All posts by George Boulden

You can train a turkey to climb a tree but it’s easier to hire a squirrel”
Anon

art of the interview
If you want to have a successful business or lead a high performance team (and who doesn’t?) then you need to be excellent at interviews. Sitting down with people and talking to them in a structured way is at the heart of (i) identifying good people and (ii) motivating them to want to join the organisation!

This matters because, by and large, good people do good work and don’t need excessive amounts of management time to keep them on track. So it makes sense to take the time and trouble to hire capable staff. However, research by Korn Ferry suggests that 40% of newly appointed managers don’t live up to expectations and the cost of turnover, due to a poor appointment, is 2-4 times salary. Of course no approach to hiring can be perfect; we are trying to predict future behaviour and sometimes, try as we might, we are going to make the wrong choice. The question is ‘how to minimise the number of hiring mistakes we make?’ So how then is it possible to work out if someone is (most likely) the right person for the job?

Failing to plan is planning to fail

Great interviewing starts with proper preparation: it’s hard to make good choices if you don’t know what you want the person to do when they arrive in post, or if different hiring managers are at odds about what the ideal candidate should bring to the party. It’s also not easy to attract talented people if you don’t manage the obvious hygiene factors (like clear communication with the candidate, arriving on time for the interview, having a private setting for the meeting and turning your phone off etc.)

But getting consistently good results also requires the use of specific interview ‘processes’… so what are some examples of effective, standardised, research-based interviewing systems…?

Looking at the numbers

The research says [Oh, I-S., Postlethwaite, B.E., Schmidt, F.L. (2013)] that the best assessment method for deciding who will do well in a new job is a General Mental Ability test (also called psychometric reasoning tests e.g. verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, spatial awareness etc.)

This is then followed by interviews, which, as you might expect, provide insights into a candidate’s self-confidence, impact, relationship building skills etc.

Psychometric tests (as long as they are based on the ‘big five’ personality factors) also add predictive information about success in the job; so they are worth including as well. Initially proposed by W. Fiske (1949) the ‘big five’ are broad personality traits that researchers feel most reliably describe personality: 1. extraversion 2. agreeableness 3. openness 4. conscientiousness and 5. neuroticism

So it’s helpful to include a General Mental Ability test and a personality inventory as part of any hiring process. Tests are usually administered after the interview – why put someone through a testing process unless you’ve decided they are a good fit?

Competencies and why they matter

There are a number of structured formats that could be adopted to question the candidate, but one essential, and research-based component to the selection isprocess, is the “Competency Based Interviewing” method (also called Behavioural Event Interviews -[BEI] and Criterion Based Interviews. Developed by David McClelland of Harvard University in the 1970’s, BEI asks that we identify the distinctive Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, Traits and Motives (competencies) of high performing people in a given occupation e.g. sales professionals, surgeons, technical support staff etc. and then ask questions of job candidates to see if they have those attributes associated with superior performance. So if our analysis found that (say) “Initiative – taking action, that no one has requested, to avoid problems or create new opportunities”, was important to success in a role, we could ask questions to explore if a candidate had those qualities…

Deceptively simple but very powerful, this takes the form of asking the person to tell you, in detail, about a specific situation when they demonstrated the competency in question…

“Tell me about a time when you… took action, without being prompted, to avoid a potential problem…”

Of course all candidates need to be asked the same questions and be given a similar amount of time to respond. The relative strength of the examples given can then be ranked against an agreed scale e.g. addresses current issues that will arise in the next few days Vs. is decisive in a crisis Vs. anticipates situations 2-5 years ahead etc.

Why competency interviews aren’t enough

One potential problem with competency interviewing is that experienced candidates come armed with a series of anecdotes and so do well by virtue of preparation, rather than necessarily the quality of their actual experiences. This means that BEI needs to be augmented with additional interview methods to get a clear sense of the candidate’s capabilities. For example, “Unstructured Interviews” to assess cultural fit and personal chemistry, and “, Biographical Interviews” to find out about drives, motivation and behaviour.

It’s worth noting that a structured approach that uses tests and a variety of interview techniques also helps to ensure that judgments comply with company policy and avoid legal challenge – recruitment isn’t only about getting the right person for the job, but should also show the workforce that the process was unbiased.

