Team work breeds success
ALONE we can do so little, together we can do so much.
Love it or hate it, team work is important. The more power that can be marshalled toward a specific task, the more efficiently that task can be completed.
Working in a group is like being in an intellectual phalanx. A hive mind and the benefits of such a mind allow you to have multiple perspectives, interpretations and ideas at play. As an individual, are no longer restricted by the limits of your own knowledge.
This makes teamwork ideal for learning; and learning is something we should always aim to do.
In being receptive toward other people’s ideas, we expand our own consciousness. We should see working with others as a means to optimising our output.
In reality, things are not so straightforward. Many hands often make for challenging work.
How many times has a group work partner let you down? Or tempers frayed because members of the team don’t see eye to eye? Getting a team to function together harmoniously can be tricky. Sometimes it’s a nightmare.
Coming together is t he beginning, keeping together is progress; working together is success.
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. Teamwork involves working collaboratively with others to achieve a goal.
It is usually said, you take on a role within the team, sharing responsibility and contributing ideas.
The coming week will be a busy one, as most learners will be writing their end of semester exams.
An important aspect of your university studies is the opportunity to work as part of a group. Group work is used at university because it is an effective and powerful way to learn, and is also highly relevant to the workplace.
Ideally, the results will determine one’s way forward towards achieving their targets. It is the same time that most students will be in groups to discuss different questions and topics.
I have noted that teamwork works for many students as some are not able to read alone, thus they find group discussions helpful.
Only a few individuals like myself enjoy reading alone rather than having group discussions due to my own reasons or strengths, but working as a team towards exams brings success.
Group working can make study more efficient and fun. Working with others enables you to pool your ideas and see problems from different perspectives.
In a group, you can attempt tasks that you could not accomplish as an individual, combining a variety of skills and expertise to tackle more complex and larger problems.
If you are working under a limited time frame, group work allows greater depth analysis than if you were working individually.
Furthermore, group work gives you the chance to learn from each other. There are many benefits from analysing, discussing and exploring your own ideas and questions and gaining feedback from your peers.
Apart from targeting exams as a team, there are many aspects of life at college that require collective approach, paying school fees, helping each on transport fares, food, books, sharing ideas etc.
A student faces many life challenges and having a team around you lightens the burdens.
While, today, employers usually want to see evidence that prospective employees can work well in a team, which includes attitudes that demonstrate that they can work effectively in a team.
This could involve ensuring regular communication channels across the team, a clear understanding of the goal by everyone, encouraging others to share their thoughts and a focus on how the group will achieve their goals and/ or deadline.
Also employers regularly look for evidence of the ability to work collaboratively with others, and contributing factors include leadership, research, monitor, idea generating, time keeping among others.
But the simple reality is that people are extremely emotionally and intellectually diverse. But when skills and objectives can be brought into alignment, as if by magic, great things can be achieved.
When people don’t work well together, it’s tangible. As they say, “you can feel the tension in the air”.
On the other hand, we all know what it feels like to be in perfect company. When everyone is on the same page and things just work like clockwork. Nine times out of 10 what separates one situation from the other is good and bad communication.
The whole point of working in teams is to maximise resources, to pool talents.
Logically, some team members will be better at particular tasks than others. Everyone has unique strengths. Some will be more skilled in a certain endeavour and others will possess more knowledge on a specific subject.
The objective, then, is to get the right person working on the right task and in the right way. Figure out how best to deploy the various skills and knowledge which are at your collective disposal.
If you want to thrive at university and during your working career, and if you want to be a leader of any sort, you need to have good team- work skills.
A leader who cannot get people to work well together is not a good leader at all.
Even if you don’t literally want to be in a “leadership role”, leadership skills are a powerful asset. They translate to multiple contexts; they make you a better person.
Good team-work is a prerequisite for persuasion and influencing skills. Think about it. Unless you’re looking only to convince yourself, the art of persuasion is always a group activity. Being able to influence means having an impact.
Unless you are going to work as a long- distance trucker in the
DRC, some level of sociability is necessary in the professional world. Any organisation wants to know you will fit in; that you will help not hinder operations.
Showing that you command teamwork skills indicates emotional intelligence, rational thinking and problem-solving capability; and these are the makings of one who rises the ranks.
Practice, as they say, makes perfect. So go out, find a team. This could be a team you are placed in on your course.
Or maybe a society where you all share same common interests.