Blending teamwork, personal development and volunteering

It’s been scientifically proven that teamwork — working collaboratively with a group of people to achieve a common goal — gives the most effective and efficient outcome. But it’s not all about efficient pieces of work — it’s about you!

There are many benefits to working from home — not getting stuck in traffic, being able to maintain looking after pets that maybe seemed a good purchase during lockdown, the ability to easily combine with childcare. Perhaps it is the more introverted members of society who have chosen to remain working from home?

PET scans reveal that introverts have more stimulatory activity in certain regions of the brain, so they simply don’t need the same amount of stimulation from the outside world compared to extroverts, so choose to work from home.

Whatever the reason, simple opportunities to interact with colleagues are so valuable, from organising ‘think tank’ meetings to bounce ideas off each other, to meetings where you can just discuss simple, everyday things, like what you did at the weekend or what’s in the news today.

Can we collaborate successfully from afar?

That’s why I loved the quote which Simon mentioned previously — ‘Distance doesn’t separate us, silence does’. It’s important to ensure that the work from home environment enables you to remain effective, not only in terms of the work you produce, but the way you feel.

What can we learn from an Explorer ‘think tank’ session?

I’d like to share some observations made during my role as an Explorer Scout leader to see if we can learn anything from our teenagers about teamwork?

We recently asked them to sit and write down what activities they would individually like to do over the course of the term — a ‘think tank’ session. We thought they might like a nice cuppa to help with the thought processing — only it wasn’t long before they began dipping the paper in the cup of tea and throwing it at the ceiling to see if they could get it to stick — the lumps got bigger and the height up the ceiling increased — a classic example of innovative thinking in a group situation (although really hoping that no one from the village hall committee is reading this post).

In a group, we are more likely to take risks, and perhaps a natural competitive edge creeps in, to achieve a common goal with a more effective and efficient outcome — which seemed to be: don’t just think an activity, do an activity!

Perhaps, most importantly, is the happiness that this group work elicited — the expressions on their faces when given pen and paper and asked to write their personal activity ideas were quite pained, which was in stark contrast to the laughter and smiles when flinging soggy lumps of paper at the ceiling (and an altogether different expression when they realised they were being watched and would be required to clean it up — although a few blobs remain for architectural interest!).

Volunteering could help you

Mental health — our emotional, psychological and social well-being — is essential and should never be ignored. It’s difficult to achieve a true sense of working together while meeting on video conferencing software. The lack of personal interaction can take its toll.

If you don’t feel you can, or just don’t want to, interact any further with work colleagues, I would thoroughly recommend volunteer work. It’s a win-win situation, not only do you meet new people (and I’ve never met an unfriendly volunteer), but you gain new opportunities. Full-training is always given – equipping you with new, transferrable skills, and, who knows — you might just join the best soggy paper flinging team! Are you ready to release your potential?

Contact RLS today to find out more how we can support you! Our many services include mentoring, training and coaching.

Release Life Sciences (RLS) provide a whole range of personalised and diverse services designed to help life science and diagnostic companies of all sizes achieve their full potential.

Offering end-to-end solutions, ranging from R&D, commercial, marketing, scaleup and interim management solutions, to personalised mentoring, coaching and training services. In addition to the provision of interim resources, RLS can deliver bespoke support to you and your team.