Surviving teamwork in the office
It seems that every business promotes the virtues of teamwork; however, many of us do not have a natural preference to work in teams.
Companies rate team work and the ability to work in a team as one of the “essential” skills for today’s worker. To not be a “team player” in most organisations will ensure that your career does not go very far.
But what if you chose your career path because you have a personal preference to work independently with numbers or data? What if you simply like to keep yourself to yourself?
In this article we help you find ways of surviving the team culture and make it work for you as an individual, particularly if you are frustrated by:
| • | the people who seem to sit and chat all day (when do they get their work done??) |
| • | the people who never say anything that isn’t about work (do they have a life outside the office?) |
| • | the person who never seems to give you information on time (which part of deadline don’t you understand?) |
| • | having to sit through another seemingly pointless meeting (zzzzzzzzzzzz....) |
Don’t despair – there is an answer and it isn’t more team nights’ out or the dreaded raft building exercise!
Direct Human Resources has released a FREE kit version of their Team Enablement Workout™ to help Microsoft “At Work” readers survive and thrive in a team-driven organisation.
The Team Enablement Workout™ shows you how you can stay true to your personal preferences and really understand how to succeed in a team-driven world of work – without hugging or huddling, or throwing yourself from a high place waiting for your trusted team mates to catch you!
Tied to team work or tired of team work?
Not many people have received the professional training required to truly understand what it means to be a great team player.
Is it group problem solving and sharing tasks? Is it doing your “bit” and passing it on to the next team member to do “their bit”? Is it bringing cakes to the office???
So, what exactly is a Team?
Let’s start with a simple team definition: fundamentally, a team is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal or purpose.
Now for the hard part:
To be effective or high performing, a team should consist of a group of people working together (but not necessarily in the same location) who truly understand each other, value individual differences and know how to use this to leverage improved team performance.
They combine knowledge, skills, experience and understand each other, helping them achieve a common goal or purpose.
The difference between these definitions is one focuses on the team as a unit whilst the other values the individuals who comprise the team.
Different types of people
The key to working as an effective member of the team is to truly understand the different types of people which comprise it.
In order to understand each other, you need to be aware of four “type preferences”. By recognising these preferences, you can identify a person’s type and this will help you improve communication and reduce frustration.
You also need to understand a person’s “mode”, for example “normal” or “stressed”. People behave differently depending on their mode. This will help you understand what is happening when someone changes their behaviour – and will help you remember that it is about them and not you. More importantly, this understanding helps you develop an appropriate and effective response.
There are four “type preferences”:
“T” Types are task focussed.
“E” Types are energetic and entrepreneurial.
“A” Types are analytical and detail conscious.
“M” Types are motivators and collaborators.
All of us are “made up” of these four types, but we display their associated behaviours in a different order, depending on our natural preferences and mode.
Meet John:
John is the manager of a team who produces daily management reports. He presented an idea that will improve company performance to the Management Team today. They loved it but now John has to provide more information – and as a result he needs to have tomorrow’s report much earlier than normal.
What does John do next?
Well that depends on what John’s natural team preference is, and whether or not he is exceptionally happy or if he is stressed out!
If John is a T Type - John calls Sam, and says “Hi Sam, I need the daily up date 2 hours early tomorrow, call me once you have mailed it – have to go, bye”.
If John is an E Type - John calls Sam and says “Hi Sam, how are you (doesn’t really listen to you), anyway, things are going great, the team loved the strategic plan and really want to ramp up progress, can you send me an update at 2pm tomorrow – just a simple one pager – I’m so excited, this is great news for the team – can I rely on you?” (Doesn’t really listen to your answer, and doesn’t give you time to clarify what he really wants.) Before you have time to collect your thoughts, John says, “Thanks Sam, must dash, keep me posted if you have any problems”.
If John is an A Type - John calls Sam and says “Sam, the daily report needs to be delivered early tomorrow. I want to check through the numbers before I forward it to the team. Have it ready by 1pm and call me to go through the detail.”
If John is an M Type - John calls Sam and says “Hey Sammy! How are you? (Actually listens to you and has a chat about your mum / sister / cat/ weekend). Okay Sammy – we’ve got a big ask on from the Boss, we all need to pull together and get the daily updates out a couple of hours early tomorrow, the whole team are pulling out the stops on this one, you know I’ll take care of you – we will probably be working till late tonight so I have laid on Pizza– Suzie will be calling you shortly for your ideas on how we can make this happen.”
Team Types Profile
Task focused. Not detailed. Assumes everyone knows what they want and why. Fires off instructions verbally or by e-mail. You know where you stand with these people, they get things done, but they can be abrasive and impersonal. Their best work friends are other T’s and A’s (although A’s do frustrate them sometimes).
Energetic and Entrepreneurial – they focus on the big picture and rely on the team to pick up the pieces. They are very inspiring but frustrating to work for if you prefer detailed instruction or guidance. E’s love M’s, and they like T’s because the T’s often save them, but they see A’s as slowing thing down or barriers to progress.
Analytical and detail conscious. A’s do not make decisions or take actions until they have all the facts. They like other A’s, a lot! They quite like T’s, E’s frustrate them and they see M’s as fluffy woolly people who should get on with the job in hand!
Motivators and Collaborators create lots of energy in a team, make people feel valued. They like T’s, E’s and A’s, but often feel personally hurt if others do not take an interest in them
The difficulty with these natural preferences is that when someone is under stress, or in a fantastically good mood, their preferred type changes.
For example, imagine that the John who Sam works with is the M Type John, but every now and then John talks to Sam when he is stressed out. And when John is stressed his modus operandi switches to become a T type.
Imagine how confused Sam feels???
This is an even more bizarre if John is normally an A type, and when under stress shifts to an M type? How does Sam feel now? Suspicious? Noticed at last?
Now imagine everyone in the company was an A Type? How often are decisions made? Next imagine all M Types? How much work is done? As you can imagine, a balanced team, and a balanced organisation needs a balanced mix of types – none is better than the others… and together they make a winning TEAM.
So, which is your dominant type? And how can you make this work for you?
Having a good awareness of your preferred type and how it changes is useful. Having an awareness of others’ preferences is even more useful, as it can help you have more productive working relationships, and you find that you accept people’s “funny little ways” more readily.
The Team Enablement Workout ™ download gives a basic profile of each team type and provides hints and tips on how best to interact with each type. It will also help you identify winning strategies to get the best reaction and support from other the types around you.
You can even ask your colleagues to use the kit and develop a more productive understanding of each other.
Click here to get the Team Enablement Workout™
 | Pennie Raven |
