Teamwork skills, whether they are utilized in education, the workplace, sports, or daily life, are essential for success when working with a group. Throughout the blog post “Blog#2 What Everyone Should Know About Teamwork”, author Kexuan Cui discusses the stages of development groups experience as they are working together and the role teamwork plays in this process. I want to expand on his ideas about the essential components of group and teamwork by discussing my past experiences and an activity completed during class.

     For many years I struggled with working in teams because I lacked the necessary trust for my team members and felt the need to complete every task myself in order to ensure it met my expectations. As I have had the opportunity to work with more groups, whether it be while working as a lifeguard, playing on a volleyball team, or participating in school-organized groups, I have been able to greatly develop my teamwork skills and better understand the benefits that come from working together.

     The disadvantage to working independently on tasks is the lack of collaboration and inputs of others. This is where teamwork comes into play. When multiple people are able to work on a task together, a more diverse array of knowledge is utilized and will generally provide a superior result. An example of this is the activity completed in class in which students were instructed to order 15 items from most to least important for survival. When this task was completed individually, the majority of the scores were poor, however, when the task was completed for a second time while working in a group, the scores generally improved. Throughout this process, groups utilized their “communication skills as well as problem-solving skills” to reach a mutual agreement on the order of the items (Cui). Each member was able to offer a unique perspective on what order they thought was correct and, therefore, offer a beneficial  point of view that other members of the group may not have initially thought of.

     As they say, two minds are better than one. I believe this to be true in the sense that additional members to a group are able to offer more ideas and opinions than one person alone. When a group effectively implements teamwork, members’ individual areas of expertise are able to be utilized and the entire group is able to benefit from the variety of knowledge that can now be shared between members.

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