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Meet The Team Member - Team-Building Tara

\"\"Each character in this series is designed to portray one of four different styles of behaviour, based on Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton’s book, ‘People Styles at Work’. For each style, we’ve been looking at two examples: a person whose approach has more impact upon other people and one that has more impact upon the task in hand.

The style
This month, we come to our final example: Team-Building Tara. Like Conflict-Averse Connie, Tara is an example of a Relater. Relaters tend to be people-focussed but are usually listeners rather than pro-active contributors. However, whatever the task, Tara is always the one who makes sure that everyone on the team is on board and is happy. She’s very supportive and is a great team player.
 
The substance
The challenge is that in today’s environment, Tara may be too focused on harmony and not sufficiently focused on the job in hand. As a result, she may be working too slowly to deliver the results that are needed on time. Put simply, it’s all very well playing ‘happy families’, but if the schedules aren’t met, the success of the whole team is in jeopardy.
 
The solution
Tara needs to become more commercial and to focus on the business objectives. She needs to be clear about the agreed delivery dates and outputs, and to focus on the work that is needed to achieve those.
 
At times, she might prefer to spend some time on team building and people issues, but she needs to realise that she is probably more sensitive to these things than her colleagues are. She also needs to be made aware that ultimately, the happiness and fulfillment of the team will depend on their ability to produce good results.
 
So, she can make sure that they celebrate their successes together afterwards, but they really need to deliver first. To achieve this, she really needs to crack on with her own contribution to ensure that the wider team’s targets are met.
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