Selling the job

The interview is a two way process – so success doesn’t only mean spotting a talented person; it also means persuading them to accept the job offer. There are two aspects to this: (i) anticipate and answer the candidate’s questions about the role and, (ii) provide a Realistic Job Preview (RJP).

The RJP is a short ‘sales pitch’, which describes both the positive and potentially challenging aspects of the job (Premack & Wanous, 1985). It is based on the theory that there is a ‘psychological contract’ between the employee and the company that sets (informal) expectations about obligations and behaviours (Rousseau 1998). A good RJP excites the candidate about working in the company, but also means that they join with ‘their eyes open’ about any potential difficulties that they might face, so reducing any ‘nasty surprises’ for the new joiner, and by extension, minimising quick turnover.

Know the law

Most countries have legal do’s and don’ts that affect the hiring process, and failing to comply with them can lead to financial loss and reputational damage; so follow the letter of the law.

For example, In the UK it is illegal to discriminate against anyone when making hiring decisions on the grounds of:

  • Race
  • Religion
  • Gender
  • Sexual orientation
  • Age
  • Disability

This means that it is important to avoid asking questions of a candidate (or writing text in a advert) that touch on these areas, because it could lead to an unsuccessful candidate claiming that they didn’t get the job as a result of unfair bias. The remedy is to just stick to questions that relate directly to the job they’ve applied to do.

What’s next?

Reflect on how you handle your selection interviews at present. Do you plan thoroughly? Do you have a set formulae, or methodology that you’rer attempting to apply in the face-to-face meeting? What improvements could you make?

Reading

Competence at Work; models for superior performance, L Spencer and S Spencer (John Wiley & Sons)

On-line

Watch this three minute clip giving an overview of ‘bad’ interview techniques, followed by examples of competency based questions .

Courses

Consider sending your managers on our three day, “Managing the Individual Employee” course (which looks in detail at a wide range of interview situations and formats).

We also have a half-day workshop on Successful Selection Interviewing for managers that is a great way of ensuring consistency in the hiring process.

And we have another half-day workshop on conducting appraisals called Performance Management.

Coaching

If you’re a senior executive maybe a ‘one- to-one’ executive coaching session would be a useful option for helping you improve your interviewing skill.

Contact

Or give us a call on 0844 394 8877 (UK) or email us at
coaching@boulden.net and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can
work with you.

And remember…

“People are not your most important asset. The RIGHT people are.”
Jim Collins

“The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity”
TOM PETERS
Conducting appraisals

Mercer’s “What’s Working” US Survey, 2011, asked 2,400 employees about their work, and of the ‘non managers’ interviewed:

  • 44% trusted senior managers to communicate honestly
  • 54% said their department is well managed
  • 53% felt that their managers demonstrated concern for their well being

So one way of looking at this data is to notice that around half the workforce have concerns about how well they are managed, which suggest a ‘problem’ with current skills levels when it comes to managers communicating with their staff. But that begs the question, “in what areas specifically do managers need to improve the way they connect with their people?”

One answer to that question comes from a Corporate Leadership Council study in 2000 (Building the High Performance Workforce.) In the study the CLC assessed 19,000 people: 50% in USA & 25% in both Asia & Europe…

They found 7 factors directly related to improved business performance… three of those factors were…

  1. The Performance Management System (having clear performance standards)
  2. Formal Performance Review (balancing praise and criticism)
  3. Informal Performance Feedback (being fair and accurate)

So the skills of giving ad-hoc feedback and conducting formal appraisal interviews are key components of good management and developing a productive workforce.

A long and winding road

When people work collectively there is a need for some system or process to make sure that employees are working productively, that their goals are clear and aligned and that morale is maintained. Unsurprisingly then, Performance Management has a long history. Murphy, Kevin and Jeanette N. Cleveland (1995) reported that in the third century AD, the Chinese used performance appraisal systems. They were also common in factories during the 18th century in the UK, during the Industrial Revolution. By the 1960’s, boosted by the use of appraisals in the US army during WW2, over 60% of US organizations were running a performance appraisal system.

