The teams prevail or succeed when they collaborate and work towards a common goal.

I was checking with my younger daughter, a 2nd grader about her project. I asked her how did it go? Were you and your friends able to come up with the best collage depicting the Indian culture? My daughter replied, my team was not good they were arguing all the time about who will do what and what should be the quote and later we were left with very little time and we didn’t do as expected. 

I asked her what was stopping you from helping your friends understand that it’s important to work as a team and distribute work evenly. My daughter replied they were not listening ma, what can I do? In between my elder daughter pitched in and started explaining the way her team does the project. 

She went like this:

In my projects, the first thing I tell my team is - We are team, we all have to work together to complete the project. And the team agrees to that. Then we brainstorm on what all activities have to be done for the project. I share my Idea and ask the team to share their ideas as well. We pick the best Idea and then we distribute the work among ourselves evenly. This helps us to give our best for the project. I asked what if someone doesn’t get things related to activity? Or what if someone does not work as per the plan? Generally, we don’t face this situation, but we have 2 persons assigned to one activity so If one forgets others will get. If someone does not work as per the plan we all ask him/her why he/she is not able to contribute and make them realize the consequences and check with them if they need any help and that is when they agree. Then she told l think even my younger sister has to follow the same process. Then they can come up with a good project. 

I went speechless. Wow! What a great example of brainstorming, teamwork, collaboration and commitment to work towards a common goal. Many times I have seen teams at workplace struggle either due to lack of vision or a common goal or due to egoistic problems. Once we are clear about the outcome of working together as a team putting across all the difference we have then no wonders that the team will have better results.