In today’s “Go For Mine” society, teamwork in the workplace has shaken things up a bit.
Team and group work seem to be the new fad at the workplace. For some of us, working in teams becomes a job within the job. For starters you become a psychologist because you need to analyze everyone’s attitude and discover what makes them tick, what they like, and what they don’t like. You also become a therapist because no matter what we say, we all bring our personal lives to the job and we need to make sure everyone is on board when it time to do a task, when there are people not getting along you’re the referee, etc. Working in teams provides everyone with a sense of belonging, responsibility and in the best cases, family.
Like anything else, working in teams has pros and cons. Studies have shown that those who work in groups take their jobs more seriously, call out less frequent and put more effort into their jobs just because they know that others are counting on them to get the job done. While you have extra hands to decrease the workload, there is generally a tremendous amount of work to be done to make sure the work actually gets done. People are counting on you to show up, be prepared, participate and bring things to the table. Team work can both raise and lower the productivity within any given group. You will have those who will rise to the occasion and those who will allow their work to dwindle with the hopes that one of their team mates will pick up the slack.
As a woman who works on a team, I can tell you that things can get hectic at times. Life happens and sometimes you can’t help the obvious. Working in a group at first won’t be easy but getting to know those in your team will make the job easier and also in turn you will learn more about you. Hopefully, you can be lucky (like me) and your team will end up being more like family and things will go swell.
Some Tips for Effective Teams:
• Be honest and upfront – When something bothers you get it out immediately or else tension can build up.
• Go into your team with an open mind. Drop your preconceived assumptions and ignore what others may think about you, just go in there and see what you come out with.
• Try your best to be understanding to personal situations. (Remember, it can happen to you too)
• Don’t talk be hind anyone’s back. Period.
• If you can, try to do something social to know your team outside of work. This can help to build and strengthen your relationships with your team members. This also shows that you sincerely want to get to know your team and that you are there because you want to not because you have to.
• Treat everyone as you would like to be treated.
• Utilize all strengths, assist in building weaknesses.
• Allow everyone the chance to shine. *Try to have supervisors or people who run a certain aspect of a project. This gives a sense of accomplishment and trust.
Not all teams are going to be peachy, sometimes drama can occur. Poor communication and clashing personalities are generally the reason. Everyone isn’t going to like everyone and certain personalities just don’t click but it must be realized and dealt with or else working within the team will be a living hell especially for the innocent bystanders. Being up front and communicating is a great way to eliminate the communication issue and just understanding that people are a certain way can make dealing with the personalities a little easier as well.
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I learned to appreciate the value in a team. Even though I like to think of myself of a one woman team, but when you collaborate forces with others, especially those who are good in areas that you aren’t, then the final product is way greater than the sum of your individual efforts.
Take SASSY, for example, with everybody who contributes to this blog, its a force to be reckoned with!