Who is in your work team?
We tend to think that our team members are those in the same department or all those who report to the same boss. Actually, most of us find that we work more with people from other departments than we do with people in our own. See if this is true for you.
The Star Exercise shows just how complex everyone's job is and how many people we deal with daily. It shows how often we are internal customers ourselves and how often colleagues are internal customers of ours.
Instructions
- Take a sheet of paper and draw a circle in the centre. Enter your name in the circle. This is the centre of the star.
- Add circles around your circle containing the people, departments or areas who you deal with in doing your job. Most of these will be outside of your department.
- Draw an arrow between each of these circles and your circle.
- If you receive things (instructions, materials, information, paperwork and so on) from this person or department, draw the arrow with the tip towards your self.
- It you give things (instructions, materials, information, paperwork and so on) to this person or department, draw the arrow with the tip towards that person.
- Select the two or three relationships that are most important to your job. Highlight these with bolder lines
Star Exercise - Key Learning Points
- Most people find that their jobs are a lot more complex than they thought.
- There are a large number of people who depend on us. They cannot do their jobs properly unless we do ours well.
- There are a number of people we depend upon. We cannot do our jobs properly unless they do theirs well.
- There are a number of people we ought to get to know well. They are important to our work lives. The better weunderstand them and work with them, the better we can do our jobs.
- All firms and companies are very complex. They are messy complicated systems Good employees learn how to cope with the mess and think ahead.
- Good team members think about the result of their actions. "What will happen elsewhere, if I do this - or I don't do this?"
- Good team members take responsibility for their part of the system.
- If one of the links in the system breaks down, then something will not happen.
- When we have problems, the cause of it is often somewhere else in the system.
- When other people have problems, it may be that we caused it - from a distance.
- In fact, problems are normal! If everything was automatic, the firm would not need us!
- Mistakes are OK as long as you learn from them - and they don't happen again.
- The greater the risk that something will go wrong, the more carefully you need to make sure you understand the task.
- Our colleagues should be on our side. We should be on theirs. Success comes from helping each other.
- Be lucky!
For more information on understanding teams , team building training and team development visit Call of the Wild's website.
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