Hi There,
I trust you have had a great time discussing team and teamwork; we have gone from understanding what a team is and building teams to why we should work in teams and last week, you read about Team Cohesiveness/team unity. What is a team without cohesion? Even when disagreements occur in teams, the core of the disagreement should be about getting better results from the team’s efforts.
Louisa May Alcott once said, “it takes two flints to make a fire.” Plainly speaking, a single individual cannot do so much alone but would need the support of other people. Achieving something great and significant will require the commitment of other individuals who have agreed to commit their strengths and skills to make the ideas work. Seeing how important the effort of each member of a team contributes to the success of a team; what then are the attributes of a valuable team member?
- Reliability: Everyone likes someone that they can count on and trust. Being reliable means staying focused and continuing to work towards the goals.
- Flexibility and willingness to change: Sometimes, the dynamics of a project would change, and a great trait of a valuable team member is the willingness to take up a new role and flexibility to adapt pretty quickly so as not to stall the project.
- Share information and resources with your team: A team is typically a “one big, happy family” in the workplace. The success of the team’s work is dependent on the contribution of each team member. Hoarding information and resources will only cause the team failure in the delivery of the project. Every team member is required to contribute any and every information and resource to make working better.
- Respect other people’s work styles: Everyone has a way of working or their work peak hours. The fact a person isn’t working or doing so much at the time when another person is working doesn’t necessarily mean they are lazy or not contributing efficiently to the team. Also, other persons won’t go about tasks the same way another would. Let people express themselves and be their best selves while being willing to learn from others in the team.
- Be positive: Everything won’t always go smoothly but constructive criticisms will go a long way than negative words that would kill the morale of team members. Positive words from managers to team members and within team members will keep the team going.
The whole is other than the sum of the parts. It takes little from each of us to make the greater task complete; and the commitment of each team member to being a valuable member, to achieve every goal set. Remember, teams are at the very core of the functionality of an organization and boosting your team’s efficiency is key to achieving all that you have set out to achieve as an organization. 21Search is a manpower development organization and has trainings and activities to make your teams more efficient. Kindly send us an email to e.mbahon@21search.ng to get a quote or call 08107017274.
Until I come your way again, stay safe, work smart and not just hard.
Love,
Lizzy.