• Look at the statem ents below and at the five extracts from an article on the opposite page about building effective teams in new companies.
• Which extract (A, B, C, D or E) does each statement (1-8) refer to?
• For each statem ent (1-8), mark one letter (A, B, C, D or E) on your Answer Sheet. • You will need to use som e of these letters more than once.
• There is an exam ple at the beginning, (0).
Example:
0 It can be easy for new com panies to find staff.
0 A B C D E
i -i i— 1 iS S r I I i
1 The com pany ow ner should focus on fostering team spirit.
2 Individual m em bers of staff should be allowed to negotiate their own terms. 3 Employees should be encouraged to experiment.
4 Staff are likely to leave if they can't keep up with what is required. 5 A system for assessing progress should be set up for staff.
6 A feature of new' com panies is that they are under-staffed.
7 Company owners should use external sources to help with some aspects of managing their team.
F A T .?.... ... .... R e a d i n g 3)
'Dream Team' people only have one characteristic - they get stuff done, rather than finding excellent excuses for inactivity. In every start-up there are many more jobs than people to do them. Also there is no time to have meetings to discuss strategies for solving problems;
people
have to just get on and do things. Often they'll screw up the first time, and that is quickly forgiven in a start-up so long as they don't keep making the same mistakes. It’s easier to have a no-blam e culture in a small organisation than a large one and people should be praised for 'having a go', even if the im m ediate consequences are less than ideal.B
In a fast-grow ing company, nobody is interested in problems, only solutions, and the ability to execute quickly and bounce back swiftly from setbacks, is vital for personal and business survival in entrepreneurial companies. This is also the perfect learning experience for those w ho have dreams of themselves becom ing a cornerstone one day or even of starting their ow n company.
Most im portant from the entrepreneur's point of view is to develop and maintain the right culture, which is essentially tribal. This should be actively encouraged and overlaid with a few minor elem ents of process and procedure. It's important to have formal, six monthly reviews with agreed targets, even if the playing field is changing on a daily basis. It's an opportunity for both parties, senior and \uruot to to te & 'ore&Vft, Vry and m ake sense of
what is happening and set some objectives for the next few months.
E
Rem uneration is a tough issue and the wise entrepreneur gets advice and m entoring from people with specific expertise in the area, and w ho have been around the block several times. Then, the remuneration policy should be clearly and fairly executed, especially when shareholding or stock options are involved. There's nothing wrong with an ambitious em ployee com ing to a m anager and saying they should be paid as much as someone else, so long as they are willing to deliver as professionally and accept the same level of responsibility as the person they aspire to be.
Entrepreneurs attract am bitious people and, if left to their own devices, tend to hire in their own image so potential 'Dream Team' people are not difficult to identify. The problem is finding the ones that will fit in and deliver. My experience is that there is a strong elem ent of 'natural selection' when entrepreneurs grow their organisations. There is rarely a formal recruitment or interview process, and if people do not shape up they tend to be out | of the revolving door quite quickly.
3 8 R e a d i n g B E C T E S T| j
PART TWO
Questions 9-14
• Read this article in which a company ow ner talks about her best deal. • Choose the best sentence from the opposite page to fill each of the gaps. • For each gap (9-14), mark one letter (A -H ) on your Answer Sheet. • Do not use any letter more than once.
• There is an example at the beginning, (0).
It's not often that a television com edy programme can be credited with the beginning of a wonderful business relationship but for Sue M itchells this is pretty much what happened. (0) Keeping a sales relationship long term can be challenging in the fast-moving world of the film production industry where there is typically rapid staff turnover and ever- changing technology.
Ms Mitchells, 38, is head of media client services for Ascent M edia, a company that aim s to be a one-stop shop for film and television production and em ploys 4,000 staff worldwide. ( 9 ) ...Her best deal came more than a decade ago when she was attending MIP TV, a conference in Cannes. ( 1 0 ) ... "I happened to bump into a client who I had known when I was at TVP, a company that was later bought by Ascent. She was moving to a new employer called VC1 and suggested that 1 talk to the head of production there. ( 1 1 ) ...It is such a com petitive industry that I'm sure she would have been receiving lots of other calls but fortunately my acquaintance said she w'ould arrange a m eeting between all three of us." When the trio did get together, M s M itchells recalls, the old and new connections combined: "We got on really well, " she says. "I listened to the production head saying what she was doing and what her problem s w ere." ( 1 2 ) ...The work involved streaming and encoding some archived content on to DVDs. VCI was looking for help on the production front and Ms Mitchells said Ascent could do exactly that. "O n e of the first programmes we worked on was a comedy programme. We were basically repackaging content."
( 1 3 )...". As her business changed, we informed the head of production how we could support her, " Ms Mitchells says. (14) " ... This business w ill alw ays be one that changes but this relationship has lasted the test of time. H aving the sam e person still at the company, has enabled us to expand and develop through em erging technologies."
B e c
T E S T 2 R e a d in g 39Example:
A B C D E F G H
0
i i i— i i i i i i i i i i i
A She kindly agreed to give me som e details of this lady.
B
However, M s M itchells' relationship is still going strong.C It turned out that VCI was doing a lot of work repackaging media content.
D She has worked for the group for 13 years, mostly in sales.
E One of the things that's been vital is that we spent a lot of time giving her company staff training and technical training because the industry changes rapidly with emerging technologies.
F This initial work went on and the relationship between the com panies deepened. More than a decade later, they still w ork together.
G "T h e UK TV industry is a very social industry and everyone seem s to know each other," she says.
H Winning som e production work on archived material of a BBC com edy series for her com pany Ascent M edia set in motion a connection that has now lasted more than a decade.
40 F u r t h e r p r a c t i c e a n d g u i d a n c e B E C T E S T £ |