Успех компании во многом зависит от того, насколько слаженно и продуктивно работает ее команда. Стоит отметить, что любая команда живет по своим законам. При этом основной целью командного взаимодействия должно стать стремление поднять общий уровень мотивации всех "игроков" и наладить между ними взаимодействие, посредством которого можно разрешить конфликты любого уровня.
Выбор правильных членов команды абсолютно критичен! Грамотный участник команды всегда протянет руку, когда вы стоите на другом конце "моста", полный отчаяния и страха...

Camilo Roman Cepeda, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

Представьте, что вы - студент бизнес-школы. Вам задают подготовить командный проект по маркетингу к завтрашнему утру. Какую роль вы будете выполнять внутри команды? Поспеете ли к deadline?

When approaching difficult situations that involve working with others to achieve a common goal, a close friend once advised me, "Always err on the side of people." I have internalized his point to strengthen interpersonal relationships rather than risk compromising them. In the situation described, I would strive to preserve the team synergy and cohesion, while focusing on the goal at hand.

I step back from the immediate situation and consider that even after the 9 a.m. deadline passes, the people on my team will determine the success of future projects that will reflect on each of us individually. Oftentimes, teams lose sight of this, converting frustration into blame and performing subsequent damage control rather than developing a solution. In the process of solving our current impasse, we have to take great care to maintain respect for one another and to focus on leveraging our individual strengths. Consensus on decisions is rarely 100 percent or even 80 percent, but 100 percent commitment to an objective can be achieved with due respect and impartial treatment of individuals on a team.

During a senior design class, I was part of a 20-member product development team designing a battery powered water-submersible kickboard. Monday was the date of our prototype technical demonstration; the preceding Saturday night six of us responsible for the prototype demonstration convened in the fourth floor wood shop with one waterlogged kickboard needing repairs. In addition to being under tremendous pressure to execute quickly, we were handicapped by the absence of two team members who had also committed to Saturday night.



Stress made some of those present livid over the absence of the two other members. After we spent an hour determining how to prepare the prototype for Monday, I worked to preserve team harmony. Having unsuccessfully tried to contact the absentees by phone and email, I suggested that we concentrate on completing the highest priority actions and not waste energy arguing how to exact retribution on the absentees. Preserving team effectiveness required scrutinizing the tasks and reassessing roles and responsibilities.The key skill I exercised was building consensus around what needed to be done and garnering commitment to complete the tasks according to our prioritization. I also applied my listening skills to allow our most frustrated teammates to vent their anger; I helped them rationalize that we could still get the job done by alternate means. In this case, I contacted one of the members of our business presentation team to cover for the absentees. She agreed that switching roles with the absentees would be best for the team. My efforts enabled us to complete our task without sacrificing team unity.

I know that my efforts to preserve harmony in those tense times were highly valued by my teammates; my peer review was testament to this. We were effective at delivering our objectives not at the expense of the individuals on our team. Just like the Learning Team, our members were not selected; we had to introduce ourselves and collectively achieve the team objective. My approach to the hypothetical situation would focus the team on the deliverables at hand and would obtain the commitment to execute. Perhaps the impasse could be addressed by a similar redistribution of work based on the different strengths of our team.

Considering that all the team members are genuinely capable (after all, they are Wharton students), the challenge is not to execute, but to treat everyone equitably and with due respect. Congruous with the notion of being a true Learning Team, I would further propose to examine the root cause of our predicament and take steps to address it for future projects. Throughout the process, we have to decouple the difficulty or problem from the individuals. This protects individual dignity while allowing the team to focus on the challenge.

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