“Teamwork is the essential quality of a team member to effectively make use of their team members and work collaboratively. With good teamwork, team members trust and assist each other in achieving shared goals. It’s essential to forget personal agendas and interpersonal issues in pursuit of these goals.”
This interview is reaching out to a broad audience to help me (and you!) get a better understanding of just what people actually think about teamwork and how it impact their lives. I hope you enjoy it and maybe gain an insight or two.
Interviewee Profile
1) What is your official job / position title?
Security Officer.
2) What is your direct supervisor’s official job / position title?
Head of Security
3) What industry do you work in?
Safety and Security (service)
4) How many years have you been in your current industry and job?
1
5) What are 3 to 5 of your most important skills, specialties, or areas of expertise?
Careful maintenance of paperwork, attention to detail and goings-on, critical thinking, creative problem solving.
Interviewee Responses
01) Describe (in your own words) what you think ‘teamwork’ means.
Teamwork is the essential quality of a team member to effectively make use of their team members and work collaboratively. With good teamwork, team members trust and assist each other in achieving shared goals. It’s essential to forget personal agendas and interpersonal issues in pursuit of these goals.
02) Think about a person you feel needs team-building training. How do you think this training would help him/her?
I could use some team-building training, actually. I have some trust issues, which have hampered my performance in teams. With teambuilding (not sure what sort, though) I hope that I could get over that and improve in teams.
03) How do you think teamwork could help a company or business?
I think teamwork does more than help a business. Any large company or business needs it to thrive. Without dedicated teams of professionals that exhibit strong teamwork, it’s not practical to run a company.
04) Describe a teamwork / team-building exercise or event you’ve been through at your work, school, or during training.
I’ve had very little experience with team-building exercise. Back in Middle School was the last time I had an opportunity to do so, and we did a variety of exercises. The most memorable is the “log” exercise, where individuals have to reach a certain order among themselves without anyone leaving the log. It requires a lot of collaborative communication and thinking.
05) Explain at least 1 thing you’ve learned from a team-building exercise and how it has helped you.
I learned that, to successfully use teamwork, everyone participating has to put in some thought to the task at hand. I realized that the smartest one present doesn’t necessarily have the correct answer all of the time. This has been a valuable lesson to me, as I usually tend towards thinking that my ideas are the best.
06) Think back to a team-building exercise you did NOT enjoy. What do you feel could have been improved and why?
Trust falls are, to me, completely pointless. They don’t actually build any trust, because unless someone’s a complete jerk they pretty much have to catch you. It doesn’t translate well to real-world trust, and I don’t think it can be improved. I think that exercise should just be taken off the list.
07) Describe what you like most about team-building efforts and training.
I don’t like them much. I’ll be honest, for the most part I just like that they get you out of work and/or school for the day/the time being. I admit that some of the exercises are helpful, but most are a waste of time to me.
08) What are a few things you like least about team-building efforts and why?
The vast majority of exercises that I’ve participated in take little to no effort and don’t actually build the attribute they’re intended to. I don’t like seeing people pretend to have learned something, then the next week go back to being difficult to work with. Overall, they seem to waste time more than help.
09) When learning about team-building, would you rather read about it, listen to a trainer, watch training videos, or physically participate in an event? Describe why you feel that way.
I’d prefer to read about it in-depth. This is the best way for me to be sure that I’ll actually be attentive. Additionally, it’s the way the I can allocate time as I choose rather than wasting my time.
10) Pretend you are asked to give a quick team-building presentation at work. What are your first couple of steps to get prepared?
I’d do research on how to run such a presentation, given my lack of experience in such things. I’d then select the exercises that seem most feasible to be successful and productive, and plan an opening speech to introduce these exercises.
11) In your opinion, what type or personality of person do you think could benefit most from team-building efforts?
It would have to be someone who’s receptive to criticism, so they’re willing to see any issues in their work work ethic and make necessary changes. This way, they can use the lessons taught by the exercises rather than just appreciating the time out of actual work. They would have to be open, receptive, and fairly enthusiastic about the job and their team.
~~~~~~~~~~
Click here for our most popular team building and communication enhancing tool, the Bird Personality Test.