What? Nowadays teams have to work really hard to accomplish their goals, and they are always under big pressure to achieve the best and higher results. This kind of environment can take the teams to insane situations for their members because conflicts come on from the lights if the group doesn’t have the right tools, like good leadership, an appropriated task, mutual respect, trust and good communication.
A common phrase says if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with a team. In other words, this reflects the idea of the people working by themselves can reach a goal faster than working with others but work teams have advantages because each member can offer new ideas, talent and viewpoints that help to have new and different outcomes.
So what? We know that working on teams has many benefits; the next step is how to motivate team members to reach better results working together without generating problems among them. How Levi says Cooperation is encouraged by thinking that contributions from others are valuable and trusting each other is a crucial step, so it is important to motivate and work with each other instead of against each other, also collaboration provides the chance to learn from the others successes and failures, breaking down barriers between people who share a common goal.
In the other hand, it is important to understand that competition could be used in the right way to promote certain attitudes on team members. According with what it is said in ¨Benefits of Teams Competing and Collaborating¨ of Matt Bullock, competition has some benefits like motivation (because individuals tend to work harder and do their best in order to succeed), also innovation could be promoted, just because it encourages people to solve problems with new approaches. Another positive effect of competition is that remove the complacency and conformity because it takes the team members ou of their comfort zone and requires from them more accomplishment and creativity.
Now what? Competition is a daily part of our lives, without the motivation of being better every day we can’t face the everyday challenges. It is impossible to imagine a world without competition; this is the reason that makes the companies to produce high quality products so they can convince the customers, competition makes sport teams to train every day to have higher levels. Therefore, for me as a future agricultural engineer, who could be part of different kind of teams it is important to never forget that the main reason to work harder is getting better results, and this has its base on competition. Producing more tonelades of grain per acres, more kilograms of meat per cow, better quality of fruits, in order to be more competitive in the market is one of the goals to accomplish for agriculture. This is not only about to compete against others, but with ourselves too, because the satisfaction to reach higher results every day is the best engine to move the machine.
References:
-Levi, Daniel. Group Dynamics for Teams. Fifth edition.
– https://work.chron.com/benefits-team-competitions-2170.htmlhttps://focusu.com/blog/competition-within-teams-good-or-bad/
–https://spinify.com/blog/6-benefits-of-teams-competing-and-collaborating/
-https://www.inc.com/workpop/6-ways-to-create-a-competitive-work-culture-thats-team-first-and-not-me-first.html
–https://focusu.com/blog/competition-within-teams-good-or-bad/
Ayelen 