Today’s workplace is filled with group work. As an employee you will be expected to work effectively with teams. These teams may be based in your office or they may be positioned around the country or world.
It is important to develop your group work skills early on so that you can move up the corporate ladder.
Here are 8 group work skills that everyone should master by the time they are 25:
- Write effectively - many times communication with groups will be done primarily beyond the few meetings you may have. Being able to articulate your ideas on paper (or digitally) is a must.
- Take a leadership position – don’t be scared to step up when a leader is needed. Even if you can’t manage the entire project try to take over one aspect and go above and beyond what is required of you. Only take on jobs that you are sure you can complete. A failure in a group can destroy your job.
- Be able to take direction – while it is important to know when to step up to be in charge it is also important to know when to let someone else lead the way. Remember the more leadership you take, the more you risk.
- Ability to critique others - many times groups develop group think. This is deadly for a group. You must be able to objectively look at your work after staring at it for hours. This is a valuable asset on the team.
- Take criticism – just because someone is disagreeing with what you have done does not mean that what you did was bad it just means that it needs to be improved. Learn to embrace criticism as it is the fastest way to learn how to do something better.
- Think before you speak - too many times this is one of the group work skills that is overlooked. You need to take a step back and think about what you are going to say rather than blurting it out.
- Pull your weight - if something is asked of you, the group is depending on you to complete it. Usually groups are flexible if you give them ample notice that it is not going according to schedule, but just because you left it up to the last night to do it is not going to fly.
- Keep it friendly – burning bridges in groups on day one will only leave you with months of torture in the long run. While groups can go the other way and be too conversational it is important that you keep the environment friendly so that new ideas can come out.
Group work skills are a must for today’s job applicant. Without them you will not be able to move up in the corporate world. You have the rest of your life to interact with people and working in groups is something that too many people learn to late in their career. Many times just taking a step back and thinking before you do anything in a group will be one of the best group work skills that you can develop.
- Author: RJ Sherman
