Principles for a good life

Teamwork is required in quite a few situations in life, in fact in adult life, there were very few situations where I was not required to work in a team. I remember the time when I was part of a development team, even without a manager, where we were required to execute a certain project. When we managed to realize the potential of each of us in the best way, and we managed to do something that we alone would not have succeeded - the feeling was amazing ... I managed to recreate that feeling a few times after, and each time I was amazed by the power of people doing something together.

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That's not the situation in school, unfortunately. Both in school and in higher education institutions, the emphasis is always on personal achievement, so the skills of teamwork are not really taught and assimilated in us.

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Teamwork has a deep need for communication. Mostly communication. One of the tools I have found to be very effective in such situations is non-violent communication , so I recommend delving into it before delving into this topic of teamwork. The principle of teamwork, as opposed to working in a group or individually, is to achieve more together than it's possible when everyone is working alone. This is called synergy, and it is a very significant principle. When you manage to reach synergy in a team, things flow almost without having to manage.

 

But yes this is a process, a process that requires investment of energy. Not every team manages to reach this stage of synergy, there are teams that are stuck for a long time in less productive situations. On the right side of the page in the presentation I show the different steps in team building, and what it takes to move from step to step.

 

It also takes mental flexibility, openness, effective conflict resolution, and structured processes (such as the six-cap process I present in the presentation) to fully utilize the team's capabilities for performance.

 

Personally I function much better on the team. Not only because of the variety, but I find that people around me manage to challenge me, enrich my imagination and creativity, find potential problems, and in general, think differently from me.

 

One of the things I would very much like to convey to the students, is the supreme feeling when they manage to build an effective team over time ... to get there I guess I need a team around me :-)