Teamwork is not just a word @Universem
Our team recently took part to the 9th edition of the Corporate Hockey Tournament. As each member of the team, I was of course participating. To be honest, I felt physically exhausted for the rest of the week (not being a great sportsman…), but I truly liked what I saw and experienced on the field. The idea came from Loïc Delacroix, one of our Digital Marketing Team Leaders, who rightly thought it would be fun and interesting to participate in and use this event as a team building.
Since January this year, we have welcomed no less than 9 new members (including myself). Team buildings are then clearly the occasion to strengthen the cohesion among our different teams of experts, to meet each other in other circumstances, and of course… Have fun together! I think we were all excited about this tournament. Although most of us had never touched a hockey stick in their entire life, we were all in the same mood, namely something like: “Who cares? Let’s try to play hard and have fun!”. And so, we did. Even though we were not accustomed to play together, everybody gave its best. We were supporting each other, sharing ideas about how to improve the way we were playing, etc. The more experienced players (two of our team members, Alexis & Loïc, use to play hockey) were giving us plenty of tips and tricks, and even those who weren’t on the field were supporting the ones playing and took part in the post games debriefs. It was a real “teamwork experience” and a very nice moment spent together.
So, why is teamwork such a crucial value?
Probably most of you already know this: talented people on their own are simply not good enough. No matter how intelligent, gifted, driven, or passionate your collaborators are, the success of your company relies on its ability to make people work together to achieve a common goal. The team, and each member of it, are both important to reach the goal the organization is aiming at. We need each other to succeed.
The main advantage of teamwork is of course that it helps your organisation to achieve many more goals than what individuals working on their own ever could. Even more when you consider that Digital Marketing is a matter that constantly changes and evolves. We need each other’s contribution and knowledge to conduct a project from end-to-end. Each one’s singularities are complementary and make great teams. So, teamwork is obviously one of the first and most fundamental values advocated by Universem. As Henry Ford said: “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress, working together is success.”
Everyone is unique
Of course, even if we consider teamwork as a fundamental value and try to make our colleagues feel as we were “one”, we must give them the opportunity to grow individually. This is the reason why, and this is nothing new, we need to be skilled at developing people. As already said, Digital Marketing is a matter that is constantly evolving and changing. If we want our colleagues to be the best in their fields, we need to keep investing in their training path. This “training path” is something we are constantly working on at Universem. Among that, giving each member of the team the possibility to grow and learn is a real key of retention.
At Universem, apart from training given by some external suppliers, we rely on, for instance, our more experienced colleagues to share their knowledge and passion with their new colleagues. We also invite anyone in the team to share ideas, articles, best practices, in order to improve our way to work. This collaborative sharing of knowledge is priceless. Not only you give the possibility to the team members to learn (for some of them) and share (for others), but you also help the cohesion among the teams. Therefore, our vision is really to rely on teamwork, but without forgetting that we all also need to grow individually.
Teamwork to strive toward Excellence
Coming back to the hockey championship, our teams (we had in fact to make 2 teams – “Universem 1” & “Universem 2” – considering a hockey team is composed by max. 11 people) did not win the cup. However, one of our teams (“Universem 2”) won the price rewarding the team displaying the most positive attitude on the field (“fair play” price). That reveals, in my opinion, so much about the mindset in which our team members are: we tried to win, but staid fair and respectful. This is, I think, something we can be so proud of! It says also a lot about how we strive for excellence. While losing a game after another, we were still trying to improve ourselves, never assuming that the game was over. Continuous improvement is another of our values, and it allows our company to remain competitive. Our team left the hockey competition with a clear goal: “Let’s train to get better and win the trophy next time!”.
And the beat goes on
Collaboration is essential to human achievement. As an empowering organisation, striving toward excellence, you need to encourage and get the best out of people’s natural tendency to work together. Ensure that your team shares the same vision, that all its members are pursuing the same goal for the common good of the company.
Feeling like you want to be part of our team? Just send me your resume and motivation letter at mydreamjob@universem.com.
Any remark? Any question? Do not hesitate to comment!