Little and often

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, if a review of how someone is doing is limited to a once a year conversation (when most of the events being discussed are long past) it is likely that the conversation won’t be that productive. The remedy, of course, is simply to talk with people more frequently than that. The ‘key’ to a good performance management system, and a good annual appraisal meeting is: frequent feedback that emphasises recognition for work well done, a focus on priorities, coupled with coaching for improvement (as opposed to criticism.) (CLC 2000) This is why monthly, ‘one to one’ meetings are such an important part of good people management e.g. W. J. Boss, Journal of Applied Behavioural Science 1983, found that employee effectiveness increased significantly when managers held monthly, private meetings with employees.

The death of the appraisals?

Many companies (e.g. Accenture, GE, Adobe) have been reported as moving away from their traditional annual systems in favour of more ‘flexible’ processes. So does this mean the death of the performance review? Not really, the changes (for the most part) simply reflect the best practice of holding regular ‘one to one’ meetings, which should always have been followed.

GE, for example, have taken their long standing EMS system (Employee Management System), which consisted of a formal, once-a-year review, and are now asking managers to hold regular, informal “touchpoint” sessions, where they set or update priorities that are based on customer needs. Development is forward looking and ongoing; manager’s coach rather than critique; suggestions can come from anyone in an employee’s network. However a summary conversation between the employee and manager still takes place at the end of the year, and an ‘overview’ document, which reflects achievements and sets future goals, is still produced. Furthermore, just as they did under the EMS, managers still base compensation, promotion, and development decisions on these inputs (as well as a range of other factors, including business performance, internal and external benchmarks, and budgets.)

Understanding the pitfalls

Both the Annual Performance Appraisal meeting and monthly ‘one to
ones’, can be a conversation that managers and employees dread. And
for sure there are plenty of opportunities for people to feel ‘ill used’
or poorly treated as a result of the annual review process. Disaffection
with the review process can occur due to (i) the design of the appraisal
scheme itself, (ii) corporate culture and (iii) poor interview technique.

Design of the appraisal scheme

Bad scheme design creates a lack of clear goals, insufficient preparation
by the manager, no follows through on agreed actions e.g. not
implementing development plans. The way that pay awards do (or don’t)
relate to an overall appraisal rating can also have a distorting affect on
having a positive, productive conversation.

Corporate culture

In some corporate cultures honest conversations about performance,
or potential opportunities, or how a person can ‘grow’ are discouraged,
and the emphasis is on ‘transactional’ conversations focused solely on the
next task that needs to get done. That this state of affairs exists often
becomes apparent when a manager decides the time has finally come for
a poorly performing employee to go, but a review of their past appraisals
states that they’ve been a consistently good performer!

Poor interview technique

Common issues with the appraisal conversation itself include the
problems of ‘cognitive bias’ identified by the psychologist Edward
Thorndike in the 1920’s; namely the ‘horn’ and ‘halo’ effects. The halo
effect involves people being given a better review than objectively
warranted because of some positive quality they possess, for example,
attractive people are often also considered to be kind, trustworthy and
intelligent. The horn effect, also called the reverse–halo effect, is when
one undesirable trait unfairly affects the rating of other (unconnected)
factors. So (say) a person’s tardiness also leads them to being rated
lower for (say) teamwork or initiative than they really merit.

Good system design

Dealing with poor ‘scheme design’ involves applying sound, research based performance management concepts into the systems e.g. from the CLC study…

  • Ensure employees understand the performance standards
  • Create performance standards that are perceived as fair and linked to organizational success and strategy
  • Provide feedback to employees from multiple sources
    (e.g. 360-degree reviews )

Getting the culture right

As for how to develop a more ‘open’, coaching based culture, that supports effective appraisals, John Kotter (Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard) says it’s achieved by… “A powerful person at the top, or a large enough group from anywhere in the organization, deciding the old ways are not working, figuring out a change vision, starting acting differently, and enlisting others to act differently. If the new actions produce better results, if the results are communicated and celebrated, and if they are not killed off by the old culture fighting its rear-guard action, new norms will form and new-shared values will grow.”

Managing the conversation

The remedy for poor quality conversations is to employ a robust interview methodology. The simplest approach (in my opinion) is to apply a version of Harvard Professor David McClelland’s Behavioural Event Interview method (1973) as follows…For each part of the appraisal process we ask the employee…

  1. How do you rate yourself for…(x)…e.g. the way you managed your team?
  2. Give me a specific example of something you did that supports that rating…
  3. Here’s what I think…
  4. Let’s agree what goes on the appraisal form…

The same process is then repeated for each item on the form…. E.g. as you look back over the past 12 months how do you rate yourself for… (initiative).

