Three Teamwork Essentials

Based on participating in various successful team efforts in the business, government, academic, and volunteer sectors, I am convinced that the three key elements of successful teamwork are  

In these situations, the word vision may be too lofty, may not be appropriate. Instead use an end point term like objective or goal and, as with vision, seek a strong and shared commitment to it. 

Identify potential team members with diversity of knowledge, skills, and attitudes being the key consideration. Team creators should resist the temptation to clone themselves. Sure, that would be more comfortable, but the lack of diversity would also greatly limit the team s potential. Secondarily, find individuals with basic personal and interpersonal skills like those discussed in Chapters 2, 3, and this chapter. That is, to use the Chapter 2 metaphor, seek team members who have their personal house in order in that they know how to manage their time, set and achieve goals, delegate, listen, write, speak, and do what they say they will do (DWTSTWD). 

Stated differently, avoid dysfunctional individuals. Behavioral red flags include cynicism, aloofness, an I win-you lose mentality, discomfort with ambiguity, impatience with indecisiveness, defensiveness in response to criticism, and intolerance of other people s mistakes. By the way, this list is taken from an article by consultant Thompson (1996) titled Engineers Don t Always Make the Best Team Players. Perhaps we could also substitute geologist, architect, planner, accountant and so on for engineer Time for a little introspection  

Sometimes teams, and their members, are collectively so dysfunctional that they do not recognize that they are dysfunctional. They think that the following are normal  

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TEAMWORK This exercise s purpose is to help you test the validity of the three teamwork essentials described in this chapter and to reflect on the forming-storming-norming-performing process. Suggested tasks are ... 

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