A Few of History’s Most Successful Business Collaborations
Business success is achieved through teamwork and collaborations. A chief executive network is a great way to collaborate and reach your goals. The following are some of the country’s most successful partnerships. These successful business collaborations were built on mutual interest, and an unparalleled drive to succeed. By harnessing the powers of teamwork and collaboration, these business leaders were able to overcome their individual limitations, and build joint-ventures that have become household names.
Partnerships can be iffy. I have had a great one and a not so great one. My step-father had a very successful 40 year partnership in the wholesale jewelry business. They key to their partnership was that they were each responsible for a different division of the company so they each could be the boss and utilize their creativity, without stepping on one another’s toes. Then they had regular meetings about the overall goals and happenings within the company. One of the signs of a good leader is the ability to collaborate.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur learning to work effectively with employees and clients, part of a joint-venture, or just collaborating with someone for a special promotion, you can learn something about branding and business-building from the following collaborations.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple in Cupertino, CA in 1976. The two men were friends in high school, and remained in touch for years to come. They got along well, and both shared a desire to create personal computers. Wozniak created the Apple I, and Jobs had the foresight to know that selling the device was the best way to fund their company.
What you can learn about their partnership: Jobs and Wozniak were good friends, and their shared interests was a crucial element of their success. Their partnership only lasted a few years, but what they created was timeless. Collaborations should begin with a shared interest, and each party should have something useful to contribute.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
Cohen and Greenfield (better known as Ben & Jerry) founded their ice cream company in Burlington, VT in 1978. The middle-school friends had a shared interest in ice cream, and took a class on ice cream making for $5, before pooling their resources and starting Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. Together, they invested $12,000 in their business (only $4,000 of the money was borrowed). The rest is delicious and socially conscious history.
What you can learn about their partnership: Cohen and Greenfield invested their own money, each of them taking an equal financial risk. They also shared a passion. (I happen to have a passion for their ice cream, too!) Successful partnerships are built on this sort of equality. It’s important to work out financial parameters before investing. That way, there’s no question about who is owed what at the end of a sales quarter.
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger
Buffett and Munger merged businesses to operate the multinational conglomerate holding company, Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1960s. They weren’t neighbors. Nor were they childhood friends. These men met at an Omaha restaurant in 1959. Buffett lived in Omaha at the time, but Munger was a California based lawyer. Despite the distance between them, the men stayed in touch, and eventually merged their companies. Now, they’re two of the richest men in the country.
What you can learn about their partnership: Buffett and Munger managed to work together without being in the same state. Sometimes, it’s essential to build successful collaborations remotely. This was more difficult in the 1960s, than it is today when new digital tools allow us to communicate, collaborate, and interact with one another in real-time despite geographical distances.
Coco Chanel and Pierre Wertheimer
Coco Chanel, or Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Incredibly, Coco Chanel only owned 10% of her business! The rest was owned by her financier, Pierre Wertheimer. Now, you may hear this and think that it reflects poorly on her business sense, but it’s actually the opposite. By strategically partnering, Coco Chanel was able to: maintain exclusive creative control over her brand; leverage Wertheimer’s expertise, American business connections, and capital; and become fabulously wealthy off someone else’s seed money.
What you can learn about their partnership: Get over the ego of sharing profits with someone else and use the capital and resources at your disposal to get your brand out there. If a marginalized, unknown woman in the post WWI era was able to, so can you!
Not All Collaborations Last…
Collaborations can be really successful for a short time, and then fizzle out. Jobs and Wozniak built Apple, but they didn’t work together for more than a few years. Not all collaborations are going to last as long as your business does. The important thing is to lay out every ‘what, when where and how’ of the working relationship in your agreement, plus an exit strategy, just in case.
How Can a CEO Utilize a Coach?
We’ve looked at some of history’s most successful business collaborations, but the past won’t really help an executive or CEO make an impact today unless they can derive insights and lessons from the past. Sure, famous collaborations are fun to read about, but any collaboration success story needs a peek behind the scenes if valuable information can be gleaned.
While many leaders may doubt the effectiveness of CEO coaching programs, those who want to be better stewards of their companies know there’s always something new to learn, and the challenges actually get more difficult the higher you go. Here are some ways in which CEO coaching programs can help you push boundaries and possibilities. Who knows? You may even become the next big business success story on our list!
- Enhance your insight and strategies. CEOs may take home large paychecks, but they also have the unenviable responsibility of setting the direction of the company. One slip-up here and the entire business can suffer, or even go under. Because the decisions made by CEOs are so important, many of the best CEOs utilize coaching services to help them make better decisions informed by greater insights.
- Continue your learning. Some leaders may think that once you reach the top, the learning stops. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Even renowned CEOs, leaders and entrepreneurs make it a point to learn something new every day. After all, a big part of leadership is being able to confront the challenges of the day, and CEO coaching programs enable you to increase your understanding and continue the lifelong pursuit of learning.
- Find a mentor. Professionals of all types can learn from someone that’s been there and done that. Since CEOs typically have fewer peers, it can be difficult to line up a mentor, much less someone that’s been in your shoes. With a CEO coaching program, you’ll be able to find a qualified mentor that can actually help you grow because they’ve stood where you now stand.
- Maintain balance. Many CEOs have trouble leaving work at work. And in today’s always-on, always-connected world, it’s even more difficult to restrict your work and prevent burnout. With CEO coaching programs, you’ll be better equipped to maintain that crucial work-life balance so that you don’t forego the other aspects of your life that all play a role in who you are and how you deal with the day’s challenges.
If you’re interested in being a better leader, CEO coaching programs can help. Contact the coaching experts at Pinnacle Global Network today to get started.
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