Teamwork is the New Gold Standard: 6 Key Lessons from Working on a Team
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘teamwork’ — pleasant experience or one of your worst experiences?
Different people have different experiences from working with a team or on a team.
For me, working with a team has been a whole new opportunity to learn and grow. For some time now I have had the privilege to work on different teams with quite a number of people to achieve specific goals and it has been quite an experience. In this article, I recount my experience and the lessons learnt from working on a team that hosted one of Africa’s leading internal communication experts.
It was a bright evening and I had just finished a session with a mentor — Dr Chinemelu Ezeh, who happened to be the Senior Robotics Engineer at Hyster-Yale Group when I got the information that I was to facilitate the second Digest Session for March at the StudentBuild incubator.
Note: Digest Sessions at StudentBuild are a monthly session with industry experts during which the fellows are introduced to topics that give them insights into the skills and knowledge competencies that they need to effectively stand out and produce exceptional results after graduation from the university.
We were to have Oluchi Ezeugo, the Senior Coordinator, Global Internal Communications at Andela, speak to us on communication in the workplace, and I was to facilitate the session. However, I was not to do it all alone. I had been paired with Humainat Raji, who also happens to be a fellow at StudentBuild, to facilitate this session.
Oluchi Ezeugo is a top, professional communicator with over 10 years of experience in handling workplace communication. She has facilitated several technology meetings in 3 different countries of the world and counting.
I did not know what to think of this news — whether it was bad news or good news that was wrongly timed.
I thought it was bad news because I had absolutely no experience facilitating sessions, let alone that which will host one of Africa ‘s most leading internal communication experts.
On the flip, I thought it was good news and was elated because, of course, it’s not every day that you get to talk to a top industry expert as an undergraduate. Moreover, I thought it was an opportunity to finally push myself to get better at speaking. I also love a good challenge.
The first thing I thought about when I got the news was, ‘Yo! I have never facilitated a session before. So, why me? Oluchi is a pro communicator and facilitator. Do you want me to embarrass myself?’
These were the questions I was asking myself.
In the end, the session turned out to be amazing and great. This process taught me a lot of new things, some of which I have documented below for your consumption.
Some of the lessons that I have gathered In working on this project are
01. Don’t be afraid to express your fears
Expressing my fear was the first thing that I did that gave me a shot at having successful facilitation. Immediately I was informed about me facilitating the session with Oluchi, I spoke up and expressed my concerns and fears. I was not scared of looking stupid. I also did not deceive myself by trying to figure it out on my own. My ability to come open and express my fears allowed me to get access to top quality advice that was helpful to me. I spoke to the Team Lead at StudentBuild — Elijah Shokenu, and a Program Associate — Abiodun Odunade, who were both very accommodating. They gave me insights into understanding the topic the session was going to be all.
02. Study! put in the work!
Following the insights obtained from consulting from Elijah and Fiwa, I got to work immediately. It was quite fortunate for me that I had about 48 hours to prepare for the session. I spent a large chunk of the 48 hours learning everything that I could learn about workplace communication. I had jotted notes pinned everywhere on my board. I utilized all the resources I had at my disposal. I did a lot of research online and most especially I reached out to people who already had years of experience in workplace communication. I reached out to Gideon, who is a senior executive at Nigeria’s largest beverage company, Nestle PLC. Gideon explained in simple terms the different types of communicators, in the form of a case study. He spoke about three types of communicators — the unyielding communicator who always thinks that he is right, the agreeable communicator who never opine, object or speak up and the ideal communicator who has been able to successfully find a balance between expressing himself freely, critically analyzing an idea and coherently expressing his thoughts.
Furthermore, I reached out to Anthony, who has had experience working for Procter and Gamble in Nigeria and who currently works at Siemens Energy, Germany. The benefit of this was that they shared their knowledge with me in a simple and easy to understand way.
Part of my preparation was getting to understand the speaker/guest lecturer. I observed her public profiles, what she does, what she is passionate about and what her interests are. With all this information at my disposal, I was confident that I was well-prepared to facilitate the session.
03. Don’t make decisions on your own
When working on a team, it is important that you do not single-handedly make and execute decisions as this defeats the whole idea of being a team. In working with my partner, Humainat, we consulted each other on almost everything that we did relating to the task we were given. We critiqued and analysed each other’s opinions and ideas so that only the best ideas were executed. This meant that there was a perfect communication line between my partner and me, even though we worked virtually on the project. We were constantly communicating until the project was executed. Therefore, communication is key to the success of a team.
04. Every team needs an ‘ideator’ and executor
In forming teams, the strengths of the team members complement each other. In teaming up with Humainat, we were able to come up and execute some amazing ideas like using an open conversation case study to ignite the interest of the audience and to create excitement before the session. What this achieved was to get the people all excited about the session that they could not wait to attend the session. I think team members should not be afraid to discuss their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the task to be done, with other teammates. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
05. Prep your audience
This is very important because the success of any event is based on how well the audience can derive the maximum benefit from the session. We needed to create some sparks of excitement in the minds of the audience. An excited audience is more receptive to knowledge, open to learning and will produce better engagement with our guest lecturer. We were big on engagement because the session was to have a Q/A segment after the lecture.
We were able to successfully create this excitement in our audience by:
- Getting them to know the speaker. This we achieved by introducing the audience to the speaker’s profile before the date of the session. Introducing Oluchi as an experienced expert in communication created an aura that showed the uniqueness of our guests.
- Getting the audience to understand what they will be getting. We threw in a teaser and had a virtual drama about a workplace case study. Humainat played the role of a difficult boss and we had the audience play the role of the employee. They were to figure out how to convince a difficult boss that their idea of a project was worth giving a try. There was excitement in the audience as they played this role.
- reminding the audience about the session frequently. Life can get very busy and people’s priority change. It is, therefore, important that you want to always send a reminder to the audience through the platforms that they are most comfortable with accurate details about where and when the program will hold.
06. Breathe! Everything will be fine
I think the most important lesson that I picked from this is that with thorough preparation and teamwork (where applicable), success is inevitable. When you have paid your due diligence by adequately preparing, just breathe and be confident that everything will play out well.
It turns out that you never know you can do it until you do it.
This was an experience that I will not forget anytime soon.
If you are wondering what StudentBuild is about, allow me to introduce you to StudentBuild.
StudentBuild is a human capacity development company that is building the future of Africa by connecting her most ambitious students with real-world professional learning opportunities.
It runs both a community program and incubator program that seek to help over 10,000 students acquire competences, that not only help them get a job but also pave success paths for them should they decide to venture in entrepreneurship or other careers paths.
You can join the StudentBuild Community here
