How I Think Teamwork Should Be

Disclaimer: The previous article has for some reason led to an awkward situation for me with someone I know, despite all the similarities and situations in that article, I by no way mean that person or anything about him, it was a recall of an experience I encountered, and I wanted to share it for myself first, and others to whatever possible benefits out of it. So I’m sorry I caused that situation to happen without my intention.

As a second part for previous article, I feel the need to list my own experience with team work and how I think it is great and where I felt I made mistakes and how I should have corrected them.

I’m working in a small team, we are 3 engineers in total, one of us is a network engineer, the other and I are systems engineers. Each one of course has his own trade and speciality, but what makes the experience is different is that we are not just doing our jobs, we are able to assist each other in some tasks, and sometimes in large activities and tasks…

I like to call our environment similar to DevOps, but here there is no code to work with.. instead we share our tasks and activities together… Our network engineer has taken responsibility of 2 Google Apps projects so far, and we’ve been assisting him in the new technical tasks and activities for him, though those projects, he completely handled the communications and arrangements with customers.. We do some basic network work with him, and he assists us with information, and configuration scenarios of how things should be done…

And our other systems engineer handles many tasks and usually his tasks involve the need of network or passive team support…

But when things get more deep, we all get into one team and work on it, I have gone out with our network engineer to his sites, and he has gone out with me to my sites, and we managed to close and solve all of our pending problems because we have worked together and put our thoughts on one problem until it was resolved…

That of course does not mean that we do each other’s work, I know things they don’t know and they can’t work with, and they know things I can’t work with and I don’t know, so to me it is an integration process, where we assist, and cover each other gaps and misses.

To me, if you want to get a good teamwork and interactions, there are few rules, or points to keep in mind during the team interaction:

1. Even if all the team members are working together, that does not mean they are available all the time, give them their time when they need it, they might not be the type who tell you straight that they need time, so watch for their behaviour, they might look not to be interested with their surroundings, so that’s the signal you want!
2. Team work is about assisting and helping each other, but first, in order to get your own spot in the team, you have to show yourself as a good team player, before asking someone’s help, try solving the issue yourself first, show them the result of your research because even if your research was wrong, there is going to be something positive out of it… Researching is never a waste of time, whatever the result was you will get some new knowledge from it!
3. Working in a team is like being in a family, so the good, and the bad sides of all team members will be seen, it is more important to focus on the good side of everyone. The team did not get together if its members hated each other… they might criticise each other, but they might not hate each other… One team member might not have the skill to point out a negative thing in another team member, so he might use a wrong method for that, that does not mean hate, or dis-respect, or underestimation… it simply means that there is care and interest in the team and among its members.

What I like most about the team I’m member of is the environment is just open and relaxed, even with the issues every employee faces in work whatever that issue is, the atmosphere in the team makes it different from the rest of the office environment, and that’s a great thing and I liked it very much!

One last thing, the management has its effects on the performance of the team meSo I’m sorry I caused that situation to happen without my intentionmbers. Bad management will result in bad team performance and even bad team feelings among the members. Managers have the same responsibility of keeping the team together just as the team members themselves…