the last word
Owning Your Role on a Team
IT’S CRUCIAL TO KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH YOUR
DIFFERENT TEAM MEMBERS
By Erin Wortham
When people come together to form a team, they come
with their professional role, which is connected to
their official responsibilities, and they also come
with their personal role, which is connected to their
personality and interpersonal preferences. This combination of
personal and professional roles manifests in different ways for different
teams. For instance, a high-level strategist might be the first
to come up with the concept or idea for a team project, a detailoriented
tactician might jump in to craft team program deadlines,
an energy-filled manager may be the first to delegate and execute a
plan and an events coordinator could be the first to start the team
email thread to make sure everybody knows the plan.
Regardless of the strengths and weaknesses of each person in a
team, the group’s collective success can be traced back to the ability
of each person within the team to be able to do two things:
understand themselves and understand others. When individuals
are armed with both self-awareness and the ability to recognize
and respect other peoples’ differences, the teams they’re a part of
will benefit.
Below are some tips to start strengthening these characteristics:
■■ Be mindful of your own personality. If you spend a little
time trying to figure out how you come across to others, you
are rewarded by getting increased insight into how to work
with others. Development opportunities rooted in personality
assessment methodology can help individuals and teams
identify interpersonal preferences. You can also start with a
personal inventory. Write down the answers to these questions:
What are the top three strengths I bring to the team? How do my
strengths contribute to the success of the team? Have I ever showed
up to team efforts without bringing my strengths? and What can
I do today to increase my responsibility for the team’s success? The
key is to move from “I”-type thinking to “we”-type thinking.
■■ Pretend you’re a private eye – and then use what you
learn. Take an inventory of your other team members. List
what value they bring to the team, both in terms of skills and
personal attributes. Watch their style and their body language,
and ask them questions. Find out whether they prefer email
communication to speaking face-to-face. See if they like to
gather their thoughts on an issue by group brainstorming out
loud, or if they prefer to reflect on their own for a bit and later
send written responses. Then, speak to your teammates in their
language, not yours. Use what you’ve learned to communicate
in a way that is most comfortable to them. Since most teams
include a variety of different personalities, you’ll build up a wide
toolset of communication styles and adapting techniques that
can help you connect with colleagues in almost any scenario.
■■ Worry about the conversations you’re not having. Unspoken
issues can become big roadblocks to team effectiveness.
Working through issues together brings about a stronger
team bond. If you’re thinking about discussing an issue with
another team member, first ask yourself: How can I broach this
topic respectfully? As you listen to their responses, be sure to
offer the most respectful interpretation you can to their words
and intentions.
Almost 90 per cent of employees and employers in a recent survey
cited lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for
workplace failures. Taking the time to understand other team
members, nurture communication and work through issues pays
off in both productivity and increased job satisfaction. n
Erin Wortham is the people engagement manager at Insights
Learning and Development and manages the organization’s global
employee engagement strategy.
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48 ❚ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL