Work with Others
Main goal: Team up, collaborate and network
It is easy to think that if you find the right people you can work with, you can form a great business partnership. But it is like playing the lottery. How do you know if you don’t try it out? Will you just rely on your gut feeling?
Like in every relationship, there are at least two people involved and you are one of them. Conflicts are a normal part of every partnership or relationship. Learning to deal with conflicts and how to resolve them is an often undervalued skill; until it is too late.
Cooperation is the word. Meaning working together to achieve a common goal. This starts with having the same goal and being able to articulate it clearly and in detail and ends with creating an action plan for all parties involved towards that goal. It’s about having a plan everybody agrees on and wants to be part of. I found this to be a core skill you need right at the beginning if you plan to partner up or not.
In short, working together is about:
- Working together and co-operating with others to develop ideas and turn them into action
- Networking
- Solving conflicts and facing up to competition positively when necessary
Let’s look at each skill and see what each level will bring you:
Accept Diversity (people’s differences)
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I can show respect for others, their background and situations. |
| 2 | I am open to the worth that others can bring to value creating activities. |
| 3 | I can combine different contributions to create value. |
| 4 | I can value diversity as a possible source of ideas and opportunities. |
| 5 | N/A |
| 6 | I can support diversity within my team or organisation. |
| 7 | Outside of my organisation, I can find ideas that create value and make the most of them. |
| 8 | N/A |
Develop Emotional Intelligence
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I can show empathy towards others. |
| 2 | I can recognise the role of my emotions, attitudes and behaviours in shaping other people’s attitudes and behaviours and vice versa. |
| 3 | I can express my (or my team’s) value-creating ideas assertively. |
| 4 | I can face and solve conflicts. |
| 5 | I can compromise where necessary. |
| 6 | I can deal with non-assertive behaviour that hinders my (or my team’s) value-creating activities (for example, destructive attitudes, aggressive behaviour and so on). |
| 7 | I can manage conflicts effectively. |
| 8 | N/A |
Listen Actively
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I can show empathy towards others. |
| 2 | I can discuss the benefits of listening to other people’s ideas for achieving my (or my team’s) goals. |
| 3 | I can listen to other people’s ideas for creating value without showing prejudice. |
| 4 | I can listen to my end users. |
| 5 | I can describe different techniques for managing relationships with end-users. |
| 6 | I can put in place strategies to actively listen to my end users and act on their needs. |
| 7 | I can pull together information from a wide range of sources to understand my end users’ needs. |
| 8 | N/A |
Team Up
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I am open to working alone as well as with others, playing different roles and taking some responsibility. |
| 2 | I am willing to change my way of working in a group. |
| 3 | I can work with a range of individuals and teams. |
| 4 | I share the ownership of value-creating activities with the members of my team. |
| 5 | I can build a team based on the individual knowledge, skills and attitudes of each member. |
| 6 | I can contribute to creating value by teaming up with distributed communities through digital technologies. |
| 7 | I can design physical and virtual spaces that encourage team members to work together. |
| 8 | I can build an organisation’s capacity to create value by encouraging people to work together. |
Work Together
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I am open to involving others in my value-creating activities. |
| 2 | I can contribute to simple value-creating activities. |
| 3 | I can contribute to group decision-making constructively. |
| 4 | I can create a team of people who can work together in a value-creating activity. |
| 5 | I can use techniques and tools that help people to work together. |
| 6 | I can give people the help and support they need to perform at their best within a team. |
| 7 | I can work with a remote team of people who can independently contribute to a value-creating activity. |
| 8 | I can design working methods and incentives that enable team members to work well together. |
Expand Your Network
| Level | Ability |
| 1 | I can explain the meaning and forms of association, cooperation and peer-to-peer support (for example, family and other communities). |
| 2 | I am open to establishing new contacts and cooperation with others (individuals and groups). |
| 3 | I can use the relationships I have to get the support I need to turn ideas into action, including emotional support. |
| 4 | I can establish new relationships to get the support I need to turn ideas into action, including emotional support (for example, joining a mentor network). |
| 5 | I can use my network to find the right people to work on my (or my team’s) value-creating activity. |
| 6 | I proactively make contact with the right people inside and outside my organisation to support my (or my team’s) value-creating activity (for example, at conferences or on social media). |
| 7 | I can use my network to bring together different perspectives to inform my (or my team’s) value-creating process. |
| 8 | I can design effective processes to build networks of different or new stakeholders and keep them engaged. |
Note
If you are interested in learning and practising this skill group, please use the form on this page and tell us about it. We use this info for our planning for future programs and we will keep you up-to-date about it.
