Our life is constantly changing, both professionally and personally. If we look closely at the last decades we will see that the employee’s daily schedule has changed dramatically … The last few months have only brought more arguments to confirm that change is the only certainty we live. The reasons for these changes are diverse: globalization, market saturation, technological innovation and, more recently, a global pandemic.

All this puts pressure on HR people who need to find new ways to increase efficiency in new contexts. Team and teamwork rewrite their way of working and, although at a distance from each other, today we are more connected to each other.

Scottish mathematician John Craig, a colleague and friend of Isaac Newton, said almost 300 years ago that “No matter how much a man may do, no matter how involved and passionate he is, he will only advance if he is able to work with others.” Today, his words are just as meaningful.

But what can we do, in the present we live in, to collaborate effectively with our colleagues? What are those skills that can help us work better as a team?

We do not intend to reinvent the wheel. We put together some tips that, followed with perseverance, can help increase the efficiency of each of us in our relationships with others.

1- FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO

In the face of a more or less problematic situation, we are sometimes tempted to focus on what is in the hands of others, and not on what is up to us. Remember that team efficiency is, above all, about how you can and how each of us can contribute to the project.

2- BE CAREFUL OF THE RESULT

Everyone has their own role in implementing a project. The clearer the role, and the better the employee knows the extent of his contribution, the greater his involvement, and the easier the project’s success is to anticipate. However, these roles are not straight lines, distanced from what other colleagues do. They are closely related, they influence each other and they necessarily require collaboration.

3- COMMUNICATE EFFICIENTLY

Good communication is the result of good self-knowledge. And when you know yourself well enough, you structure your thoughts better, you choose your words better to give your thoughts a shape, in a way that is easier to understand. Communication is about what we convey to others about ourselves, about who we are, about what we think, about what we believe. The way we communicate, reflects our feelings and speaks about us in its entirety. Therefore, when we talk about efficiency in communication we must look at the whole package: a well-defined speech, in well-chosen words, accompanied by a set of non and para-verbal behaviors synchronized with the verbal message, with the role of reinforcing it.

At the same time, effective communication is based on an attentive, empathetic, uncritical listening, freed from one’s own judgments and opinions, which captures the other’s needs, his expectations from you, as a dialogue partner. The one who communicates effectively is, therefore, a good listener, transmits an authentic message, in accordance with what he thinks and in the code (in the language) of the addressee, being concerned with the way he is understood by the interlocutor and asking for feedback permanently, after which it adjusts its message to transmit the information correctly.

Communication is the result of a relationship, no matter how short or long it is. And effective communication is done in the context of a relationship based on respect, trust, listening and attention.

4- CULTIVATE TRUST

The best performing teams are those in which the level of trust between members is high. Unfortunately, we live in a country where self-esteem is at alarmingly low levels (according to psychologist Daniel David from UBB Cluj, Psychology of the Romanian People), and most often it happens that when we start a relationship we start from the premise that we should not trust the other.

This mistrust is the one that grinds every drop of enthusiasm and is the cornerstone for weak teams in which people do not have the courage to say how they feel, in which the manager does not trust that people are competent enough, in which people do not have the courage to enter. in conflict and prefers to talk from behind rather than face the problem.

It is our mission to build relationships based on trust and to build that trust through consistency. But the exchange must be mutually beneficial: you get trust if you trust.

Instead, a few scattered thoughts – The nicest people I’ve worked with are humble people, people genuinely interested in listening to you, people who don’t show their egos when they talk, people who make you feel like you can many mountains without asking you to do it, people who talk a lot about US and a little about me … Special people who make you feel special …