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Want to learn more? Take a deep dive…

Ashkenas, R. (2010, May 11). How to build an A-team from day one. Harvard Business Review Blog
Network.
Wolski, C. (2013). Factors that promote effective teamwork. Chron.

Job assignments
• Be an active member of a virtual team, ensuring all members stay connected, motivated, and
productive.

• Work on a team handling a high-stakes business issue, where you will need to share information and
make sense of it quickly.

• Assemble a team of diverse people to accomplish a difficult task that requires collaboration and
creative thinking. Agree on purpose, goals, roles, and a structure that best supports the team’s work.

• Coach a team that is demonstrating lack of trust, split focus, or suboptimal performance.
• Lead a community project team outside the workplace, practicing teaming skills you want to improve.
Gather feedback from members of the project team, then apply the feedback on the job.

Take time to reflect…

If you like to go it alone…
…then understand the benefits to be gained from pulling people together. Encourage mutual
support. Build a sense of commitment and cooperation. Instill this in the team and become more
comfortable with it yourself.

If your long-standing team works just fine the way it is…
…then ask yourself is it effective, or does it just feel good? Is it actually performing or just a
comfortable place to be? A positive team atmosphere is only great when team results are also
great.

If you think every group is automatically a team…
…then recognize that teams have to be formed and nurtured. It takes effort, commitment,
alignment, and a great deal besides. Teamwork doesn’t happen by accident; it happens by
design.

“When was ever honey made with one bee in a hive?”

Thomas Hood – British humorist and poet

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