It was John D. Rockefeller
who said, “I will pay more for the ability
to deal with people than any other ability under
the sun.” Working in teams has become the
norm for most businesses, where the internal walls
between functional areas such as marketing and
production no longer exist.
In
a team setting, communication and people skills
are as vital to the team’s success as each
team member’s field of expertise. In a world
where information grows exponentially, teams are
the key to maintaining a competitive advantage.
Organisations must continuously realign themselves
in response to a rapidly changing competitive
environment, and they must do so with ingenuity
and precision - a teamwork specialty. Fierce competition
means teams must be flexible, willing to take
chances, and able to think on their collective
feet.
Stick Your Neck Out!
Here in the United States, we say that every
now and then you have to stick your neck out,
meaning that you must be willing to take chances
to get ahead. But sometimes you stick your neck
out and it gets chopped off - figuratively speaking!
In other words, mistakes are an unavoidable part
of life.
The ability to recover from these
mistakes is often what’s crucial to success.
The communal brainpower of the team helps turn
those inevitable mistakes into a learning experience
that will make the team and its members stronger
and more nimble. Vital to a company’s success
is the team’s capacity to grow and move ahead,
and growth often comes from failure.
Take a look at just one of the
many international students working for their
MBA in America.
Jorge Marin came to our MBA program from Medellin,
Colombia, where he was an experienced financial
analyst in search of personal and professional
growth. Now approaching graduation, Jorge has
secured a management position at 1st Source Bank,
one of Indiana’s largest state-chartered
banks.
To be a valued team member, the
bank wants him to have exposure to all facets
of the bank’s activities, such as portfolio
management, commercial lending, and mortgages.
Jorge has helped 1st Source significantly increase
their presence in Indiana’s growing Hispanic
community, and he attributes much of his professional
success to his experiences in the Indiana MBA
program, where he learned to think strategically
and function in a team environment. Jorge also
brings his team savvy to his personal life, singing
and playing in his own Latin band with other Latin
American students from Indiana University and
the surrounding community. Embracing the team
philosophy and time-management skills he learned
during his MBA program has brought Jorge tremendous
professional success and personal satisfaction.
Teamwork is the backbone of any
top-rated MBA program. International students
have unique managerial perspectives that add to
the structural integrity of student teams, and
the cultural diversity that international students
bring to any group is a crucial dimension that
energizes everyone’s learning experience.
Students are the first to say that teamwork is
vital to their learning. They pick up a remarkable
amount of knowledge from each other, during experiences
that they would not have otherwise had - without
their involvement in teamwork during their educational
journey.
Author
Katherine L. Jackson, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate
Business Programs
Indiana University South Bend |
