Distinguishing Yourself
by Ron Venckus

Teamwork

From the thousands of resumes I have read it seems that everyone who has a staff feels that teamwork is a competency for them. Webster’s Dictionary, identifies a TEAM as a number of people working on a common task. Webster’s also identifies TEAMWORK, as a QUALITY, whereby individuals unselfishly subordinate their own part to the general effort of the group with whom they are working. Over several years I have interviewed thousands of applicants, at all organizational levels, and I do not recall hearing anyone talking about the effectiveness of their team in terms of these definitions. Let’s look at the competency TEAMWORK from another point of view:

This definition might be teamwork or team building is the business of creating a common purpose between a diverse group of individuals and building group commitments towards the accomplishment of corporate goals. Now that I think of it, it does match Webster’s thoughts but uses different words.

If that is the case and we look at the components of teamwork, we find such things as, communication, listening, presenting, gathering ideas and feedback, motivation, sharing values, dealing with conflict and exercising patience.

Okay, we have an idea about what makes up the competency: TEAMWORK, so our question now is: How will we talk about the effectiveness of our team during an interview? A typical question during an interview might be, Tell me about your greatest success while working with a team. Our first thought must be, how can I bring the success of my team to life and, at the same time, get a message across about who I am as a manager?

Consider the following for building an answer to that question; how can I demonstrate my ability to foster:

open dialog coaching skills listening with empathy collaboration with the team participative management skills being a servant to the staff staff meeting structure for maximum benefit the ability to set clear performance goals identifying the strengths of the staff

fairness how the sharing of personal values may affect the team respect for others building personal credibility resolving conflict motivation building group goals interpersonal savvy integrity and trust compassion delegation priority setting

Going back to our original question, tell me about your greatest success while working with a team? This success could be demonstrated by first using one of your SHARE events, and then adding a comment at the end: “I believe the reason I enjoyed successes like this, was first of all, my ability to foster open communication. Secondly, my ability to restate corporate goals in terms of individual goals enables my team to view them as worthy of effective effort.”

If you answer the question in this manner, then you will have brought your competency, TEAMWORK, to life for the interviewer.

About the author: Ron Venckus