Unlike high-school, University has pushed me into working with people. In the past 5 months alone, I have had to work in 5 different teams for different classes and projects and it was given me a deep insight into what teamwork really is and why being able to work in a team is so important. I will be talking about 2 experiences of mine which have helped me come to my conclusions:
- Example A: I recently attended a Consulting Conference with a workshop where we had to work in groups of 4 to come up with a presentation which my group and I had to present our solutions to the CEO of a fictional company.
- Example B: In my COMM292 class we had to come up with a Fantasy Project as a team and present it to demonstrate how we could use our team’s diversity to our advantage.
The difference between Example A and Example B was that in Example B, I enjoyed working with my team due to the fact that each one of us was equally motivated to reach an end goal. We listened to each other, communicated, equally delegated and thoroughly enjoyed working on a Fantasy Project as if it were actually going to happen. In Example A however, one of the member ended up taking credit for most of our ideas by not allowing others to speak while presenting.
These experiences have thus helped me come up with a few points which I feel are the key to a successful team:
- Fair and even delegation of roles
- Communication
- Delegation based on people’s strengths
I have come to understand that we may not always get along with the people we are assigned to but it is important to be fair and communicate openly. Had I communicated more effectively in Example A, things would have turned out differently and that was a lesson I carried on the Example B. I believe that teamwork involves people talking about their differences to come up to an understanding, rather than keeping those differences aside and not being transparent.