商业团队6大样板盘点

    做生意是一项团队运动。虽然历史书和商业杂志喜欢大书特书亨利•福特和史蒂夫•乔布斯等商业奇才的故事，但是如果没有员工团队齐心协力进行设计、生产、推广和销售，也就不会有后来的福特汽车公司（Ford Motor），也不会有苹果公司（Apple）。我们在本文中挑选了一些成功的团队，并且很快发现，成功的团队并没有一个“标准配方”。

    我们发现，有的成功团队的成员已经在一块工作很多年了；有些高产的“虚拟化”团队的成员却分布在好几个不同的国家和企业；有些团队为了增强团队凝聚力，会一起外出度假；还有一些成功团队鼓励成员们有不同的见解——但最终的目标都是为了出业绩。不过成功团队还是有一些放之四海皆准的特质构成了他们的化学反应，而且他们也都有一个共同的目标。尽管如何打造成功团队并没有一个“标准配方”，但是要构建一个成功的公司，却离不了下面几种特质。

    Business is a team sport. While history textbooks -- and business magazines -- tend to lionize individual leaders from Henry Ford to Steve Jobs, there would be no Ford Motor or Apple without groups of employees working together to design, manufacture, market, and sell their products. Fortune set out to highlight successful teams and quickly discovered that there's no single formula for making them work.

    We found highly effective groups consisting of people who'd worked together for years and productive "virtual" teams that span multiple time zones and companies. Some teams vacation together to strengthen their bonds, others encourage dissent -- but all in the name of getting results. Still, there are some universal lessons to be gleaned: Chemistry matters. So does having a common goal. And while there's no one way to build strong teams, you can't build a successful company without them.

    丰田燃料电池团队进行路试以测试新技术。

    过去三年里，丰田（Toyota）的燃料电池部门为了测试公司的第一款燃料电池汽车，已经进行了超过100万英里的道路测试。这款汽车是一台零排放的四门全电动轿车，每次充满电可续航300英里，而且充电过程只需要短短的三分钟。每次道路测试都要持续9周的时间，这个总部设在加州托伦斯的九人测试团队要把汽车从加拿大的耶洛奈夫开到美国加州的死亡谷，中间在拉斯维加斯、旧金山和洛基山脉短暂停留。

    这个团队使用了经典的汽车测试规程，他们把燃料电池组件安装在较老的车型上当作测试车，然后与后勤车队编队行进。三个技术人员负责驾驶（他们调较悬挂的功夫在丰田是出了名的），另有四名工程师负责监控动力系统。

    这款新车明年就要在美国问世了，但现在还没有正式命名。它将首先在加利福尼亚州上市销售，然后推广到美国东北部地区。丰田现在已经乐观地提高了它的产量目标。

    丰田早在1992年就已经开始研究燃料电池技术。丰田相信，燃料电池汽车比普通的电池动力汽车拥有更广阔的前景。过去10年里，燃料电池汽车的动力系统成本下降了95%。这个改进部分程度上要归功于它用到的许多零件已经先期为丰田的混动车型开发出来了。另外，它的组装工艺也有了显著改进。这个团队的负责人马特•麦克克罗瑞介绍称，燃料电池汽车已经通过了一个关键的测试：在耶洛奈夫零下三十度的极端环境下，一辆传统的汽油动力后勤车在停放了一晚上之后，怎么也打不着火，但燃料电池汽车却可以完美地点火启动——Alex Taylor III

    To test its new tech, the fuel-cell group went road-tripping.

    Over the past three years, members of the fuel-cell vehicle group have logged more than 1 million test miles in certifying Toyota's first-ever production fuel-cell car: a zero-emission, electric drive, four-door sedan that can travel 300 miles and be refueled in three minutes. On trips lasting weeks at a time, the nine-member group, based in Torrance, Calif., has taken the car from Yellowknife, Canada, to Death Valley, Calif., with stops in between in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and the Rockies.

    Using classic automotive test protocol, the team installed the fuel-cell components in nondescript older cars known as engineering mules and traveled caravan-style with support vehicles. Three technicians handled the driving (technicians are renowned at Toyota for their ability to calibrate suspensions with their posteriors) while four engineers monitored the powertrain.

    Due to be introduced in the U.S. next year, the car, which as yet has no official name, will initially be sold in California with a subsequent rollout to the Northeast, and Toyota (TM), optimistically, has already boosted its production targets.

    The carmaker has been working on fuel cells since 1992 and now believes they have greater potential for development than similar battery-powered cars. Powertrain costs have been reduced 95% over the past 10 years, partly by including the use of parts already developed for Toyota hybrids. Packaging the bulky components has been significantly streamlined. Team leader Matt McClory says the fuel-cell car has already passed one key test: In the bitter -30° cold at Yellowknife, a conventional gas-powered rental car being used as a support vehicle failed to start after a cold night. The fuel-cell car fired up flawlessly. --Alex Taylor III