The key is for the manager to go into the meeting with a genuinely open mind and be prepared to shift his/her opinion in light of what they hear. In this way the employee has the opportunity to take the lead in the conversation, express him or herself fully (point by point) and provide evidence in support of their views, without first being ‘judged’ by the manager. This creates an open, fact based dialogue, which typically leads to a productive and maybe even enjoyable, appraisal meeting.

So what’s next?

Reflect on how you handle your appraisal meetings at present. Do you plan thoroughly? Do you have a set methodology that you apply to manage the face-to-face meeting? What improvements could you make?

Reading

Competence Based Performance Reviews, R. Kessler (2008)
(Career Press)

On-line

Watch this 7 minute video clip on the questions an employee can ask their manager during an appraisal.

Courses

Consider sending your managers on our half-day, “Performance Management – Conducting Successful Appraisal Interviews” course

Coaching

If you’re a Senior Executive, maybe a ‘one to one’ Executive Coaching Session would be a useful option for helping you improve your approach to Performance Management.  View one-to-one session

And remember……

“I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.”
Charles Schwab

By Martin Brooks, Programme Director, Boulden Management Consultants
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”
ANON
Getting your dream job

Becoming UK Prime Minister and interview techniques

At 10am 8th May 2015 (the day after the UK general election) I was invited by the BBC to do an interview explaining why I thought the public had just voted David Cameron Prime Minister. I was asked; how he had performed better than Ed Miliband, what did Ed Miliband do wrong and how did their communication and impact skills lead to the result that was unfolding that morning? Ed Miliband had interviewed for the job of Prime Minister quite well, but David Cameron had used a better range of well executed communication skills. This helped him perform better in his interviews, look like the better candidate to the electorate and gave him a better chance to land the job of Prime Minister.

Translating the interview skills of politicians into daily life

One reason for studying the party leaders is to translate the communication skills they use into techniques that can enable anyone to communicate with greater impact, especially if there is the prospect of a promotion or a better job at stake. After all an interview for a job is a highly competitive scenario; very often the person that lands the job will be the one with the best ‘impact’, which helps the interviewer make their decision to hire one person over the other candidates. So in many cases having good experience or interviewing “well” is not enough to land your next job – you have to make a “better” impact than every other candidate. In essence your job as interviewee is to make to make it easy for the interviewer to decide you are the best person for the job. If the interviewing panel is still considering other people after you have finished your interview, you have failed in this central strategy. Here are three ‘tips’ for making this happen (i) Anticipate difficult questions (ii) Make eye contact (iii) Reframe your weaknesses.

Anticipate difficult questions

In the first televised debate, in the 2015 UK election, both main party leaders had to handle tough opening questions from the legendary hard-hitting interviewer, Jeremy Paxman. David Cameron was completely blind-sided by Paxman’s first question about Food Banks. He didn’t know how many there were in the UK, how many people were using them and how their use had sky rocketed during his first term as Prime Minister. Similarly, Ed Miliband couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give an upper limit on the number of people per year he would want to immigrate to the UK, despite Paxman asking him the same question a number of times.

Look at your CV critically and put yourself in the shoes of the most aggressive interviewer you can think of and think about the toughest question you could face. Then think of an even more difficult one. Ask a trusted friend or colleague to look at your CV and ask them to create a really tough question for you. Ask yourself these questions and film your answer on your smartphone and then play it back and critique your answer to see how you could be even more convincing under the pressure of some tough questioning. Look at your body language, listen to your voice quality, think about the structure of what you are saying and the words you choose to express your thoughts and see where you could create a “better” overall impact whilst answering the questions. Then, to fine tune your skills, repeat the exercise until you are happy with your responses. Think of other, tougher questions and repeat the process until you are confident you have covered all potential job-threatening questions. This process will not only boost your confidence, but also improve your chances of landing that job.

