Ten non-obvious actions you can take to become a better team player

…  and a bonus one

1. Be a great listener – ask people about themselves and really listen.  Don’t talk about yourself at all, unless they ask – twice!
2. Trust people more – give them the initial benefit of the doubt.
3. Help the quiet ones to participate – ask them for their views.
4. Don’t assume that the others know what you know – check.
5. Reveal a bit more about yourself than you normally would.
6. Ask for feedback – and take it on board.
7. Think about your weaknesses and get others to cover those for you.
8. Deliberately use your second or third preferred team role rather than always your top one (e.g. you don’t have to always be the organiser, or the critic, or the carer)
9. Suggest that someone (maybe you sometimes) wears the black hat – this is the person whose job it is to think about what might go wrong. Otherwise groups and teams are prone to over optimism.
10. Appreciate difference – the people who annoy you are there to do the things you don’t want to, e.g. the detail, the questioning, the worrying, the pushing, etc.
11. Eat with the others more often that you have done – the best team bonding happens over food!