Monthly Archives: February 2017

Motivation is important because it provides the drive for people to accomplish their goals, maintain their responsibilities or solve problems. Motivation relates to the drive to do something. Motivation drives us to study new things, and motivation encourages us to try again when we fail. 

In solving one teamwork task, I gave my opinions concerning the refugee problem in Europe, which were not possible to be realized considering the practical conditions at that time. The group leader said to me, “Jason, your ideas are great, although some of them are not very realistic at the moment. It’s good that you are willing to think hard to solve the problem, and we look forward to hearing from you more opinions like this in the future.” I felt inspired by what he said despite the fact that he disagreed with me, and my confidence grew a lot after this incident. I was able to air my opinions to solve similar open-ended questions with more active thinking efforts. It is very important to a team that its members are able to accept both disagreements and approvals from others rationally, which is also an essential quality for one to become the core of the team.  

With the increase of more and more diverse social needs, many people are increasingly facing extremely complex situations and environments in their work and study. Under many conditions, individual power alone is not enough for one to completely handle all sorts of complex problems and take practical and effective actions. Therefore, the importance of teamwork has to be emphasized.

The so-called team, is a group of people who are complementary to each other in talents, work in harmony, and hold responsibility for a shared goal. How can we improve our teamwork skills?

1. Foster communicational and presentation ability.

In a highly efficient team, active communication between team members represents a significant link in cooperation. If you are not able to communicate with others, no one will ever understand or support you even if you have great ideas. Therefore, we need to focus on the fostering of good communicational skills by taking every opportunity to train our presentation skills and actively convey our understandings and opinions.

2. Cultivate an active personality.

We should not wait passively to be told on how to act by team members. Rather, we should actively take the initiative to understand what the team wants us to do, what should we do and then make thorough plans to achieve the goal with all-out effort.

3. Develop a sense of responsibility.

In team cooperation, everyone’s performance has to do with the performance of the entire team. Each member of the team is connected with the whole team. Only with responsibility, can an individual do one’s best to best finish his/her own part. In a team, if someone is irresponsible, or would not like to complete his/her own tasks, the entire team will be implicated. Therefore, responsibility represents an indispensable quality in teamwork.

4. Develop a holistic perspective

Teamwork is not the opposite of individuality. Yet individual behaviors have to be in accordance with the actions of the team. A member of a team should have a holistic perspective and give consideration to the needs of the team. A holistic perspective requires team members to help and take care of and cooperate with each other, in order to strive for the goal of the team through joint effort.

Knowing ourselves is the first priority.  We tend to underestimate the importance of knowing ourselves.  How could we realistically set goals, go about life and have successful relationships if we don’t even have a clear understanding of our own?  To know yourself better:

1. Know about your advantages and disadvantages

Record your expected result before getting started on something and compare the actual result or effect with your expectation upon completion. You will find that you can and can’t do well in which aspects, respectively through comparison. By doing so, you can soon discover your own advantages and disadvantages.

2.  Know how you learn and do things

You shall know your way of thinking before knowing the way of doing things.

For example, you might be good at macro and abstract thinking and generalization, while people around you may be skilled in micro but concrete thinking and execution. If you work as a team, it will be a team complemented. You will get twofold results with half the effort in your work and study if having good cooperation and communication with the people who you know are different from you.

3. What motivates you

You need to consider your personal driving force that can be either your value or interest upon knowing your own advantages as well as ways of learning and doing things. What kinds of things are meaningful in your value and what thrills you in your interests. The intersection of both decides your motivation in study and work. Only after you have found out your source of motivation can you have a true direction to move forward.