Are you ready for teamwork and team play?

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(Published in the Job Market-Working People section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 9, 2008, Sunday)

By Roel Andag

Contributor

Assess your teamwork quotient

NEVER DISMISS ‘TEAM’ as just another four-letter word. Successful companies swear by the effectiveness of teams in propelling business. That is why when companies look for new employees and select candidates for promotion, one’s ability to work well in a team is given primacy as a desirable ability. Are you fit for teamwork and team play? There are only five questions to ask in assessing your teamwork quotient.

Do you have a specific competency? Do not join a team only because it is an elite assignment. Do so when you know you have something solid to pitch in. Your usefulness to the team depends on your unique contribution to the collective effort. Only when you possess at least one competency for which your skill is at resource person level that you can claim indispensability. You are deadweight to the team if you are mere copycat of another team member. Define your relevance – identify your expertise and how it complements the efforts of fellow members in fulfilling team objectives. If the team will function properly without you, then you are not needed.

Are you committed? Being in a team invariably results in extra work. It uproots you from your routine and forces you to squeeze in a special demand on top of regular demands. Team membership demands commitment – to the team, its goals, its members. Your time management skills, sense of humor and patience will play critical roles in ensuring your resilience in the face of detailed work, pressure and temperaments. Find motivation that will help you give sustained peak performance.

Do you relate well with people? A team is composed of several members working as one to fulfill a common purpose. Through his undesirable attitude, an anti-social member isolates himself from the rest of the team. One has to have the basic social skills that will enable him to interact with others in a manner that brings out their best productive selves. This is not to say that conflicts have to be avoided altogether. What are to be avoided are dysfunctional conflicts that tend to block team success. What is more challenging is being socials-savvy when you are in a virtual team where members do not have physical facetime as they engage one another only through emails, phone conversations and other technology-supported channels. In any case, effective communication skills and professional decorum are very important. Build unity in diversity. Bonding occurs when team members work and play well with one another.

Are you trustworthy? Teams are based on trust. Difficult to earn and easy to lose, trust is the delicate element that cements the relationship among team members. In a team environment, trust is not built by pledging loyalty to a faction. Trust is earned by performing responsibilities. Be accountable to the team. Trustworthiness is generated when proper communication channels are used. Being candid about feedback and accepting constructive criticism are preferred over gossiping and griping. Trustworthiness is increased with openness about asking for and giving help and with graciousness in sharing credit with others.

Are you a passionate advocate? It is a conscious management decision that individuals from different backgrounds and of varying competencies are gathered to form a team. The intention is to collect an array of ideas and perspectives. Each team member is duty-bound to offer ideas and solutions. Each is expected to passionately argue the case in favor of his ideas. You have to be mature and courageous enough to challenge others’ ideas and to dislodge groupthink that leads to complacency and arrogance. In the same manner, be aware that teamwork abhors bloated egos. Back down and compromise if your intentions do not help move the team forward.

Expertise, dynamism, result-orientedness and engagement are individual qualities that promote teamwork. Equally important, teamwork requires leadership traits. It doesn’t matter whether you are a team leader or member because team leadership is not a solo event. It is the sum total of group dynamics. With the proper motivation, the gains in joining a team include material and social rewards and career development. Now that you know your teamwork quotient, are you ready for teamwork and team play?