彭蒙惠英语：What Makes a Team Tick?（在线收听）

What Makes a Team Tick?

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Assessing “work style”

How would you characterize the work style of each team member? Is one member a “snap” decision maker? Does another rely on intuition? Does another rely heavily on delegation? People with similar work styles tend to work together effectively.

How do members of your team handle and resolve conflict? Do some members take an analytical approach toward contested issues? Do some use their authority to address conflict? Do others encourage their peers or subordinates to resolve conflict themselves? The more congruence in conflict management techniques, the greater the likelihood you’ll build a team.

How do team members view competition? While competition is an inevitable part of business life, team members may view competition in diverse ways. Do members tend to compete within the team for scarce budget dollars? For support staff? The degree of team spirit will be related to the degree of cooperation or competition present among team members.

Evaluating your team

As you evaluate your team’s prospective members, you may find they tend to behave in markedly different ways. Don’t be discouraged; they can still work together quite effectively, but the “team” approach may not be their preferred—or most productive—work style.

If you have a work group that appears to share similar outlooks and behavior, don’t expect the similarities to be absolute. Perfect congruence almost never occurs, and effective team building doesn’t require absolute conformity among team members.

So ask yourself: How do members of your prospective team stack up? Do they share enough attributes to make for an effective team? If so, you can stop pondering the vague generalities of “team building” and start creating a viable work unit that reaches each day for profit and success.

Vocabulary Focus

contested (adj) [5kCntestid] relating to an issue that is being challenged or questioned

inevitable (adj) [in5evitEbl] certain to happen

stack up (idiom) to compare with another thing of a similar type

Specialized Terms

congruence (n) 一致 the state of being in agreement or in harmony