Despite the educational system of any country, including my motherland, implies the elements of teamwork since the earliest years of studying, the experience in teamwork which I have obtained during this semester has become outstanding and rather helpful for me. The piece of the teamwork which we have fulfilled in a group of three has precisely demonstrated the advantages and challenges of any team activity described in numerous sources devoted to the team work.
There is a famous quote by an American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results” (Harkins and Hollihan 71). After having our work done, I must admit that I could hardly have reached such a result working on my own, or at least it would have taken me unwarrantably much time and effort.
What I like the most about the teamwork is the sensation of the synergy effect: each of us has some personal strong points. I can say that my strength is working with the material: I am able to define what points should be mentioned in the presentation, what sources are the most reliable and eloquent, and what conclusions we should made from the information available. At the same time, my teammates have proved to be rather good at organization and performing material correspondingly.
I have learned that finding good information is not enough; the way one delivers it to the audience forms about a half of the total impression: my teammates did a great job in terms of elaborating the structure of our presentation, finding catching details for the beginning and the end, etc. Thus, I cannot say that we have made some intentional delegation of responsibilities in our team; I understand that it is not always possible in the teamwork, as the teammates may already have different positions and responsibilities (for example, they may be defined by the participants’ working places), but when it concerns the common creative work of the equal participants, I stand for the natural distribution of the responsibilities.
As for the leadership in our team, I must admit that there was no absolute leader: I took leadership at several stages of preparing our presentation when we worked with our material, and I guided my teammates in terms of processing the data. At the same time, my teammate was perfect at leading in terms of organizing the working process, setting the tasks for us all and defining the deadlines.
Considering the negative experience in our team work, a sudden challenge was making our presentation integrated. We had meetings and communicated through emails discussing the tasks and the course of our work, but we fulfilled our tasks when being alone. It is rather difficult to do your share of work when you have no idea about the details of that of your teammates, such as the language and the style of delivering the information, the volume of words and time meant for each point, etc. I think that the next time I will have the opportunity to work in team I would pay more attention to the minor details.
Another unexpected difficulty when working in team was the necessity to express my genuine opinion. Theoretically, it is obvious that warning the teammates about their mistakes and showing them the ways to improve their work serve for the benefit of the whole team; however, criticizing the teammate has proved to be a real challenge, and it requires being constructive and at the same time polite.
Sometimes it is rather difficult to persuade yourself that you have a right to criticize the work entrusted to another person who is not your subordinate, but your mate who has the same position in the team. I think that one of the ways to improve the teamwork for the next time is launching the practice of the collective assessment of each member’s work which implies genuine discussion and constructive criticism.
As a whole, I have felt rather distinctly that teamwork is not about leveling one’s personality and interests “in sacrifice” of a team; vice versa, it is about staying a personality and applying one’s potential for the common benefit. Each individual is the strength of a whole team, and teamwork is not a zero-sum game, but a win-win approach.
Bibliography
Harkins, Philip J, and Keith Hollihan. Everybody Wins: The Story and Lessons Behind RE/MAX. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005. Print.