Henry Ford once said, "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." This quote describes the transition of human interaction, from group to teamwork. People coming together can be seen as a group, and they are interdependent of each other. Working together, which is teamwork, contributes to success as it involves reliance as well as dependence on others.

In the book “The Wisdom Of Crowds” by James Surowiecki, his research states why the many are smarter than the few, and how group wisdom is often greater than individual intelligence which shapes business and nations of today. Likewise, teamwork is a very important to me. In schools, we are tasked with many projects and committee participation which involves teamwork. It focus on the importance of dependence and trust, as it forms the basis of human reliance on each other, so that we would be more susceptible to views, opinions and hence broaden our individual wisdom and perception. Without teamwork, events would not be held successfully, projects would be more individualistic and opinionated. Diversity of thought, perception, background and experience enhance the creativity and innovation. Teamwork made me realized that I’m not always the centre of the world and it trains this aspect called “social intelligence” which allows one’s ability to persuade, negotiate and make others feel important which is crucial for the society.

Communication is important to me as well as it is the foundation of teamwork .Through effective communication one can truly work and interact well with others. We ought to possess a certain level of understanding of the people we are interacting with so when appropriate style, tone is applied in communication, there will be lesser conflicts and misunderstandings. Communication also trains our level of empathy. We will tend to be much more sensitive towards other’s feelings. Besides that, having a good tactic of communication will allow me to be able to give criticism to others so they would not feel offended and this, provides improvement for the individual or possibly a team as a whole.

6 Comments:

Hey Alden!

I really loved the way you had written your post. Starting off with a quote was very innovative also, it had perfect relevance to our topic.

I liked the fact that you included your personal opinion at the end of each paragraph, and gave clear examples to illustrate your point. Your post was to the point and covered several aspects of both communication and teamwork.
Great job:)

preeti

By  preeti, at January 28, 2010 at 1:05 AM  

Hi Alden,

I like your quotes as I find them very meaningful and inspiring.

Your second paragraph pertaining to teamwork makes sense in every aspect as I also personally feel teamwork is critical in this post modern era where scales of many projects are certainly beyond the magnitudes of the individual and this is where effective teamwork distinguishes the good projects from the bad ones.

Also with regards to your stand on communication, I certainly agree that communication is a subset of teamwork without which the team will definitely be a fragile one. Good communication skills also allow us to be more tactful and considerate, using appropriate tones under different circumstances.

In all, I feel that it is definitely a very insightful post!

By  Roger Ng, at January 28, 2010 at 1:06 AM  

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By  AkiraP, at January 28, 2010 at 2:35 AM  

Firstly, I enjoy the cute picture of the child at the beginning of your post. I feel that image of the the puppies supporting one another, to push the baby up illustrates the importance of team members working in union to achieve a common goal. With it, I think you set a good start for the topic.

Also, I strongly agree with your view that having good communication skills can help us to give less offensive criticism, and bring up the effectiveness of the individual or even the whole team. I feel that as team mates, we understand each other very well. Hence, if we are able to learn from each other, we can overcome some of our weaknesses that we cannot see by ourselves. This would definitely make the team more effective as a whole.

Insightful and inspiring post. Good job!

By  AkiraP, at January 28, 2010 at 2:36 AM  

This comment has been removed by the author.

By  Roger Ng, at January 28, 2010 at 10:09 AM  

Hey Alden!

I think your post has a good balance between personal views and quotes by famous men which I think is very important. The second paragraph especially is very good. You have given a very personal touch to it which is more like – ‘sticking to the topic’ or rather ‘not deviating from the topic and answering to the point’. I guess you could’ve mentioned something about Communication in the first paragraph and that would’ve made this a bit more coherent (not that it is not otherwise). But on the whole, good job! 

Krithika

By  Krithika, at January 28, 2010 at 12:28 PM  

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