For Mike Dorrell, the founder, chairman and CEO of successful investment firm Stonepeak, teamwork is not just a buzz word—it’s a way of life.
But before he was spearheading a firm with more than $76 billion in assets under management, Dorrell was living in a small town in Australia learning about the importance of cooperation on the rugby pitch. It was there where he saw how fundamental it can be for people to play a role and feel empowered by succeeding in it.
“If you feel at home on the field, you get the best out of yourself,” Dorrell explained to me on a recent episode of the Corporate Competitor Podcast. “You’re more creative, you’re more relaxed. So, I think that someone who makes you feel comfortable is the best thing that they can do.”
Dorrell knows that a great teammate gets you to feel at ease, supported. Not humiliated. They may be better than you at the task at hand, but they never make you feel inferior because of it. Conversely, he said, if the room is filled with rivals then every disagreement between people is taken as a personal attack. And that only leads to dead ends.
Instead, the CEO explained, all a leader has to do is make their people feel welcomed. “The way you get to the best decisions on an investment,” Dorrell offered, “is to have a really intellectually honest debate about it, with a number of people debating it … It’s really important that these people speak candidly.”
That’s the key. Dorrell spoke about all this and more on the podcast, including:
Make it a mission. Dorrell explained that framing a job as a mission can inspire a team to garner momentum. “As soon as people feel like they’re on a mission, and you start to have some success, you start to make progress—and that begets more success,” the CEO said.
Storytelling works. People don’t relate to tables and figures, Dorrell offered, they relate to details and storytelling. That’s why he tries to frame things as stories, not charts. “No one gives two hoots about numbers,” he said. “For most people, it’s [about] an emotional journey.”
Do your research. Dorrell found that one story in particular—the origin of Apple—resonates with his team. But he only discovered that because he was curious. He sought out more information on the tech company and it paid off. “I could not put this book down,” Dorrell said.
What Dorrell learned on a rugby field still holds at $76 billion: People do their best work not when they’re guarded, but when they feel like they belong.
