Picture yourself as a sports manager, assembling the best football team that would challenge the league title. Would you take on players from the fourth or fifth division?

No. You’d scout the league for the best of the best to ensure that your team has the greatest possible chance of winning trophies.

Why should creating a team for your business be any different? A rebel entrepreneur will pick the best candidates from their respective fields – the best salespeople, the best in finance, the best project managers, the best designers, programmers – and will pay for these best people to ensure a successful company.

A rebel entrepreneur may not have gone to Harvard or Stanford but that wont stop them from hiring people that did.

Creating a team doesn’t stop there. Would a football manager create a team comprised entirely of strikers? Or goalkeepers? Absolutely not.

Diversity in business is essential. Studies show that teams composed of men and women of different races, nationalities, sexual orientations and religions consistently outperform teams with less diverse workforces. In 2018, McKinsey ran a survey of over 366 companies across three continents and found that the firms that had diversity on their executive boards generated greater returns on equity as well as higher earnings on cash before interest than their less diverse counterparts.

A diverse team full of people of different ages, ethnicities, genders, cultures, religions and orientations brings a wealth of expertise to your business. This input will eradicate blind spots, ensuring that your product is developed for the diverse world in which we live.

Finally, the members of your team must gel well with one another. A brilliant striker is useless if he can’t pass the ball. When the right team comes together, their collective sum becomes infinitely more valuable than their individual parts.

Steve Jobs once said that for a business to succeed, you must surround yourself with dreamers, doers, believers and thinkers. The best team will be strong, diverse and collaborative. A great team can make one plus one equal three.