What We Can Learn from Our Teammates

We know how frustrating it can be working in a dysfunctional team and that’s why we want to share with you Asian Efficiency’s secret sauce to teamwork. When we first started, we didn’t have a high-performing team. We had team members all over the world, two founders who never built a company before, and we had to figure it out as the business grew. 

Fast forward to today and we have a high-performing team that can hold each other accountable and only misses a deadline once in a blue moon. Although some dynamics might not be similar to yours (working in an office vs working virtually), the essence of a highly productive team remains the same. 

1. Trust is the foundation of teamwork

In the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, he emphasizes Trust as the foundation for teamwork. Without it, everything else will fail.  At Asian Efficiency, trust accelerates collaboration and getting stuff done. 

We all trust each other’s capabilities and skills. At the same time, because trust allows us to be vulnerable without the fear that this vulnerability will be used against us, we also know each other’s weaknesses. We know where everyone’s expertise lies and what tasks we should not assign to team members. 

Trust takes time to build and this is part of the challenge. Trust comes hand in hand with being comfortable with each other. This is something we all notice when someone is new to the team. When we are in a meeting, there’s a lot of dead air and one-worded answers from the new team member and at the same time, old team members tend to hesitate with the jokes. It’s a bit awkward.  

Through time and constant interaction, this dead air becomes less and far in between and new team members start to make jokes during meetings and if there is silence, it’s not uncomfortable or awkward. 

2. Communicate as much as possible.

A key part of teamwork is being able to communicate clearly with each other. When one person says something but another team member misinterprets it as something else, everything that follows can fall apart and you end up wasting valuable resources.

A simple example is when you communicate about meeting at a specific time. You might say “let’s meet at 3 o’clock” and then you show up at 3 pm with no one is on the conference call. What happened?

The other person misinterpreted it as 3 pm Eastern but you are on Pacific time.

You won’t believe how often this has happened to us. Especially since we’re a remote company and we have people across multiple time zones, it has become important to clearly communicate what the specific timezone is. When in doubt, don’t assume. Ask for clarification.

3. Everyone’s happiness is equally important

There are teams where we see someone as being the weakest link. This person is the one holding the team back from achieving the team’s fullest potential. This person could also be the reason why projects are delayed or tasks are not moving forward. If you look a little deeper, the weakest link in the team is usually the least happy person. 

This is why we put a lot of importance on the happiness of teammates–as individuals. Happy people are productive people, something that we tell all our clients all the time. This applies to teams too.

Take two team members. Both are equally skilled and meet their deadlines but one is extremely happy, the other one is not. Which person would you rather collaborate with? Who would you prefer to have as a team member?

I bet you would pick the happy person. Even though the two team members are equally skilled and get stuff done, we all prefer to work with people who are happy. 

#Team #Teammates #Sports