Leadership Lessons From Social Network: Teamwork

The film, The Social Network, is a powerful portrait of how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his team started with a dream and a $ 1000 startup, to become the world’s youngest billionaire. At the time of writing, Facebook is valued at at least $ 50 billion, and this would mean it is worth more than eBay, Yahoo, and Time Warner. This is a very impressive result given that Facebook launched in February 2004.

There are also many lessons this movie can teach us about leadership and team management, and this is the last series in the trilogy. There may be some information in the movie that has been exaggerated to increase the level of emotion, as even Zuckerberg himself calls the Social Network “inaccurate”. So I would take all of this 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’ll share about teamwork and how it can help you unlock your true potential as a leader.

Proper delegation of work. The entire team can only do well when they know what the scope of their work is. In one of the Social Network scenes, Mark Zuckerberg wanted to expand The Face Book, and he led 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 him if they could help in any way, he rejected them without much thought because at that moment he knew that he did not need their help in any way. On the other hand, he specifically told others what his tasks were.

Even the Winklevoss brothers had specific roles for their team. And they knew they were missing a particular talent when their programmer left the team to focus on his studies. So when it emerged that Zuckerberg was able to shut down Harvard traffic with his “joke,” they immediately reached out to him and shared their ideas so he could work for them.

Once you know what your team is supposed to be made of, you can find the right person for the job. You need to set extensible and measurable goals for them and you also need to be informed of progress. Effective delegation is not simply turning down jobs that were meant for you. Effective delegation is about ensuring that the person with the right skill does what they do best.

For example, let’s say you intend to grow your customer base with a promotional blitz. First, you need to know who your team members are on this project. Second, you need to identify who is doing what and their deliverables at any given time. Thereafter, Jane must create the product packages and links with other partners, and John must communicate with X’s advertising companies with the marketing materials. Therefore, once the planning stage is complete, the real action must begin so that the project begins to roll with the momentum of all parties.

Build quality relationships first, then your business. Now, not all partners will work together initially. It is your job to resolve the differences. And fast. At La Red Social, Eduardo Saverin had his own ideas to ensure the success of the company. However, Mark Zuckerberg also had his own ideas. And while Saverin was the CFO of the business, Zuckerberg proceeded to add Sean Parker, founder of Napster, to the team. Parker and Saverin were portrayed to dislike each other and when their teammates distrust each other, unless they find time to fix things, a lot of problems will just hide under the rug and get worse.

As a leader, you must 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 at and where they can fit in with regards to projects. Why would you want to place a non-knowledgeable person in sales without first training them? And have you taken the time to understand if you even like sales? So by investing time to understand your core team members in the business, you would be building quality relationships.

So understand your team and they will learn to understand you. It will definitely take time and that’s the fun and rewarding part of teaming up.

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