Module 127 - We are in this together no matter the position or the title

Working together as one highly efficient and effective team

It is an awesome feeling and sight when a group of people work together as one team to accomplish a common goal, task, or project. Why? Because, each person in a group knows their specific responsibility and are highly skill in what they do. Therefore, when they work in a team, everything runs like clock-work – efficient, effective, and on time. Nobody is thinking about what other members of the same team are doing, they just worry about their own task/project at hand and give their undivided attention and energy towards that one thing. Also, when a specific task has been completed, they move on to another project without waiting until someone comes to them to tell them what to do, they just do it.

One of the examples of an awesome team work that I’ve observed recently is a construction crew working on building a new house. Crew arrives very early in the morning while most people steel asleep and begin setting up their work area, bring required materials, begin mixing concrete to lay bricks later, creating a functional place to work throughout the day. Then each individual person of the crew begins to work on their own project in the overall main objective or goal of building a house. They bring materials tools and materials that they need for work and begin. One person may be working on preparing the concrete throughout the day and deliver it to other crew members who need it. Another person may be laying bricks, and that is what they do all day until the job is done. The best part is, project manager who is overseeing the entire project and serves as point of contact for all questions that may arise from the builder, supplier, or person whose house is being built, he does not stand there, doing nothing and micromanaging, instead, he rolls up his sleeves and begins to do his part in helping the crew with construction work. Therefore, when you look at the work of an effective construction crew you see highly efficient, focused, and supporting team that works together to accomplish the main goal, regardless of their individual positions or titles.

If every team can work together just like in the example with construction crew shared earlier, we would see time spent on completion of a particular assignment or project reduce significantly, and as we all know that time is money. Therefore, if we can complete a project in less time delivering the same high-quality work, then we would be able to save time and money, and as result complete more projects, make more sales, and create more revenue for our business.
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Unfortunately, very often instead of focusing on our own work and do it to the best of our ability because we are the subject matter experts in a particular line of work, instead we tend to focus our attention on others and monitor as well as often criticize their work even though we may have limited knowledge or understanding of a task at hand. Therefore, what happens in this situation the one who is being monitored or micromanaged tends to constantly worry about what they are doing and how they are doing it, even though the are the subject matter experts in their line of work, but because they are constantly being corrected, they being to second-guess themselves. When this happens productivity drops, time is wasted, and project’s completion time is therefore extended, often missing originally set deadlines. Why not allow a subject matter expert to do their work without interruptions and constant control? Why not focus on your own tasks that need to be completed, tasks in which you are a subject matter expert? Why not have confidence in your team members, help them, not criticize them, and work together as one effective and efficient team? Wouldn’t you agree that working together is much more fun and enjoyable vs. working alone? ​

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I hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did