Leadership Lessons From The Social Network: Teamwork

The movie, The Social Network, is a powerful portrayal of how the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his team, started out with a dream and a $1000 start-up, to become the youngest billionaire in the world. At the point of writing, Facebook is valued to be worth at least $50 billion, and this would mean that she is worth more than eBay, Yahoo, and Time Warner. This is a very impressive result given the fact that Facebook was launched in February 2004.

There are also plenty of lessons that this movie can teach us about leadership and team management, and this is the final series of the trilogy. There may be certain information in the movie that had been exaggerated to increase the excitement level, as even Zuckerberg himself, calls The Social Network "inaccurate". Hence I would take all these information with a pinch of salt and relate most of the lessons learned, from the movie itself, and not from real life.

In this article, I will share about teamwork and how it can help you unlock the true potential as a leader.

Proper Delegation of Work. The whole team can only do well when you know what their job scopes are. In one of the scenes in the Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg wanted to expand The Face Book, and he directed his team on their roles, and what they were supposed to do. And when the two ladies who were present in the living room, asked if they could help in any way, he declined them without much thought because at that moment, he knew that he didn't require their help in any way. On the other hand, he specifically told the others what their tasks were.

Even the Winklevoss brothers had specific roles for their team. And they knew that they were deficient in a particular talent when their programmer left the team to concentrate on his studies. Hence when news broke out that Zuckerberg was able to shut down the Harvard traffic with his "prank", they immediately reached out to him and shared with him their ideas so that he could work for them.

Once you know what your team is supposed to be made up of, you would be able to find the right person for the job. You need to set stretched and measurable goals for them and you also need to be informed of the progress. Effective delegation is not merely pushing away the jobs that were meant for you. Effective delegation is to ensure that the person with the right skill does what he or she knows best.

For example, let's presume that you intend to increase your customer base with a promotional blitz. Firstly, you need to know who your team members are in this project. Secondly, you then need to identify who does what, and their deliverables by a certain time. Thereafter, Jane must come up with the product packages and links with other partners, and John must reach out to X advertising companies with the marketing materials. Hence once the planning stage is over, the real action must start so that the project starts to roll with momentum from all parties.

Build Quality Relationships First, then Your Business. Now, not every partner will work together initially. It's your job to iron out the differences. And fast. In The Social Network, Eduardo Saverin had his own ideas in ensuring success of the company. However, Mark Zuckerberg had his own ideas too. And while, Saverin was Chief Financial Officer in the business, Zuckerberg proceeded to pull Sean Parker, founder of Napster into the team. Parker and Saverin were portrayed to have mutual dislike for each other and when your teammates distrust each other, unless you find time to sort things out, many issues will simply be swept under the carpet and it will fester.

As a leader, you need to take the time to understand your partners in the business because people want you to understand their aspirations and dreams. They want you to understand what they are good in, and where they can fit in with regard to projects. Why would you want to place a person with zero knowledge in sales without first training him? And have you spent the time to understand if he even likes sales? So by investing time to understand your core team members in the business, you would be building quality relationships.

Hence understand your team, and they will learn to understand you. It will definitely take time and that's the fun and rewarding part in building a team.


cheers,
Mark

Leadership Lessons From The Social Network: Effective Work Habits

The movie, The Social Network, is a powerful portrayal of how the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his team, started out with a dream and a $1000 start-up, to become the youngest billionaire in the world. At the point of writing, Facebook is valued to be worth at least $50 billion after the injection of capital from Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies. What is symbolic about these injection of funds from investment companies and banks shows the increasing might of Facebook, and her abilities to transform the social media scene as we know it.

There are also plenty of lessons that this movie can teach us about leadership and team management, and this article is the second part of three. Now, because there may be certain information in the movie that had been exaggerated to increase the excitement level, hence I would take all these information with a pinch of salt and relate most of the lessons learned, from the movie itself, and not from real life.

So in this article, I will share about some work habits that can help leaders reach their potential.

Know your resources around you. In the movie, Zuckerberg was able to assemble a group of people to help him achieve his goals. He first approached Eduardo Saverin, to invest in this company because Saverin had the financial capability at that point to do so. He then went about to task the people around him on their roles and responsibilities. He knew that he needed more people so that he can leverage on their capabilities, and he sought more employees. This is the hallmark of a business leader as he fully understood the power of leveraging. If he was just one person, he could only do X amount of work, and now that he has more team members, he could do more than just X amount of work. Essentially he knew the resources he had around him and set out to find a network of people who could help him reach his goals.

Once you know your available resources, the next priority would be to plan the composition of your team and leverage on them. Building of cross-functional teams in this aspect would help as you have a diversity of talents for your team to capitalize on.

Settle for a mediation when push comes to shove. In The Social Network, Zuckerberg was advised to settle both law suits through a settlement. The lawyer opined that the settlements, in the scheme of things may just be a speeding ticket. Indeed, when you are faced with an impending lawsuit, you confidently think that you have all the answers and solutions to the challenges posed by the other party. But the truth of the matter is that lawsuits, lawyers and the court are merciless. Even when you are under oath, the questions that the prosecutor fire at you will be fiery and intimidating. Everything that you stand for will be stripped as you are torn apart in the courts.

Don't fight every fire that comes along your way. When you learn to prioritize your challenges, you are building more time and chances for yourself so that you can last in the long run. And always remember to document your administration because one day it will save you.

