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37 Quotes and Business Advice on Team Work and Team Building

What’s the importance of team work in building a business? What lessons do famous entrepreneurs and drop out billionaires have for me with respect to team building? Why do I need a business team? How do I build a business team? How do I impact the spirit of team work in my employees?

If the answer to any of the questions asked above interests you, then please read on as I share with you 37 quotes and business advice on team work and team building from successful entrepreneurs.

 37 Quotes and Business Advice on Team Work and Team Building

1.            “Mr. Morgan buys his partners, I grow my own.” – Andrew Carnegie

2.            “Successful entrepreneurs may hate hierarchies and structures and try to destroy them. They may garner the disapproval of MBAs for their creativity and wildness. But they have antennae in their heads. When they walk down the street anywhere in the world, they have their antennae out, evaluating how what they see can relate back to what they are doing. It might be packaging, a word, a poem, or even something in a completely different business.” – Anita Roddick

3.            “Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.” – James Cash Penny

4.            I’d rather have one percent of the efforts of 100 people than 100 percent of my own efforts.” – J. Paul Getty

5.            “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don’t have to manage them.” – Jack Welch

6.            “I hire people brighter than me and I get out of their way.” – Lee Iacocca

7.            “My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.” – Jack Welch

“People problems must sometimes be dealt with harshly. When you make an example of someone, make sure everyone knows what the lesson is. Punish one, teach a hundred.” – The Mafia Manager

9.            “The most important ‘speed’ issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.” – Bill Gates

10.          “The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important – and then get out of their way while they do it.” – Jack Welch

11.          “My definition of an executive’s job is brief and straight to the point. It’s simply this: Getting things done through other people.” – James Cash Penny

12.          “The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” – James Cash Penny  

“There will be times when you will have to be abrasive, even brutal to members of your staff. Don’t worry that your people will say bad things about you because of this. They already have. But in general, try to be pleasant and accommodating. Try to please the greatest number who work for you that you can; antagonize the fewest. Blow smoke.” – The Mafia Manager

14.          “Bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.” – Bill Gates

“The competition to hire the best will increase in the years ahead. Companies that give extra flexibility to their employees will have the edge in this area.” – Bill Gates

16.          “Teams should be able to act with the same unity of purpose and focus as a well motivated individual.” – Bill Gates

17.          “I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try, they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact.” – Bill Gates

18.          “If you give people tools and they use their natural ability and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.”

19.          “You’ve got to give great tools to small teams. Pick good people, use small teams and give them great tools so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing.” – Bill Gates

20.          “Coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success.”

 37 Quotes and Business Advice on Team Work and Team Building

21.          “Punishing honest mistakes stifles creativity. I want people moving and shaking the earth and they are going to make mistakes.” – Henry Ross Perot

22.          “We bring together the best ideas – turning the meetings of our top managers into intellectual orgies.” – Jack Welch

23.          “The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” – James Cash Penny

24.          “The five separate fingers are five independent units. Close them and the fist multiplies strength. This is organization.” – James Cash Penny

25.          “Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” – John D. Rockefeller

26.          “I have run engineering since day one at Oracle, and I still run engineering. I hold meetings every week with the database team, the middle ware team, the applications team. I run engineering and I will do that until the board throws me out of there.” – Larry Ellison

27.          “People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the company’s product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” – Mary Kay Ash

29.          “To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running, and if you have a good team around you and more than a fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can’t guarantee it just by following someone else formula.” – Richard Branson

30.          “Individuals don’t win in business, teams do.” – Sam Walton

 37 Quotes and Business Advice on Team Work and Team Building

31.          We’re all working together; that’s the secret.” – Sam Walton

32.          “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” – Sam Walton

33.          “The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.” – Steve Jobs

34.          “Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down and things may be different tomorrow but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today.” – Steve Jobs

35.    “I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.” – Thomas Edison

36.   “If I attack alone, I might turn out to be a wimp. But with a strong business team behind me, I am a force to contend with.” – Ajaero Tony Martins

37.  “Go to the wolf, consider its ways and be wise. A wolf will never hunt alone; it hunts in packs because it knows the power of team work.” – Ajaero Tony Martins

Sam Walton Quotable Quotes on Team Building and Business

Today, I will be sharing with you some quotable quotes on team building and business from Sam Walton. Sam Walton is a famous entrepreneur and founder of the most capitalized company in the world; “Wal-Mart.” During his time, he was referred to as the master motivator; he also emerged the richest man in the world and owner of the largest retail chain. Below are some of his business success strategies and team building tips.

                Sam Walton Quotable Quotes on Team Building and Business

 

1.            “There’s a lot more businesses out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.”

2.            “Individuals don’t win in business, teams do.”

3.            “Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in a partnership.”

4.            “Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.”

5.            “Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.”

6.            “The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them.”

7.            “Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.”

8.            “Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.”

9.            “The folks on the front lines – the ones who actually talk to the customer – are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there.”

10.          “There is only one boss; the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

                Sam Walton Quotable Quotes on Team Building and Business

 

11.          “The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’. They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.”

12.          “Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.”

13.          “The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from the point of view of the customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience.”

14.          “If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.”

15.          “I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company.”

16.          “I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don’t know if you’re born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it.”

17.          “Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.”

18.          “I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: A town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.”

19.          “Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.”

20.          “I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.”

                Sam Walton Quotable Quotes on Team Building and Business

 

21.          “I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.”

22.          “Capital isn't scarce. Vision is.”

23.          “A computer can tell you down the dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold.”

24.          “Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm – always.”

25.          “My feeling is that just because we work so hard, we don't have to go around with long faces all the time. While we're doing all of this work, we like to have a good time.”

26.          “Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.”

27.          “When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you.”

28.          “Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools the competition. ‘Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?

29.          We’re all working together; that’s the secret.”

30.          “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”