Today the stress of work, home and school can spoil most anyones optimism and enthusiasm. Teamwork within a group of people needs to be handled so that any stressors are handled. We had a recent episode of teambuilding, or is that team dividing, the other day.

Where I work, and many others, there are mixed crowds of engineers, law enforcement types, contractors and sub contractors. In my workplace, the contractors do a certain job, which is to maintain network connectivity. A certain person named Bob didnt like the work of the contractors. He actually thought it was so bad, it was worth joking about. The author of this didnt think the entire line of jokes was all that funny, but continued to deal with it and not cause a fuss, thinking it would stop someday. Well, it never stopped, and one day the author had sent an email, carefully crafted and worded regarding a project he had worked on for some time. The person replied to the contractors email with a single line. A single email, a single line of apathy stating that he thought it would work just as bad as some other projects.

What was the result of that single email? Hurt feelings, team disruption, and a reason for the person to discuss the issue with others to put an end to it.

The take away lesson from this:

Teamwork is a combination of good friends, serious professionalism, fun and respect. People enjoy spreading rumors, talking garbage, and listening to peoples mistakes. Admit it, its FUN! But we need to keep in mind that these things can also degrade a teams ability to perform. Technology in todays workplace is not going away and we will continue to have skill sets very diverse from one person to the next. Abilities come from training and experience. Some people are better at one thing that others are not. The key to keeping your team fighting and strong is with good leadership and professionalism when needed. Let your people laugh and joke, but not at the expense of others. And of course dont spread opinion and trivialities through email. Email is permanent and can easily be taken out of context.

Copyright 2006, Rod Deluhery. Read more at op911.net, Technology in emergency operations.

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