Team Player/Team Effort

Hello!

Do anyone experienced this? How can we be a Team player. What would be the best management practise or technique on how to convince other team member to accept or apply or implement our recommendation in order to catch-up for example. Are we going to have a voting system during the coordination meeting, he who gets more votes for his idea shall win and implement on spot or just let the big boss to decide or lets get rid of it or lets just keep on planning???

Remember our recommendation is just based on the contract and construction method and we are not violating something here its just that some member of our team keeps ignoring it for some reason we don’t know?

Come on share your experiences!!!

Ronald

This is where the head banging comes in! All you can do is keep documenting the issues and possible solutions, it’s up to the decision makers which direction they want to go. And when your head really hurts, you can be satisfied that you have done all you can to help improve the health of the project.

Cheers
Julie

Hi Ronald,

I know exactly where you’re coming from, I’ve been there. You want to do what you know is right and you want to be seen to be part of the team.

You’ve planned the work according to the work content of the contract and the approved methods and standards of your industry to get things done in the most efficient and effective manner. Then the boss says, "I don’t want to do it like that, I want to do it like this."

Julie is right, if the final decision on how the work is to be done has been made, all you can do is get stuck in, produce contingency plans to overcome potential difficulties, document the issues and try to keep things on track.

If the final decision hasn’t yet been made, check your plan thoroughly to ensure that it is the best possible solution. Check your boss’s idea and try to make a workable plan from it. If you can make a workable plan from his idea, go back to him with both plans and show him why your plan is better. If you can’t make a workable plan from his idea, go back to him with your plan and explain why you can’t make a working plan from his idea and why your plan will work.

Although it doesn’t look like it, this is part of team working, it’s called "loyal dissent", part of your commitment to the team is to produce the best possible plan for the team to work to. This is what you have to do, right up until the final decision is made. Once the final decision is made, loyal dissent stops, and all the team get behind the decision, just as Julie explained, and do their best to make it work.

Julie got it absolutely spot-on, it’s like banging your head against a wall, but sometimes it works.

Regards

Chris Oggham

Don’t forget also to ensure that you comments are noted somewhere - in an email, report, whatever - just in case at sometime in the future it is your head on the chopping block as "the planner should have said something".

Not really team-work but sometimes has to be done.

Hi there,

I think all planners go thru this, I do not say they are from different planet or say project managers/decision makers are from different planet. Every time I come across this, I say to myself "Acheiving the perfect balance in life is next to impossible, but you should not stop making efforts". To certain extent I get satisfaction in fighting for what I belived in.

Cheers

Anees