For most of the people who are engaged in entrepreneurship and create various business projects, the understanding of the role and the meaning of the word "Team" is far not an empty sound. When you succeed in gathering the clever, responsible and interesting people around you, this is already “half the battle”. This said, all of us understand that the paramount and decisive factor of the Success will be the atmosphere created in the team, as well as the readiness and ability to interact and provide mutual assistance. Then, when it seems that all the main steps to the building of a Successful Team have been made, some inexplicable reasons arise hindering the development and performance.

Today we offer to talk of the reason that is most often difficult to understand and detect. Sometimes a quite successful "team player" may become this reason. Most often, this is really one of the Leaders. Let us call such a person "a suppressive personality", as his/her soaring ambitions "backed", as a rule, by the aggressiveness and envy, lead to the extremely heavy consequences. It should be noted that gender does not matter at all here. This may be both a man and a woman.

To help understand our logic, let us consider one quite "domestic" case. So, let us say, a certain Margarita Pavlovna (hereinafter – M.P.) is a girlfriend of Maria Ivanovna, with whom they work together in a company. By her nature, M.P. is just the one who may be described as a suppressive personality; and surely, she holds a no small position in the team. One day, M.P. drops in on her friend and starts a heart-to-heart talk in the course of which she shares a secret information received "from her own sources", "You know, Marsha, I have just come to know that our chief is extremely displeased with you; and he is planning some disagreeable steps against you in the near future". Having said this, M.P. leaves.

While Maria Ivanovna, who had been an exemplary employee until today, having done her work well and in time and being a real example for many colleagues, begins to think hard and analyze the reasons of the chief’s dissatisfaction. She is looking for the answers, consulting her close friends and inquiring from the colleagues who, of course, cannot confirm anything. This continues long enough. Doubts and anxiety are eating on her; but Maria Ivanovna still lacks courage to go to the chief and ask him a direct question.

As the result, less and less time is given to work, more and more anxiety and negative emotions are accumulated; and the statistics, absolutely successful till then, begins to decline steadily. Finally, time comes when the chief invites Maria Ivanovna to his office and announces, "You know, Marsha, I am quite dissatisfied with you. I do not like your results. You make too many mistakes, and so on…". As practice shows, the end of such stories is far from always happy.

We have given this example with the following purpose: in our opinion, building a Team, inviting the real professionals to join it, it is very important to agree upon the Rules from the start. The main things in these Rules should be the openness, possibility and ability to conduct a dialog, desire and ability to talk about what interferes with the work and disturbs the peace of mind.
Obviously, a decisive factor for all the Team members, starting with the Team’s chief, shall also be the ability to listen to each other and HEAR each other. As for the company executive or owner, their primary task will be the ability to distinguish the real and sincere Leader able to rally the people around him / her from the hypocrite who will eventually break any business and any Team.