Become a Highly Valued Member of Your Team
Working on a team presents a unique set of challenges, especially when the team must work on a common goal. The challenges include headbangers like: people don’t always pull their weight, roles and assignments are fuzzy and team members have different views and work styles. This doesn’t mean you have to battle your way to the end. With a little self-examination and some good habits, you can become a highly valued and effective member of your team.
Contents
Steps
People Depend on You Just as You Depend on Them
- Be reliable. Nobody likes working with a team member who says they’ll do something and then has no follow-through other than an endless list of excuses. If you’re that person, then put some thought into your claims before committing them on paper or to a group.
- Map out a plan that, when you look at it, makes you feel confident about delivering what you've promised. Include a backup plan and a check-in point, so if you’re not on track, you can let your team know.
- If you’re not sure how to come up with a trustworthy plan-of-action, sit down with a boss or co-worker who can help you out.
- Set aside perfectionism. Teamwork is not about being perfect—–change happens around the clock at work, everyone knows that. Of course, being reliable is also about staying focused and working towards a goal. Keep your eyes on the end result, follow through, deliver what you say you will and more people will see you as trustworthy.
- If you have passive aggressive traits, such as saying you'll do something but either not bothering to do it or doing it badly, then teamwork will be hard for you (and your team members will not fail to notice your reticence). By making a choice to stop acting passive aggressively, you'll enjoy teamwork a whole lot more and may learn a thing or two about giving and receiving help.
An Informed Team is a Stable Team
- Share information and resources with your team. Some people think they increase their career worth if they’re the one with all the information. It depends how you play this. Hoarding resources and then trotting out your smarts at opportune moments will not get you far; after all, nobody likes a know-it-all. Withholding information until the spotlight shines on you alone is a surefire way to lose support.
- Instead, make yourself a necessary part of the team by sharing all your information, knowledge and resources freely––be the "go-to" person that people feel they can trust. Take a page from people-centric business expert Tim Sanders’ book Love is the Killer App: Be a lovecat – a rich, open source of knowledge.
- Keep your project manager informed about your progress. Even with the most collaborative planning tools, you probably have a lead project manager who oversees the delivery of a project (even if her title isn’t “Project Manager”). This person initiates tasks and assigns work to all other team members. In some groups, this person could be your boss or a team leader, and is generally the one who takes the fall if things go south. When you show respect for your project lead’s responsibilities – by meeting deadlines, communicating changes and being reliable – you make an important person’s life easier and raise your value quotient.
Allowing for Growth as a Team
- Respect other people’s work styles. We all know this one: Everyone is different and we all have our own work styles. Just because a team member approaches a task or challenge at a different angle than you would doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So if you don’t understand what a teammate is doing or saying, ask questions until you find a common ground. Clearing up the differences in your processes will help you work together more fluidly going forward, and who knows––you might even learn a thing or two!
- In many cases, the outcome is what matters, such as making the deadline with quality work. If your team member approaches the work in a manner that perplexes you but still delivers, it's probably fine. However, in some cases, if methodology or accuracy require a specific way to achieve something, and your teammate is dodging this, it's time to have a pointed chat.
- Be flexible and willing to change. Projects hardly ever go as planned, so there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself doing “surprise” work in order to move a project forward. It could be helping a teammate with some tasks, taking over part of a ballooning project, you name it. If you can roll with these change requests with a positive attitude and pitch in where needed, this will earn you those key points as “team player.”
- If you’re a good problem solver and naturally willing to do whatever (within reason) the team needs of you, it could be that flexibility is one of your greatest strengths. Every team needs a flexible player, so play to it!
Staying Upbeat
- Be positive. You can’t do everything perfectly, which means you’re going to get constructive feedback every once in a while. This is how each of us learns and builds our career skills. So when you do get constructive feedback, try to take it with a positive attitude.
- Keep in mind that not everyone’s great at their feedback delivery, so don’t take it personally if it comes out blunt and seems a tad insensitive. Instead, just focus on the part that you can learn from.
- Keep it meaningful. If a boss sets out a plan of action and you can rise to the occasion and meet it––well, how many ways can you say “raise” and “promotion”? At the end of the day, however, you know what matters even more than raises and promotions: the feeling of doing meaningful work in a team that fosters your talents and being appreciated and valued for the good work you do. Focus most on how you can do your part in the equation and see the world rise up to meet you.
Tips
- Teamwork has cultural implications. Don't assume that someone is being challenging on purpose. For example, a person might be quieter than you'd hoped for within a team, out of respect rather than out of a desire to be difficult. Culturally, not every person is attuned to teamwork in a similar way, so always be prepared to ask directly and thoughtfully for ideas, concerns and suggestions.
- Teamwork isn't for everyone or for every project. Socially we are educated to place teamwork at the pinnacle of all workplace interactions but realistically, some things are better off done by pairs or individuals. If there are lots of clashes, too many solutions without certainty as to which will work best or nobody is willing to do the intricate hard stuff because they're in a "team", sometimes using fewer people makes sense. If you are absolutely certain that a teamwork project might be better off with less people or pairing off, come up with good, sound reasons and ask your boss to listen. He or she may not agree but then again, you might be persuasive enough.
Warnings
- Unless you have been designated leader of your team, don't try to undermine the person who has been. If you truly feel this person is leading poorly, come up with factual instances of bad decision-making or missed deadlines and take the issue up with your supervisor. Until then, speak openly and clearly about your concerns without undermining your leader or team.
