Team Work Letter - Support Manager

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From:Support Manager
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 1:50 PM
To: Support-Department; Helpdesk
Cc: GM ; HR
Subject: Team Work

Dear All,

I am sure all of you are working very hard and putting your best efforts in any task that you are doing. But kindly keep in mind that along with the individual effort the team effort adds a lot more value to our work and make us more efficient. I am sorry to say that even though each one of you knows what is required to be done and are doing well, but the overall picture is something like the above!! The end result is of no value as you can see above.

If you ask the above individuals each one will defend his position and will blame the other. If you punish any one he will be offended since he has done his best and worked hard and does not understand why he should be punished. What’s lacking is clearly a team effort. So please keep this foremost in your mind and see how to work as a Team. How to convey the message and how to get the best out of the other members of the team is equally important along with the individual effort. In fact you will realize that by using each others efforts you are able to complete things more efficiently and are ready for better challenges.

So what are the basic rules of Team work?

1. Respect the other person at all times- Every person is equal in importance despite his role and we need to respect the individual at all time. There is no one big or small in a team, all are equal. The value of the team is the collection of the individuals and not their status or positions.

2. Share your knowledge with others- By the way have you noticed this simple fact of life that knowledge is the only thing which grows while sharing (unlike money!!).

3. Brainstorm with others on any issues- Please do not feel small if you have to ask someone. There is no individual in this world who knows everything and we are all imperfect and it is a fact of life. So the only way we can perfect our efforts is by working together.

4. Coordinate your tasks with others- Without coordination you will end up like the above picture!!

And finally remember every one is equal in a team. The roles are defined and you should be able to communicate within a team without any hierarchies. Please do not waste time in going through hierarchies in getting things done as it will cause only delays. Hierarchies are there for escalations but hamper the work of a Team.

And if there are escalations then it means the team is not functioning and the reason is within you. So make efforts to find these faults and remove them since you are the best to find them as the faults are within you. If you expect an outsider to find these faults then it again shows that you are still not functioning as a Team. If you are following the 4 guidelines mentioned above you will be able to find these faults and clear them.

Any suggestions or comments on the above are welcome, please send them to me directly to avoid unnecessary emails cc’d to everyone. I will compile the criticisms and valued suggestions if any and send them to all.

Thank you for all you good work and let’s see how to make our selves better.

Regards

Name

Support Manager

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The humble reply to this horrendously copy-pasted email was from yours truly :

Good Morning "Name",

Please read my comments for the same.

Expectations:

It is true that whenever two good people argue over principles and directions, they are both right. But the problem is that once a direction is set, there are quite a few foreign elements that pop up and erode the expected target.

Self Faults:

Another point of not finding fault within ourselves means we are incompetent does not hold true in my perspective as humans by default are not physiologically ardent on spending time searching for faults within themselves, they require progressive criticism to reevaluate and realigning to the best possible angle from a third person who is very much experienced in that particular area [this would be our manager in this case] so the stagnant status of a fellow employee will persist over time if not corrected. E.g. we always need a person behind us to fix a photograph on a wall correctly, no matter how many times we have done it correctly.

Function:

For this particular person to “function” as a team, it will depend only on what is his capability was when he was assigned a particular role in the team. This assignment would be done on the experience of the manager. The ability evaluation x task assigned should be judged from the beginning of assigning resources so that this does not drag the team down in the end. Everyone has different levels of growth, some fast and some slow. Its still a very open and debatable topic. After a job is assigned, his inability to function should only be taken if he fallen below the level of what he was before assigning. Not on him not growing to an estimate of finding faults in himself. Weakness would be a better word here.

Respect:

Should be in all aspects: Including emails, SMS & calls etc.

Regards,

Amz [was officially signed off]

No correction : grammatical check were not don't as this response was written "on the fly" . Btw, just before this response was sent, I had received a very bossy email asking for some stuff....so you better walk the talk good sir ;P