It’s one thing to create a team but an entirely other thing to create teamwork. At BatesMeron, we believe that operating as a team increases our performance and allows us to produce our best work. But our team’s collaboration isn’t something that just happened over night. The teamwork at our office exists because it’s part of our BatesMeron DNA, part of our project process and, most importantly, because we actually enjoy working with each other.
While it’s true that as individuals, we are more than capable of handling situations on our own. It’s okay to need help, enjoy collaboration and get support from your team. Whether it’s a project manager handing down a job to a designer or a designer working closely with a writer to figure out the best plan of creative attack—teamwork is a crucial part of jobsite success. Teamwork is the ability for a group of individuals to understand a situation presented, identify everyone’s strengths and then use their talents to achieve a positive end result. Without teamwork, it’s easy to have mixed results, miscommunication and situations where you might not produce the best work possible.
For me, the best part about working with a team is the increase of creative output. For instance, during a brainstorm we’ll often see one suggestion lead to another, which will lead to another, resulting in a sort of popcorn effect that ultimately delivers killer creative ideas our clients love. (We like to use the term “popcorn” around our office, as it perfectly describes our sporadic outbursts of ideas when having a brainstorm.) These “popcorn” sessions allow us to think outside the box and get our creative juices flowing. We love when one team member has an idea that sparks an idea of another, which then brings up a completely different viewpoint that no one had thought of yet. Of course we sometimes get off track—but it usually has a funny way of circling back to the original topic. And the best part is: there are no stupid ideas.
Although there are always challenges in the workplace, I’ve found that the more a team works together the better the chances are of overcoming obstacles, finding innovative solutions and turning ideas into amazing end products.
