Teamwork

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You've all heard the expression, "There is no 'i' in 'TEAM'", and that is very true. Everyday you work with other people, it is inevitable: Maybe it is in the classroom, on the sports field, or even at your job. There is a fine balance, however, to making a team successful.

Describe a time you were on a team and it just wasn't working out. What did you do? How did you feel?
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What do you think makes a team successful? What advice would you give to others on a team?
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Tips for working on a Team
This may sound elementary, but many teams screw this up. One thing you will eventually learn is that team members have very different abilities, motivations and personalities. For example, there will be some team members that are totally involved, and others that just want to disappear. If you let people disappear, they become dead weight and a source of resentment and frustration. You must not let this happen!
 * 1. Getting to Know One Another**

If the word "vision" makes you want to puke, think instead "what are we really trying to accomplish? Besides the explicit tasks, what are our real goals?". For example, for a class team, does the team want to do whatever it takes to get an A? Or is having a comfortable workload more important? Does the team want to really get involved with each other socially, or keep interactions to just what's required to do the work? Does the team want an atmosphere of military efficiency, or do they want to horse around and have a good time?
 * 2. Vision**

It is difficult for teams to succeed without a leader. So you should designate someone to play that role. However, you don't need to make the leader omnipotent. There are certain **task & maintenance** functions that need to be performed, and you can have one person do all of them, or you can split up the job among different people.
 * 3. Structure**

Meetings and/or practices can be useless if not done right. One simple thing that helps a lot is having an agenda. Having a written agenda makes it easier for the facilitator to steer things back to the task. Otherwise, if, say, two popular and dominant people in the group start talking about sports, it may difficult for a third party who is not as socially central to bring them back. But if there is an agreed-upon agenda and an agreed-upon length of meeting, a facilitator can say 'I don't know about you guys, but I really want to get out here at 5: if we really want to talk about all the things on the agenda we kind of have to get going...'.
 * 4. Process**

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