Learning to be on a Team

I think it's fair to say that most of us who have grown up in American culture was taught to play nice with others, share, learn there was no "I" in team and participate. A majority of us who have entered the workforce know, that most organizations have taken on some sort of team-based aspect. To function as a team, means a better functioning as a whole for an organization. Eisenberg defines teams as "groups of employees with representation from a variety of functional areas within the organization to maximize the cross-functional exchange of information" (p. 235). So I am happy to say, that those "golden rules" we were taught as children and in school, really did make sense as it plays out in our lives as adults. I've worked several jobs in my young adult life, some in smaller companies, and others part of a large organization. But functioning and working together as a team made a big difference in terms of everyone's happiness and productivity. Even as a manager, I felt it was important to work closely with my employees and still act as one of the employees (in terms of responsibilities) in order to emphasize the concept of equal work as a team. This helped promote feelings of being a team and people were more like to pitch in, speak up with their ideas, and work harder to keep things going. Being a team, reminds me that there is strength in numbers.