Success as a team

When the Kellogg School of Management infographic flashed across my computer, this promotes thinking. Well at least for me, in what it takes to achieve organisational success, after moving back into a high performing team environment - I comprehend the team effort and how we grow as a team.

Firstly I need to ask, what is this company Northern Trust? What do they do and are they a leader in their market segment as hailing from the southern hemisphere, I had never heard of them.

Northern Trust is a US financial services company providing wealth management, asset management and asset servicing that opened for business in 1889. It is reported Northern Trust is Headquartered in Chicago and has offices worldwide.

This investment banking and wealth management has $120 billion in banking assets, $6 trillion in funds under custody and $887 funds under management - this is a big show. So now I need to undertake some more research, who exactly do they advise?

Some searching informed me they had offices in both Sydney and Melbourne - much to my embarrassment. Northern Trust is a seriously large business employing over 14,000 people so it would be fair to suggest Rick Waddell would have a pretty strong grasp on the situation.

I do not believe in this rock star/demi-god CEO notion where the CEO is the absolute leader, what is interesting is the promotion of self-functioning teams making decisions driving the organisation forward through active participation and authority to act.

As a financial business, the ability to not only attract knowledgeable and motivated staff is a must, they require the ability to manage clients accounts in the best interests of the people who pay their salaries.