Team Work Makes the dream work #EBS27

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”  LBS taught me this just within six weeks of my stay in the school.

Team work has never been my area of strength. I thrived doing things on my own. My belief was” alone I can move mountains”

I avoided anything that had to do with Team study , group work and the rest. It was a total waste of my time in my own opinion.

LBS showed me that was not the way to go. LBS introduced the concept of groupwork into the structure of the program. Our program manager informed us that we were going to be divided into groups. My morale dropped. Not again. More Drama( People Wahala).

We were told the rationale behind the creation of the group. It was for course assignments and projects throughout the duration of the program. We were told to leverage on each others strength to get our assignments and projects done. This made sense right?

Lagos Business School did something really smart. They taught us about emotional intelligence and the nature of human behavior. They knew that were going to need it in the course of our group interactions and they were right.

In my group interactions, I discovered we were multi-skilled individuals. We had the communicators, the data analytics, the Financial analysts, Public relations experts etc. My team members are smart individuals. Very smart individuals.

The group dynamics was fantastic. We put into practice what we were taught during the emotional intelligence class.

Our group exhibited the following traits:

Firstly, we leveraged on each other’s strength when given an assignment to do. I remember our first assignment together. We did not even have to give out roles. My team took on roles where they had an absolute advantage. The work was done in little or no time. I was impressed. I said to myself, this is not a bad group at all.

Secondly, we communicated well with one another. We were not at each others throat. We gave room for people to freely express their thoughts, their ideas. We leveraged on the principles of emotional intelligence. This shaped up our group. In as much as we argued over how to go about certain assignments, we did not take any of these things personal. We understood that it was all about the assignment or course work.

Thirdly, we had members, who went above and beyond so that the group can thrive. No one was left behind as we can only be as strong as the weakest link.

Fourthly, members of the group demonstrated empathy. We considered each other’s work schedule when deciding on the time to meet. When some members were not available to meet , the other team mates covered for each other.

Group 2 showed me what it means to work in a team. We have become a sub-family. We reach out and look out for each other. It made me realize, truly, that Together Everyone Achieves More. I also now know that great things are rarely achieved by just one person.