Working in team

I worked last night finishing some materials for graduation ceremony which is held today. I worried I wouldn't make it because I started to work quite late, at 5 PM. Somehow, some of my colleagues showed up and they helped me. We had a big trouble with the laser printer. Had it not worked properly, we would have worked until the sun shows up in the morning! After spending about two hours trying to keep on working with the troublesome printer, at last my friend could find the solution. After that the printer became our best friend. If it could talk, it would cry out since there were so many pages to be printed. While we worked, someone came and made statements to us that demoralized us. I knew the message was good but the way it was said was not wise and well-thought. Well, we still could control ourselves and continue to work. Finally we finished all of the tiresome job at 1 AM, finding each of us still in one piece.

What did I learn from it? Here are they.

• Never get ashamed to ask for help from your friends and colleagues. If they truly are, they will try to help you. Do the same also to your fellow friends. That's teamwork. Working in team will maintain the spirit of the members tougher against all kinds of troubles.
  
• One person will never be a team. Egoism and individualism are sometimes good tools to kill yourself, especially when the work to do is so big and complex.
• In job with many phases, get used to starting and doing each phase as well as you can. Although it may seem foolish, you'll reap the benefit of it later. Committed to excellence means committed to take care of details perfectly.
• I learn that a good leader should acquire the skill of keeping the spirit of his men as high as possible. A good team leader must be a master of motivating his team members. The means of it are numerous. Be creative to find or create them.
  
• One amazing tool to boost the motivation of people is to express a healthy level of appreciation. Anyway, there are times when critics should be given but always make sure to precede them with appreciations.
• I learn that in everything two things should be noticed carefully: the message and the way the it is communicated. Fos us as Christians, sincere message is a must. But many times the biggest problem is the incorrect and unwise way to communicate it. Passing good intentions and messages in a nice and friendly way needs a lot of practice. But you'll never know the good it will bring you.
• The nice way to do a boring and repetitious job is to do it together and in FUN.
• There is no advantage of grumbling. It won't solve the problem. Not only you'll waste time, you'll perform worse and finish later.
• I learn the benefit of making good documentation of the process in doing things, especially software. The help file of the printer driver software was very helpful. I also learned again the true usefulness of RTFM (Read The F*cking Manual).