teams' skills

...vive la difference

team roles

A team's purpose can only be met by the skills within it. A balanced set of skills is the most efficient way to cover your team needs.

A team has task needs. Skills that get the task done. These are usually well defined and easy to identify when recruiting a team; it could be as obvious as selecting by profession or job title.

A team also has team needs. Skills that help maintain the working relationship of the team. These are individual and interpersonal skills that aren't normally advertised or listed on a CV or resume.

A substantial amount of work has been done on team roles i.e., the idea of balancing contributions from individuals to cover team needs. Dr Meredith Belbin has published some of the most notable work on team roles. Belbin has defined 9 main roles that people tend to adopt in their work. A person can operate in any role, of course as humans are multi-talented, but normally one tends to operate (and be most comfortable) working in one/two/three roles. Find out more.

individuals' skills

Teams are made up of individuals too, best not to forget this.

one rotten attitude, and your whole barrel is compromised

or more positively,

every person can make a difference to a team.

Investing in inter-personal skills will always pay off ... even at team level.

Start by noticing (your own) attitudes to the following areas:

• Self awareness
• Take a personality type test, listen to your language patterns, notice the kinds of things that irritate you. What are your anger flash-points?
• Acceptance
• How are irritating people and situations handled? Is everything that should be addressed actually addressed? Are unimportant issues easily resolved?
• Co-operation
• Does co-operation occur or is it really competition and/or tolerance?
• Working together with others.

Do you recognise others abilities, skills and contributions; do you tell them?

Notice and follow up areas that cause confusion or conflict with others.

Work out a plan of actions that can be taken to help identify and provide opportunity to lessen confusion or conflict and make working with others easier.

Remember, there is no panacea, and as each person is individual different techniques will work for different individuals.