Make eye contact

Both the party leaders were questioned on their first “difficult” topic for approximately two minutes by Jeremy Paxman. Both leaders struggled to deal with the questions, but crucially David Cameron looked the more confident and credible. Closer examination of his behaviour reveals why. In those difficult first two minutes of the interview, Ed Miliband, broke eye contact 29 times. David Cameron by contrast only broke his eye contact 4 times – a huge difference.

Practice making strong eye contact when answering tough interview questions. Eye contact is also vital to secure that all-important confident first impression. Of course you don’t want to ‘stare’ unblinking at the interviewer and there is a balance to be struck, but breaking eye contact a lot can be interpreted as a lack of belief in the answer you are giving, or make people doubt your truthfulness.

Reframe your weaknesses

In his first televised appearance, David Cameron was blind-sided by Jeremy Paxman’s first question about Food Banks, but he learned from this mistake. In a later debate, he took this issue and turned it to his advantage. Whilst answering a completely different question, a member of the audience shouted out about Food Banks, immediately David Cameron jumped on the issue and said that the best way for people not to have to use Food Banks was by having a job and his government had created almost two million jobs in his first term as Prime Minister. In a heartbeat he had taken an issue that had previously been a disadvantage and turned it to his advantage.

It doesn’t matter how comprehensive your experience and skills are – everyone has a weak spot in their CV; everyone has something that isn’t to their advantage; everyone has had some “failures” in their career. The ‘trick’ to handing this is to consider how those ‘problems’ can be framed as strengths. Rather than hope to avoid a potential ‘problem’ in your interview, consider how you can turn it into the reason the interview panel should pick you. Plan to talk about how much you have learned from the experience. In an instant you have shown humility, an ability to both learn from past mistakes and to think positively about an event – all attributes many employers are actively looking for.

So what’s next?

Use these three tips to boost your confidence, impact and chances of landing that job at your next interview.

Try watching Harvey MacKay’s interview tips on You Tube

Try reading: Persuasion Skills Black Book of Job Hunting Techniques: Using NLP and Hypnotic Language Patterns to Get the Job You Deserve, by Rintu Basu.

Think about hiring an expert Boulden Coach for a ‘one to one’ Executive Coaching assignment or commissioning an in-house Impact & Presence programme

Happy, impactful and successful interviewing, Martin Brooks.

“The only limit to your impact is your imagination and commitment”
Tony Robbins.

“By union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.” Sallust
High performance teams

High Performance Teams (HPT’s) can generate superior results because of the levels of creativity and collaboration they generate, but they are not easy things to build or maintain.

Personal wins and team losses

For a group of people to perform as a cohesive team, they must:

  • Have a clear goal (and a real desire to achieve that goal)
  • Appreciate what the respective roles of the team members are
  • Possess a level of trust in one another, based on ‘buying into’ certain norms for how to work together e.g. how information should be shared
  • Be competent (i.e. each person must have the ‘skills set’ needed to be able to contribute to the work of the team)t

In many organisations, however, there is a focus on individual reward systems (e.g. personal goals in the annual appraisal) that not only fail to support team wins but actively encourage acting against the ‘greater good’ in favour of individual successes. Hence there is a conflict between holding an individual to account, and getting the best team performance.

Similarly it is common for individually motivated senior leaders in an organisation to set the tone that their people will follow, i.e. recognition comes from individual merit and individual achievement not collaboration.

Culture clashes and personal conflicts

Conflict within groups is to be expected as different personality types or different views on priorities cause tension between people. Also top performers are typically very competitive and that competition also applies to relationships inside, as well as outside the team. HPT’s find ways to manage these tensions creatively and constructively e.g. by accepting conflict as a way of testing ideas and concepts. However very often team conflict is ignored, unacknowledged or suppressed; resulting in lack of information sharing and poor coordination of efforts.

Professor Lindred Greer of Stanford University describes four types of conflict that commonly occur within teams…

  1. Task Conflict – what the goals should be, e.g. should we pursue option X or option Y. This is often the most useful type of conflict as it can help to clarify the issues and expose ‘problem areas’
  2. Process Conflict – about how the team will work together, e.g. when to meet, what the roles should be etc.
  3. Relationship Conflict – personality clashes, lack of chemistry
  4. Status Conflict – about each person’s place in the hierarchy, or level of authority (this type of conflict is often difficult to address because people typically don’t declare their issues openly, but more often than not use a ‘process complaint’ as a surrogate for what is really concerning them e.g. they don’t feel they are getting the level of respect they deserve so they argue about where to meet.)

