Business English |
Teamwork

  • Is it better to hire employees who have similar personalities and work styles to promote harmony, or to hire employees with diverse personalities to encourage creativity and innovation?
  • Should employers prioritize teamwork and collaboration over individual achievement and competition?
  • Should employees be allowed to work remotely, or is in-person collaboration necessary for effective teamwork?
  • What different types of personality are needed for a successful team?
  • Is it acceptable to reward individual employees for the success of the team, or should rewards only be given to the team as a whole?
  • What problems have you encountered, or can occur, when working with other people?
  • Is it ethical for employers to use personality tests and other assessments to screen job candidates, or does this lead to bias and discrimination?
  • Should employers prioritize diversity and inclusion in their hiring practices, even if this means hiring individuals with vastly different personalities and work styles?
  • Is it acceptable to reward individual employees for the success of the team, or should rewards only be given to the team as a whole?

Warm-up | Discussion

Dr Meredith Belbin, a British researcher and management theorist, developed nine team roles to show how different individuals behave in teams.

  • How do her ideas compare to yours?
  • Can you put a name to these people in your workplace or studies?
  • What is the main positive and negative characteristic of each role?
  • Which team role best describes you?

Vocabulary | Team Relationships

  • Underline the words which go together. Check with text.
  • Give advice for successful relationships using as many verb+adverb pairs as possible.

Vocabulary | Collocations

  • Complete the table
  • Which of the two roles best fits each person?
  • Which person would you choose to work with you or in your team? Why? 

Listening | Team Roles at Work

  • Discuss recent projects you have worked on. Consider:
    • task/project
    • colleagues/fellow team members
    • schedules/pressure
    • issues/problems
    • confrontation/fairness

Vocabulary | Practice

  • What could go wrong when brochures are printed? Why do these incidents happen?
  • A meeting takes place between three managers (Jenny, Riccardo and Paul) to discuss the situation. What went wrong?
  • Listen again, which speaker does what?
  • Match the expressions to their categories.

Communication | Dealing with Conflict

  • Discuss what you might say in these "conflict" situations. Then have the conversations

Communication | Dealing with Conflict

  • Discuss what you might say in these "conflict" situations. Then have the conversations

Communication | Dealing with Conflict

  • The meeting continues.
    • What are the options for Duvenger?
    • What course of action do the managers successfully negotiate?

 

  • Who:
    • plays the role of chairperson?
    • expresses points of disagreement?
    • offers a compromise?

Communication | Dealing with Conflict

Communication | Replacing words in italics

  1. Establish the point of conflict.
  2. Discuss any disagreements.
  3. Try to reach a solution / compromise.
  1. Establish the point of conflict.
  2. Discuss any disagreements.
  3. Try to reach a solution / compromise.
  1. Establish the point of conflict.
  2. Discuss any disagreements.
  3. Try to reach a solution / compromise.

A

You are in a team set up to produce the company news page on the intranet. However, poor communication in the team has slowed the project down. You hold a meeting to discuss issues.