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    Teamwork - A key enabler

    1. We, during our life, undertake a lot of group activities starting from our childhoodwell into our adulthood. Our childhood games, sports, school activities, family chores,

    our college life, adventure trips with friends, professional career and settling in family

    life; all are team events. One thing comes out obvious: life is not a solo flight. A great

    portion of what we achieve or fail to achieve in our life is therefore because of teamwork

    or lack of it respectively. All great feats therefore have one latent but colossal force at

    work: good teamwork.

    2. We hear a lot about the pivotal place that teamwork occupies, but never knowthe real reasons behind these assertions. It is therefore quite an instructive foray to

    decode the magic of teamwork.

    3. Every activity is undertaken with a purpose to achieve certain goal(s),

    achievement of which has to be paramount. In more complex settings, it may involve a

    huge array of independent entities working for different goals which in turn lead to a

    common goal. The said complexity makes the task of harnessing energies of huge

    groups, sub-groups and variety of people that constitute these entities a monumental

    task. A lot of organizations sink under the enormity of the said challenge. But teamwork

    brings goal into such focus that goal becomes much more important than the role. This

    relegates individual egos/idiosyncrasies to back seat and brings forth the collective

    good.

    4. Each organization/group is formed of people with different levels of expertise in

    different fields as one cannot master everything. In absence of goodness of teamwork,

    weaknesses will be ridden upon by co-workers to achieve prominence. In teamwork,

    however, weak areas of others are improved. So in the end collective strength serves to

    diminish the effects of inherent weaknesses.

    5. One of the key aspects for hiring personnel in all organizations is interpersonal

    skills of new entrants. Crudely defined, interpersonal skill is ones ability to get along

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    with others. A cursory view at the definition tells us that there is inherent desire in

    organizations to have workers who can go along others and be contributing members of

    a team. Important thing to note is that working in a team not only hones but also begets

    interpersonal skills.

    6. All human beings are inherently selfish. Bringing oneself to work for others credit

    needs a lot of courage and unswerving commitment with the ultimate goal. Teamwork

    does this catharsis to purge egoistic notions and inculcate a sense of selfless devotion.

    It also promotes tolerance as in a team one cannot contribute anything if opposing

    opinions of other team-mates are not entertained. It is interesting to note that it also

    produces a quality of being a good listener, which is extremely valuable for bringing

    something of value out of a discussion.

    7. Teamwork also nurtures candor which means freedom from prejudice or malice,

    unreserved, honest, or sincere expression: forthrightness. Candor occupies pivotal

    place in making good collective decisions because only an objective and threadbare

    analysis of all possible factors; albeit undesirable, can bring forth good decision. As

    Benjamin Franklin said No body is thinking if everyone is thinking alike, so only

    thinking heads can produce desired results in good teamwork.

    8. Another key aspect of undertaking any team job is sense of ownership. Good

    teams work together and everybody is part of the process in all phases of any project.

    This generates ownership amongst team members not only of the successes, which is

    easy to come by, but more importantly of the failures because as the clich goes;

    success has many fathers but failure is orphan. Owning failures not only promotes

    cohesiveness but also gives the team required strength to take stock and start again. It

    is also noteworthy that an organizations achievements in the long-run are not

    determined by its successes but how it manages its failures.

    9. Finally, working in a team helps in developing great attitude which makes all the

    difference when enormity of the task is staring right in the face and chips are badly

    down. Rotten attitude ruins teamwork as it attacks the very base of good teamwork i.e.

    cohesion. If one aspect stands out during the Staff Course at PNWC, it is Course

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    Members ability to work as a team. If we can take along the essentials of teamwork, we

    have done our job.

    Lt Cdr Mudassar Khurshid


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