Written by Meiti Prang and Tabu Butagira
Like most students, both of us have busy schedules. Therefore, it can be difficult to find a convenient time to meet up and work together on our blogs. We exchanged a few text messages, including at midnight, to agree on a meeting time. Both of us had prior commitments during the weekend. After agreeing that neither of us had enough time to meet on Friday, we decided on Sunday afternoon. On Friday night, Mei realized she had completely forgotten about an interview she had Sunday evening. She texted Tabu, who had plans to work on a project on Saturday, but we worked out a time where we could meet to enable either of us to fulfill our other commitments.
This was somewhat complicated, but it taught us some valuable a lesson about teamwork: compromise. It can be difficult for a team, especially if there are a lot of people, to find a convenient time or agree on ideas.
Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
When we work together, sometimes we have scheduling difficulties, but that’s only the beginning. We strive to work successfully as a team by sharing our thoughts and being open to each other’s ideas. We collaborate and agree on what we believe works the best for the both of us.
There is a Swahili proverb that says, “A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way.”
We’ve been lucky enough to not disagree much when we work together, but that’s not always the case with other groups. It seems that the more people in a group, the more challenging it can be to reach a consensus. As the proverb says, if everyone heads in different directions, it will be impossible to move forward and end up at your destination.
In the end, the difficulty we had deciding on a time to meet reinforced the importance of compromise when working as a team. The reality is that everyone will have different plans and different opinions throughout the process of working together, but if you are willing to listen and consider other’s ideas, you will achieve success.
Hi Tabu and Mei,
The situation you described is so essential for a lot of professions, especially in journalism. The are no individuals players in this business now – all the professionals need to be or to have a team behind them. And the problems that occur could be solved faster. Thank you.