When finding a common thread between my past four years here at UBC, teamwork is certainly at the top of the list. In almost every aspect of my university career, there is teamwork involved in one way or another. Team projects in courses, working on a team as part of a club, teamwork in my job, playing on various sports teams, even living with different roommates is a form of teamwork. All these experiences highlight forms of teamwork and demonstrate how important the team dynamics are to a successful.
Katzenbach and Smith mention in the “The Discipline of Teams” article that the two critical aspects of effective teamwork being commitment and trust. You certainly need these two aspects to be present within your team as they form the building blocks of a positive, successful team. From my experience working on teams, there are 3 additional critical building blocks of effective teamwork that can positively or negatively affect the outcome of the team.
- Setting a clear vision and understanding from the beginning
- Demonstrating reliability
- Ability to communicate constructively
Clear vision:
At the beginning of a team project or team assignment, taking the time to ensure a collective group vision and understanding by everyone is well worth it. Coming up with your team’s vision and terms of engagement is about setting boundaries about what is acceptable and what is not.
Demonstrating reliability:
Teamwork greatly depends on the idea that everyone will do their own share of the work. As we all know from experienced, this does not alwayshappen. When working on a joint project or task, the ability to count on a reliable team member who gets work done and does they fair share to work hard and meet commitments is important to be a successful team.
A good team member is an active participant who comes prepared for team meetings, listens and speaks up in discussions. All team members must care about their work and the team’s work and give a good care and effort into the work they do.
Communicating constructively:
A factor in teamwork is communication and the potential barriers. Good members are people who speak up and express their thoughts constructively when discussing within the group. Communicating back and forth between group members regarding meeting times, questions, group decisions, etc. is an essential part of the group dynamics and can easily take a negative spiral effect if not addressed at the beginning of the team engagement.
While working in the d.stduio on our the Greening the Business Process project, I have found that my team was missing various parts of the essential building blocks previously mentioned. As a team, we did not set proper expectation guidelines of each other and therefore ran into problems regarding reliability and communication. By realizing this was occurring and before it started to negativelyaffect the team, we were able to identify the problems and sit down together and talk through the issues. I’m happy to say our team is back on track and has been great to work with. We have learnt a lot from our client and how the teamwork skills we are acquiring now, play a major role in the professional work place later on in the road!
I think honest communication is the most important aspect of a strong team. Frequent, honest communication allows for expectations, vision, and feedback to rise to the surface.
I agree that our greening business group lacked frequent, honest communication and therefore struggled to outline team expectations and give feedback. In my opinion this is the fault of every individual in the group. If we had opened up the communication from the very beginning it would have been very beneficial. I’m curious why this didn’t happen… my best guess is that we neglected it because we didn’t really have a “first meeting” to sit down, introduce ourselves, and talk about the project. Looks like it all starts at the very beginning.
Hi DonI took quite a few of your classes at the Thrifty’s in Victoria. I woernded if you would want to send information about this event to your contacts. It would be incredible to see one of these models used to fund local grain. Maybe the local bakeries could get together to take it on.Invest Your Money in Local ChangeA forum on present and future options for putting savings, RRSPs and investment dollars into local, sustainable, ethical businesses to build a more self-reliant economy. Converging Global Crises and the Benefits of Local Investment Models for Businesses and Communities Nicole Chaland, Sustainability Solutions Group, Program Director for Simon Fraser University Certificate Program for Community Economic Development Challenges and Possibilities for Ethical, Local Investing Stephen Whipp, CFP, Senior Financial Advisor with Stephen Whipp Financial and Manulife Securities Incorporated, specializing in Socially Responsible Investing and Financial Planning’ vice president Westshore Chamber of Commerce Building Affordable Housing and Social Enterprises with Community Investment Bonds Rupert Downing, Executive Director of the Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria, former director of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network Invest in Community Impact through Banking Locally Rebecca Pearson, MBA, Account Manager, Vancity Community Business Banking Food Security through Community Supported Agriculture John Ehrlich, Owner/manager of Alderlea Farm & Cafe, and Farmer at TLC’s Keating Farm in Duncan We need each other to flourish: Small Investments, Big Paybacks through Local Investments Lisa Helps, City of Victoria Councillor, Executive Director of Community Micro LendingAdmission Free7 p.m. Tuesday, January 31, 2012Ambrosia Conference Centre638 Fisgard St. Victoria, BCsponsored by Transition Victoria, Vancity and Focus Magazine