Work Smart. In The Social Network, Saverin, Facebook's co-founder, was an intelligent financial analyst who profited from oil trading and stocks in school, and he was portrayed as not working smart enough on his assigned task. Instead of being open-minded to the possibilities of venture capitalists funding the company, he was fixated on using advertising as the only way to fund the company. He travelled daily on public transport such as trains so that he could reach his prospects. In the movie, you would be able to see how his ideas often get brushed aside by Zuckerberg, and these differences were some reasons that cause them both of them to drift apart. Zuckerberg on the other hand, was open-minded on VCs funding the company and he saw the possibilities of such leveraging. By working smart, and not hard, you are leveraging on this important element called time. And because time equals money, shouldn't you be ensuring that you make money by leveraging on time?

While sometimes the opportune time is important, the question would be, are you open-minded enough to accept such ideas?


cheers,
Mark

Leadership Lessons From The Social Network: Desire and Faith

The movie, The Social Network, is a powerful portrayal of how the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his team, started out with a dream and a $1000 start-up, to become the youngest billionaire in the world. At the point of writing, Facebook is valued to be worth at least $50 billion. They have so far resisted the call to go public, and the move to be funded by venture capitalists, or to be funded by wealthy individuals, corporations, and banks, has ensured that founder Zuckerberg remained in total control of the company.

There are also plenty of lessons that this movie can teach us about leadership and team management, and I would start off with this first part of three. Now, because there may be certain information in the movie that had been exaggerated to increase the excitement level, hence I would take all these information with a pinch of salt and relate most of the lessons learned, from the movie itself, and not from real life.

So in this article, I will share about having desire and faith.

Desire and Faith

Don't let emotional revenge be the thing that fuels your passion. Zuckerberg's initial mischief was to create a viral website to poke fun at ladies, because in The Social Network, he was portrayed as having broken up with his girl friend. However, he was placed under academic probation as a punishment because he hacked into the servers of so many houses and towards the end of the movie, it seemed that the lady still had not forgiven him. In the movie, Sean Parker, founder of Napster, shared with Zuckerberg the reason he founded Napster, which was to boast to the girl he liked that while he couldn't play lacrosse, he was cool in his own way too. He never got the girl in the end too.

There is also a quote from the movie that mentions that the internet is not written in pencil, but in ink, whatever we write, do or say in the internet is published and shown. Remember that there are always consequences to what you do, and how you react to any events, would determine the right outcome.

If your desire is for a worthwhile reason, you would be able to sustain this desire through faith. However if the desire is fuelled by negative reasons, chances are that the effort would be futile.

Laser aim focus on your dreams because it will become a reality.When Zuckerberg was bitten by the creative bug, he worked on the Facebook project with total commitment. He was determined to get it started and would not let anything get into his way. When the other programmers were writing the various codes while developing Facebook, they were "wired-in" and would not even be distracted by door bells and people questioning them. Simply put, they shut out all other distractions to reach their goal.

Are you able to aim on your dreams with a laser focus, by shutting out all other distractions? Once your team has aligned themselves to your goal, can your team do the same and be focused too?

Don't be afraid to roll out your project first and then improve on it continuously. Zuckerberg never saw his Facebook project as being completed. He didn't even know what it would be. He just knew that it would be cool. He likened the concept of Facebook to style and fashion, and just like fashion, there is no "finished product". You see, nothing is ever finished in the business world. Whether is it building of a brick and mortar shop or an online webpage, innovations and improvements must continue.

That is why some people use the term, "Ready, Fire, Aim". In shooting, when you aim for too long without firing or taking action, your eye muscles actually tire, and you lose concentration.

Ideas are just ideas, until there is massive action. The Social Network also described how the Winklevoss twin brothers kept harping on Zuckerberg stealing their idea of a Harvard.edu exclusive club. But they never realized that they kept talking and talking about it. While it was true that some of their previous programmers left the team, if they were really focused and believed in their own idea, they would have gone ahead to do it by hook or by crook. They had a distraction, and that was rowing. Because money was at their disposal, they thought that they could use money to buy talent while they concentrated on their own goals, which was to take part in the Olympics. While there is nothing wrong with aiming to participate in the Olympics, it is their blatant disregard of creativity and talent that caused them to lose out in this race.

Do you have that crazy idea that you keep thinking about? So what are you going to do about it? The best time to start action is now. As Sir Richard Branson would say, "Screw it. Just do it."

Then defend your dreams with your life. As though everything hinges upon it. Zuckerberg fought all the lawsuits and defended himself strongly because he believed in his actions and goals. He knew that there was no one in the mediation room who could even come close to his intellect and capability to design and come up with the Facebook. And he was right. The x-factor was that he placed his heart, mind and soul into creating this baby, and he was not intending to go down without a fight.

Once you are thoroughly committed to your dreams and goals, defend your ideals with your life. Your team can see how much you value your dreams and goals, and model after you too.

cheers,
Mark

Screw it. Just do It!

It wasn't a tough decision. I knew I had to do it sooner or later.

The writing was already on the wall, from the project calender not being told to me earlier, to the short notification of travelling time.

Plus the fact that when I was in the airplane travelling to my workplace, I was so bored stiff in the aircraft that I watched The Social Network, two and a half times.

I had never felt that way before.

Perhaps it was the fact that I had made really solid resolutions for 2011, for my family and I...

Perhaps it was the fact that I wanted to touch the lives of others and to reach out to my community...

Perhaps it was the fact that I wanted to focus on my business streams, and to do well in them...

Whatever the case, I decided to take another leap of faith, just like what I did when I left my comfort zone as an military officer.

In the words of Sir Richard Branson, "Screw it! Just do it!"

I did it.

And I resigned from my job as a consultant.