The art of teamwork

[Shaha Noor]

The art of teamwork

By: Ibnu Budiman · 15 December 2017

My learning goals in the ACT remain to be important goals personally for me in future group work. The Future of Jobs report by the World Economic Forum mentioned that three of ten important skills in workforce till 2020 are; emotional intelligence, negotiation, and cognitive flexibility. These skills fit with my learning goals. Therefore, I will keep all the goals;

to contribute to group learning process in order to handle interpersonal relationship (emotional intelligence) in working environment;
to negotiate ideas and interest; and
to have ability to think about multiple concepts simultaneously, which is the cognitive flexibility.

Emotional intelligence
In the group meetings, I had to let everybody in the group to speak their opinion. I also tried to facilitate quality of turn-taking conversation when someone talked too much. It was dilemmatic, because I had to do both; giving the group opportunity for learning process and ensure time management is ideal for the project- for discussion and work on the product.
My attitude changes positively, all the experiences with the group are learning process in communication and personal development skill. I did pro-active listening when I listened to explanation about something new for me. Yet I didn't really do it when I listened about their perspectives about the topic, because I thought I know it better. I should listen more pro-active, to welcome all the ideas to work together as a group.

Negotiation
I recognize that being smart is not enough. I have to be able as well to convince people with idea. I have to put enough reasoning, justification and explanatory information in the presentation of my ideas. I shouldn't be too concise in my explanation. What is crystal clear to me because I have the experience is not necessarily clear to others, exactly because they do not share that experience. I need to explain more why and try to see from their perspectives or position. I really should improve my negotiation skill to prepare better communication style and behavior to convince the group.

Cognitive flexibility
My coginitive flexibility had positive effect to the project, it made me able to explain to the group about three interconnected drivers in social innovation and three types of citizen energy initiatives. This knowledge helps my other learning goals, so I have content and more reasoning and justification toward my ideas when I presented it to the group. It enhanced my individual functioning in product and process to bring convincing idea to the team.

Conclusion
From the ACT, I have learned about the art of teamwork: emotional intelligence in contributing to group learning processes, negotiation skill in communicating ideas and cognitive flexibility from thinking about different concepts (energy transition, social innovation and SWOT management). It also lead me to an idea for my PhD research topic that I have to write next year. This experience provides me a lesson learnt about how to convince people with better idea. A good idea alone is not sufficient, I also have to use ability to negotiate the idea through good communication skills, otherwise, the good idea is not being used.

Source: https://weblog.wur.eu/international-students/2017/12/15/the-art-of-teamwork/