These effects can be compounded by cultural differences and by the extra strain generated by remote or virtual team working. Left unaddressed they can cause high levels of stress, poor performance and even lead to the team dissolving.

Defusing conflicts

The warning signs for problems within an HPT, aside from the obvious of the work not getting done, include strong displays of negative emotions (as opposed to rational discussion) e.g. people getting angry. Also when team members bicker about small things that don’t really seem important and/or form obvious sub groups that constantly challenge one another, then the team is likely to be in trouble. Handling these issues involves (i) being clear about what the disagreement is about i.e. task, process, relationships or status, (ii) checking if the real issue is the subject of the disagreement or if something else is being used as a proxy e.g. is there a ‘hidden agenda?’ and (iii) understanding the emotional state of the people involved; just how agitated are the participants? Then it’s a question of getting the issues out into the open for explicit discussion and negotiation. This may well involve some type of team building activity, personality inventories, and the use of an external facilitator (and sometimes, in severe cases, a mediator.)

Transitory teams and permanent team building

Teams are typically fleeting things because in most companies staff is always turning over, so for a group of (say) six people to stay together more than 6-12 months in an organisation is rare. What this means is that teams are continually going through the ‘storming, forming, norming’ and (if you are lucky) the ‘performing ’ group development cycle first proposed by Tuckman in 1965. What also typically happens is that those who have been around longer create a team within a team – an ‘inner circle’ – which is very apparent to those not in it, and so tensions can easily arise. Unless the leader expects these sorts of things to be the norm and takes actions to counter them, then the ‘HPT’ will be a very temporary thing. Hence there is the need for ‘team building’ activities, of various kinds, to be an on-going process and not a one-off event.

Team size and ‘social loafing’

Another factor affecting team performance is known as the Ringelmann Effect, or social loafing. Ringelmann (1913) found that having more people work together on a task (pulling a rope) actually results in significantly less effort than when individual members are acting alone. Eight people, he found, didn’t even pull as hard as four individuals. Ringelmann thought that this loss of effort was due to lack of coordination but in the 1970’s a researcher from the University of Massachusetts (Ingam) found that the effect was actually due to people in the larger group feeling less responsibility for the end result. Of course the real world of work is more complex than the simple experiment of pulling on a rope, but Ingams’ research suggests that, all things being equal, smaller teams are generally more productive than larger ones. Counter balancing measures to reduce ‘social loafing’ include defining individual responsibilities that precisely measure each person’s contribution and/or making individual performance public so that each team member knows exactly how the others are doing.

The Physical Environment & Encouraging Teamwork

The physical space that a team operates in can also have a major impact on their performance. In ‘Better Teamwork Through Workplace Design’ the writer Anat Lechner suggests that companies ‘design in’ spaces into the physical office environment to help promote collaboration. For example:

  • Vary the types of workspaces
    Employees need group spaces for co-creation, but there should also be areas for concentrated work (unassigned individual workstations), emergent social exchange (free-flowing hallways), and learning (rooms equipped with technology and tools).
  • Provide the right tools
    Make sure meeting rooms include tools like whiteboards that allow employees to record ideas and create a visual, side-by-side review of alternative solutions.
  • Give project teams a dedicated space
    Returning to the same workspace each day, keeping meeting notes on the board, and leaving work on tables between meetings can help team-mates maintain a shared mind-set, sharpening their focus and speeding up the collaborative process.

So what’s next???

Reflect on how accountable people are for their actions (or lack of them.) Does more need to be done to highlight the ‘value added’ work that each person does for the team?

Reading

Read Building Conflict Competent Teams by Rundle and Flanagan

On-Line

Watch: Mark de Rond, professor at Cambridge’s Judge Business School talk about conflict and teams

Courses

We have a half-day workshop on building trust within a team based on understanding how well people understand each other’s motivations and personal preferences. View – Self Awareness and Teamwork

Coaching

For top teams we offer a powerful coaching based intervention. View – Structured Coaching for the Top Team

And to end with a quote from a US polymath, Benjamin Franklin, on the pressing need for effective teamwork.

“We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately”