The complementarity of the team

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, says: “Nobody makes it alone. When you see great things being achieved, remember that they were not achieved by one person. You need to build a team and surround yourself with the best people to learn from, with skills that complement your own.”

It is precisely the variety of skills and people that makes a group strong. Strength subject to the prerequisite that the team is clear about the objective and shares the ground rules. The team acts according to the rules, applying them correctly, even with variations, because it has the goal in mind.

Unfortunately, people do not always have this awareness, and this is an obstacle to good performance. It can happen that belonging to a group is experienced badly: feeling of being repressed by others, impatience with others. Becoming one is not taken for granted among people with different languages, habits, culture, methods.

The main ingredients are sharing the goal, assigning roles and responsibilities, defining activities. Team spirit comes from the awareness that “I depend on others and others depend on me”. Team spirit and the sense of responsibility of each individual are the basis for success. Thanks to the internal relationships within the group, everyone can give the best of his or her skills and abilities. This way of understanding one’s work, with an awareness of one’s own abilities and respect for the relationships with others, leads to a productive and positive working climate.

Some of us are meant to be leaders, others to be co-workers, and our success in the different roles depends on finding the right position; the individual seen in his or her individuality and valued through relationships with others. Building great teams is about recognising the importance of the complementarity of roles in the team and the complementarity of the skills and competences of the collaborators themselves.

Working in a team becomes an exchange, a give and take, which enriches everyone.