Team Work

Are you a good Team Work Player? You don’t like “Working in Silos” & beg “Team Work”….

Summary from article "Team Work":
Verily, “team work” requires a team of people to pitch their efforts together to accomplish a common task. It also requires a group of people to share a singular goal and to identify with each other and to maintain affinity.

Modern day team work demands that we integrate our efforts and work cross-functionally. …… It matters not in what position your are slotted on the organisation chart, but rather, the station your are at when the task is ripe for adjournment.

Anarchy is by no means suggested here, rather, a new form of organisation that is organic in shape, has multiple dimensions, filled by empowered people equipped with prudence, discretion, and courage. It will also require its team members to have a broader grasp of the business, be multi-skilled, and are charged with making decisions at the proper level.

Role Identification
Why is this person on this team? What does he bring? What can he help develop? Just an extra pair of hands?...

The role of a leader in a team is dynamic. It does not rest with a designated person but rather, leadership revolves as each knowledgeable person takes the lead in turn. Different situations require different modes of thinking and courses of action. ……we need to tap on the resources of a variety of people with differing viewpoints and backgrounds to maintain a competitive advantage. We have to accept diversity as a propellant, not a hindrance.

Making Yourself Heard
The gravest task for any team work training programme is to help the participants realise differing opinions leads to quality decisions, questioning entrenched beliefs merits applause, and it is often through polarisation that optimal solutions can be forged.

…whereas in a functional team it is an imperative for each member to share his or her perceptions, insights, or even intuitions.

…behavioural standards such as: “Transparency and Openness”, “Active Communication”, and “Objective Listening”. Whilst also under the same Mission Statement it enunciated values such as: “Customer, suppliers, and our people are partners in growth” and “Every team member can improve and contribute”.

Caring

Caring means the empathy that enables members of a team to challenge each others viewpoints as equals, the ability to accept others having a right to feel the way they do and voicing their opinions, caring also infers recognising people we work with are flesh and blood beings subject to tempers and emotions, has physical limitations, susceptible to illnesses, and are vulnerable to periods of spiritual feebleness.

Again, this basis for effective team work must be build and maintained by all, it has to be woven into the very fabric of the organisation, permeating the formal and informal structures, and regarded as a foundation for stellar performance by the entire team.

Feedback

The purpose of feedback is not to pass judgement on the other team members actions, whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, but rather, how one feels about the action itself. In order for a team to realise its true potential all members will have to be comfortable with each others roles and relating activities, which are, to begin with, dynamic and shifting constantly. Timely feedback will build acceptance, mutual respect, and dignity into the team’s relationships.

Feedback also goes hand in glove with the previously discussed principles of Caring and Making Yourself Heard. Team members have an obligation to inform each other of how they feel about the work in progress, real and perceived problems, and personal concerns and trepidation……

As a hotel says at its entrance: “We never forget you have a choice, thank you for choosing us”. That surely will keep people coming back.

Trust

Contrary to common belief, trust can not be build by putting slogans on the wall, falling off two meter platforms and allowing your mates to catch you before you hit you head on the ground, nor can it be implemented by decree. Trust is not merely believing in the other person. Trust means first believing in yourself.

Sufficient self-confidence to trust others is the issue to tackle first and foremost. We can not believe we are a person worthy of the respect of others, or, in our course of actions, or, our compassion for others will be returned in kind . . . or, all three combined.

Once we have established the type of self-confidence required we can proceed to trust others.