Teamwork is about overcoming obstacles and working together to form a strong cohesive bond between multiple people. Teamwork allows for tasks that couldn’t be accomplished by any single individual to be completed by a group of people whom have the same goal in mind. It allows great feats to be accomplished, and is the entire reason we have some of the great marvels of this world today. Teamwork has allowed us as a people to arise and become the great civilization that we are today. Without it, who knows what would be the world of today.
Teamwork is the collaboration of individuals and sharing of strengths in order to work towards a common goal. Teamwork is often seen in the workplace, where people who have been trained in different areas and have different levels and abilities might work together on a project.
Teamwork has less of a role in families where people tend to adopt the traditional roles rather than the ones they are more talented at. For example, women may feel obligated to clean the house and care for the children and men may feel obligated to work. If, however, they are working as a true team they will follow their talents and abilities to the betterment of the family unit.
…and now I am dipping into interview survey mode again. I love researching these topics and I just have to share. So here goes:
Making Teamwork Make More Sense
[‘R’ is me, and ‘I’ is the interviewee]
R: Give an example of ‘teamwork’ being used in popular news or the media that has inspired you in a positive way.
I: I seem teamwork when they have the amber alerts going out in my area. It’s basically an alert system for missing children it goes out on text messages and the media. It’s been helpful in finding many missing children early.
R: Describe at least one way you think ‘teamwork’ could help you in your personal or professional life.
I: The ways that teamwork could help in my personal life is with the kids. When me and my wife work has a team with the 3 little ones it makes life so much easier. When I consider it at work, it would allow our projects to get done on time and not be late.
R: Give an example of how ‘teamwork’ has helped you in the past.
I: Every Saturday, a group of friends and I play pick-up basketball at a local rec-center. Basketball, being the team game that it is, requires teamwork to achieve victory. A team of much more athletic individuals without the ability to cooperate can be ineffective as opposed to the threat of several potential scorers through assists due to teamwork. Every Saturday, my basketball knowledge and game sense heightens because I learn to work better with others and apply the concept of trust and teamwork in other areas of my life, such as group projects in school.
R: Describe at least one way you think ‘teamwork’ could cause trouble or hurt you in your personal or professional life.
I: Team work could cause trouble in many different ways. When you are working in a team setting peoples egos could get in the way. Also many people let pride get in their way of helping a team.
R: Give an example of how ‘teamwork’ has hurt you or caused you trouble in the past.
I: Teamwork affected me in a bad when I was in a geometry class. I didn’t have any friends and everyone in that class was a jerk to me. I got laughed at. They said i stink; my hair is gross and imp ugly. I wanted to die.
R: How do you think ‘teamwork’ could help you in a professional setting? Why is that?
I: Teamwork is important because working in a professional setting means working in a group where every member has unique responsibilities. The ability to coordinate with each other means being able to utilize team members as resources. Teamwork ensures that a group runs smoothly and that there is no internal conflict.
R: Give an example of how ‘teamwork’ could be used beneficially at work. Why do you think this?
I: I think teamwork at work is mandatory for me to be happy at a workplace. I did sales for a while and each person was set up to compete with the other agents. This was not productive for me. Short term it helped to raise the production levels of the group, but overtime, resentment and backstabbing became the norm and it was not good.
After I left there I went to work for another company. Teamwork was used to help each member realize their strengths while lifting up those with weaknesses in certain areas. We were given bonuses based on the team performance. This increased our desire to help out other teammates when they were swamped, and since the team was counting on us, it also helped us stay motivated as we didn’t want the team to suffer based on our actions.
For me this was a much better way to motivate. I do better when I want a team to succeed and I don’t want to feel like I am holding them back, then if I was only accountable to myself.
R: How do you think ‘teamwork’ could help you at home? Why is that?
I: Teamwork could help me at home with my kids pitching in more with the chores and cooking. Right now I do pretty much everything so we don’t have really any teamwork going on. My kids are 8 and 9 now so I’m ready to get them to help with tasks around the house such as cleaning and sorting laundry.
If we all work together as a team and split the tasks up than that would be very helpful to me so that I have more time to do things that I want to do instead of spending so much time doing things I have to do.
R: Give an example of how ‘teamwork’ could be used beneficially in a home or domestic setting. Why do you think this?
I: I think teamwork could be used to get projects done. It’s much quicker than doing it yourself. You are able to spread the work.
R: How do you think ‘teamwork’ could help you in a personal relationship? Why is that?
I: Teamwork in a personal relationship is important because both parties are responsible for their actions so they should both be responsible for the repercussions. Let’s say the house is dirty, both people made the house dirty, so both people should clean the house.
Sometimes one person works and the other doesn’t, then the person who works should get a bit of slack at home and the person who doesn’t work should do more of the cleaning and household chores. Even though the tasks are different, it’s still teamwork. Money is coming in, the house is clean.
R: Give an example of how ‘teamwork’ could be used beneficially in a personal relationship. Why do you think this?
I: Teamwork is a beneficial way to get things done. Sometimes using teamwork will improve your output. Sometimes teamwork is very difficult and makes things more difficult.
R: Describe at least one thing you would like to learn more about ‘teamwork’.
I: I would like to learn about how to manage different personalities well within a team to ensure the best outcomes. I think that the hardest part of good teamwork is being able to manage people who are very different and can end up in conflict because of those differences. I believe that being able to achieve the goals of the team often rests on being able to, keeping personalities in mind, manage what may be different priorities and different ways of tackling problems.
R: Give your number one piece of advice for someone looking to learn more about ‘teamwork’.
I: Make sure you communicate with your team, which is possibly the most important thing. Also make sure that you respect your players. Cannot stress that enough because you respect them, they respect you and better outcomes for everyone.
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That’s it for now – get your teams in order folks!
If you’re looking for a great activity for building your team up and helping them understand themselves better, then check out the bird personality test.