Team Members and Workplace Chapter

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Group Contract Memo

COLLABORATION

Emily Eldridge's View on Collaboration

In her presentation, "Why Collaboration is an Individual Effort," Emily Eldridge is of the view that though individuals may not be naturally inclined to want to collaborate with others, they must make an individual concerted effort to learn to collaborate as collaboration is a powerful tool in our professional and academic careers. Emily uses her own experiences to explain how her views about collaboration have changed over time. When she was in elementary school, she hated working with other kidspeers. Driven by her introversive and perfectionist character, she always wanted to work alone. For her, it was faster as well as more productive and constructive. According to Emily, collaboration is not necessarily a natural ability as often assumed. Some individuals prefer working alone as they usually perceive other people to be slow, or to have nothing to contribute in a group. With time, however, owing to her encounters with other individuals in the professional world, Emily has come to appreciate that collaboration is a valuable tool for her professional and academic life. In as much as personality is important, and to the extent that one may always want to be heard, they should also learn to listen to other people. Emily argues that whether or not one is naturally inclined to collaborate, they must make an individual effort to collaborate. An individual can learn to collaborate by understanding and articulating their unique perspective, explaining their quirks, valuing the collaborative process and encouraging others, as well as knowing the goal and working hard.

The case of Emily is not isolated. There are many individuals out there who naturally feel more comfortable and productive when working alone. Nonetheless, I cannot agree more with her that today's workplace requires individuals who can collaborate. Workplace tasks have increasingly become complex and demanding, making individual work quite slow and somewhat ineffective. With a culture of teamwork and collaboration, however, the ever more sophisticated tasks can be accomplished faster and in a more effective manner.
A major advantage of collaboration is that it allows diverse perspectives of solving a given problem. While an individual may have a good way of solving the problem, another individual may have an even better approach. Collaboration, therefore, creates synergy. The advantages of collaboration largely explain why team-based processes have become common in the workplace. They also explain why employers are increasingly looking for individuals with the ability to collaborate and work in a team. Even so, this does not necessarily mean that group work is always straightforward -- challenges are often encountered. Some members, for instance, may be uncooperative, which may create interpersonal conflicts. An effective team does not avoid such challenges -- it confronts them and solves them as a group. It is imperative for individuals to learn to be collaborators.

Memo

Subject: Collaboration

As you all might know, collaboration has increasingly become important in today's workplace. In this brief memo, I would like to highlight to you a few things regarding my profile as a team collaborator. First and foremost, I bring to the table excellent communication, interpersonal and conflict management skills, which I have honed over time. I consider these as the three most important skills any team member should have. I strongly believe that it is important for a team collaborator to acknowledge other people's ideas and feelings, listen to their opinions, give credit where it is due, give and seek input from other team members, as well as support group decisions even when they do not entirely agree with them. It is also important for a team collaborator to ensure interpersonal conflicts are resolved in a manner that leads to win-win outcome.

As a team collaborator, I often prefer playing the role of a facilitator. A facilitatorIn so doing, I would enables the team to achieve its goals and objectives coherently, as opposed to leading or guiding the team. Informally, I tend to favor group-based thinking. I acknowledge that it is important….....

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