectively hands-on”, knows when to be involved in decisions and the work of his staff and when to give space. 
This style takes confidence in yourself and faith in your people. You have to let your employees make their own decisions and mistakes. If you never give them that abililty you might as well be doing their job. Know what is going on and coach your team through processes but don't do it for them. Give them suggestions but let them tailor it to their liking. This is the best type of manager.

German Manager Rene Obermann

Rene Obermann was born on 5^th March 1963 in Duesseldorf. He grew up in Neuss where his grandfather ran a small printing craftsmanship. After his Abitur he did  a business trainee-ship at BMW AG in Munich.

After that he wanted to study economics at the University of Muenster. To improve his financial situation he founded a small company called ABC Telekom with which he earned 1 million Mark in the first year. 

He quit his studies, never finished them and sold the company. Then he started to work for the Deutsche Telekom AG.
In 2006 he moved to the top of the management and became the youngest leader of a German top 30 company.

He undertook cost cuts and made overseas investment which is why he is said to be an innovative manager.

Furthermore he has been the Vice President of the German industry association BITKOM since 2007.

He stepped down from the Deutsche Telekom at the end of year 2013 and then changed to the Dutch cable TV operator Ziggo NV at the beginning of 2014.

He doesn’t hesitate to make necessary but unpopular decisions and he is said to be ambitious, determined, straightforward and qualified.
He himself said that a good manager has to work hard, be collaborative, control his business and have good social skills. Besides he is of the opinion that those who are in charge should deal with the criticism that might arise.

 

Eike Batista

Eike Fuhrken Batista da Silva is a Brazilian business manager who made a fortune working with mining and oil and gas exploration. Actually, he is the CEO of EBX Group that includes five companies on the BM&F BOVESPA, stock exchange located at Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Batista started elementary school in Brazil and moved with his family to Europe when he was a teenager. He learned self-esteem and discipline, attributes he considers crucial to his formation as an entrepreneur. In 1974, he began to study metallurgical engineering in Germany and in early the 1980s he returned to Brazil and focused his attention on the gold and diamond trades.

When he was 23 years old, he started a gold trading company, that a year and a half later had earned $6 million. With his entrepreneurial instinct and talent, he implement the first mechanized alluvial gold mining plant in the Amazon and when he was 29 years old, he became CEO of TVX Gold. From 1980 to 2000, he created $20 billion in value with the operation of eight gold mines in Brazil and Canada and a silver mine in Chile. Between 1991 and 1996, the value of his company more than tripled. At the end of 2010, Batista was ranked as the 58th most powerful person in the world. In 2012, Batista had a net worth of $30 billion, becoming a seventh wealthiest person in the world and the richest in Brazil and South America.