You’ll remember from the Young Professional Quiz that team work is all about working with a group of people to achieve a shared goal or outcome. We could be talking about a global team of 500 or you and a friend working together on a project, you’ll often be using the same skills to achieve the best outcome.
There are some handy hints to working in a team to help things run smoothly:
- Listen to team members and encourage open communication
- Sharing responsibility, it helps if you can share the workload based on people’s skills.
- Whilst most teams will have a leader it is important that everyone shares their views and one opinion isn’t over-powering
- We all like spending time with our friends but working with a wide range of people with different skills and abilities will really help us
Can you answer the following 4 questions on team work?
What role does personality play in team work?
In any team, from ones you may choose, like your friendship group, to ones you don’t have control over, in work or family, people play different roles. It is worth considering what your natural strengths are and what roles come naturally to you. Are you really organised, a good communicator, really good at noticing all of the details or a natural born leader? Playing to your strengths and assuming that role is a good idea but do remember that a team requires a number of different skills; what happens if you find yourself in a team of great leaders and that’s your one skill too, or your normally the one planner but your boss wants you to take the lead?
The skills that make up a good team are good skills individually too, being able to take the lead on a project at work when something goes wrong will always come in useful. Being able to communicate or practise your attention to detail will come in useful in school, work and friendships too. When the opportunity arises, you should take the opportunity to play different roles, playing all the roles and understanding the skills required will help you understand team dynamics and make you a better leader or planner if you can see a project from all points of view.
There is no harm in having one strong skill set but it is always helpful to know what your strengths are and what needs developing.
Test yourself – offline:
See if you can think about the questions below. It’s useful to you to come up with actual examples. It’s especially useful to come up with examples from your own life and work experience.
Why are teamwork skills important to an employer?
How could you develop your teamwork skills? Name an example.
How could you demonstrate good teamwork skills? Name an example.
