Luck Hasn’t Found You a Supportive Team at Work?
To find the supportive team that’s right for you, set a goal to do so and let others know what you’re trying to achieve. This will help you excel on your core job responsibilities while the team helps you continue the momentum.
Below are links to what I’ll touch on today:
To start off, here’s how I stumbled across the best supportive team thus far:
My Story
In over two decades working for different companies, only in the last couple of years have I noticed my company encouraging the employees to have a growth-mindset. This was due to the focus of the new CEO and his leadership team.
Two years prior, the senior leaders in my department recognized the need to support the professional and personal development of its members, in addition to the resources available corporate-wide. With sponsorship from two of the leaders, I volunteered to co-lead a small project team on an inaugural development series for a year with a goal of tailoring programs open to approximately 65 employees.
Two years later, I was part of a pilot exchange program that a new set of volunteers started for four participants. Two team members began at the beginning and the other two in the middle of the year. At the end of the experience, all parties involved were able to learn new job responsibilities in, improve processes for, and stay in the sub-departments that they rotated into. The perk for me was that I continued to be part of an extremely supportive team!
What is a supportive team? It’s different for each person, but my team included me, my manager, and a feedback group.
My Team
Each team member had a purpose and the manager and the feedback group complemented my skills and personality as noted below:
Me
- Understood my personality (I’m an introvert!)
- Drafted a plan on how I was going to achieve my goals
- Initiated the conversations on what I needed
- Tried out new ideas, even if they were out of my comfort zone
- Executed on my plan
- Completed a task the best I could at a given time, even if it wasn’t done perfectly
- Continued to improve processes, gain knowledge, and learn new skills
My Manager
- Reminded me of the positive contributions that I provided
- Expressed confidence in my abilities
- Encouraged me to explore my interests
- Provided freedom for me to be curious, experiment, and learn
- Committed to find a way to help push my goals to reality
- Brainstormed ideas with me when needed, including providing referrals
- Acknowledged if he didn’t have the answers
A Feedback Group
- Listened to my needs
- Provided tips based on personal and others’ experiences
- Played devil’s advocate
For the future, I can improve on myself by doing the following:
Continuous Improvement
- Remember that learning takes time, so enjoy my accomplishments and be patient with myself
- Share my mistakes and struggles with others, so I can learn from them and maybe help them along their learning journey as well
- Reflect on my progress to see what I can improve on
As I contemplated on why I didn’t have the supportive team that was right for me sooner, I realized that it was because I didn’t set a goal to find a supportive team nor did I tell anyone what I needed. Below would be the undumbing process for my previous self:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- Focus more time on truly figuring out what I want and share it with others, so they can help me achieve my goal as well, instead of doing what I think someone else would approve of. Imagine what other fun gifts I would’ve received from my family if only I didn’t repeatedly give a responsible answer to one of my uncles during childhood:
What would you like for Christmas, Soling? Crayons and a coloring book.
What will you do next?
Next Step for You
- Find a supportive team?
- Improve your supportive team?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)