FACTORS TO CONSIDER FOR A BETTER TEAMWORK SPHERE

FACTORS TO CONSIDER FOR A BETTER TEAMWORK SPHERE

While a lot of motivational speakers, leadership mentors, etc. will tell you otherwise, it is a known fact that working with other people no matter how close or friendly you are with them it can be very difficult. As a person, whether you are a leader or a subordinate, you might have tried a lot of strategies with the hopes of trying to improve your relationships with others, or at least, stop yourself from getting on the edge when you are involved in a group work.

But you have consistently found yourself doing the things you thought you could prevent.

Well, there are some strategies that are bound to work when it comes to teamwork and building strong work relationships with others. These strategies will help you work more easily and efficiently with others. Without further ado, let’s get down to the three simple strategies you need to follow in order to be able to work well with your team.

MAKE CAREFUL ASSESSMENT OF YOUR COLLEAGUE’S FEELINGS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE

There’s always that passive aggressive co-worker that’s bound to drive you crazy at work. And it’s quite certain that you’ll end up getting super annoyed, which could either jeopardize the whole project or slow down the progress, most especially if you are the team leader or if you are someone quite important to the team.

Now, being able to control the mood or behavior of your co-worker is literally impossible. But instead of getting annoyed by the way they act, there’s something you could do that will help you prevent that irritation. All you have to do is put yourself in the person’s shoes. Yes! Just imagine why that person is acting that way, look at how you’ll feel, then try to see if that feeling is right or unjust.

Let’s give you an instance. Let’s assume you are a supervisor of a team in the IT department of a company, and you’ve been given three weeks to complete a task. All of a sudden in the second week, the IT director starts putting pressure on you or a member of the team starts nagging about how tired he/she has been, the first thing you’ll need to do is identify why each person might be making these complaints.

In the case of the IT director, the chairman of the company might be putting pressure on him, which will, in turn, make him put pressure on you. For the team member, he/she might not have been getting enough sleep or rest, which might be affecting his/her mental state. Both scenarios will make anyone feel stressed out, and once you are stressed out, every little thing makes you upset.

So once you have yourself in that position, instead of forcing your way, you should try to empathize with them and validate their feelings. This will make them feel heard, and nine times out of ten, they’ll provide you with a calmer response, which will bring about a more reserved conversation and a better solution to the problem at hand.

SAY WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND AND SAY IT CLEARLY

If you really want to work well with your team, you’ll have to ensure that you say things the way they are. There are times when you’ll find yourself in awkward situations, instead of scrambling to make things less awkward, you should portray your point in a clear and concise manner. Trying to make an issue less awkward could put you in a position where you’ll displease yourself in order to please the other person.

Let’s use an example to make this a lot more explanatory. Let’s assume you and your team members are discussing an idea you brought up, and one of your team members tells you the idea is ‘wack’ and they hate it, instead of shutting up and getting angry at yourself or resenting the person, you can easily tell the person that you are not against anyone constructively criticizing your idea, but instead of them saying they hate the idea, they should simply tell you the ways in which they consider the idea to be bad. They should pinpoint what is bad about the idea because telling you they hate it is not constructive in any way.

In short, you need to ensure that you are comfortable with telling people what will work for you and what won’t work for you. You need to ensure that you are not scared of being assertive. You’ll see that your relationship with your team members will become a lot more honest and stronger.

EMPLOY THE USE OF BOUNDARIES

You might be someone who goes all in for everyone without considering the impact it will leave on you or your team. You might be the type that goes like “No Problem!” without having a second thought. Most times, engaging in acts like this can leave you resentful and stressed, which will have a bad effect on you and your teammates.

You need to learn how to set boundaries. Doing this will help you a great deal. Your boss might come in and ask that you and your team work late into the night, meanwhile you and your team have been busy all day. If you are the team leader and you just say yes to your boss’s request, imagine the kind of mental and physical stress it would cause on you and your colleagues -all because you couldn’t set your boundaries. The same thing applies to when a client is trying to squeeze in some last-minute work.

Now, we are not saying you should start saying no to every request made by your boss or your clients; what we are saying is that you should pause and think about the situation. Is it something you and your teammates can cope with? Are you willing to do the job? Is it something you’ll be able to do? All of these should be put into perspective if you are to work efficiently with your teammates.