Making the Team: A Guide for Managers, Fifth Edition

Chapter 2 Performance and Productivity

Team Performance Criteria and Threats to Productivity

In the 2012 U.S. Presidential election, President Obama built a team that outperformed all expectations by increasing campaign donations from 3.95M to 4.4M, online fund-raising from $500M to $690M, and online voter registration jumped by 50% since the 2008 election. This did not happen because of luck. Instead, it happened because of relentless planning on the part of the team. By many standards, the Obama campaign was the best-run campaign in U.S. history, according to Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. Of the many successful principles that drove the Obama campaign, the focus on social media was critical. For example, Teddy Goff, digital director ...