A Failed Teamwork
A team is a group of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a universal cause, a set of performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves equally accountable.
As a recent graduate from Rutgers University, I know all about teamwork. As a result, working for this accounting firm that does its audits by self managed teams, was not a problem for me. In this type of team, we were assigned by our levels of experience and given the responsibility of planning, scheduling and monitoring the audit. On each audit, there was one Manager, a Senior, and/or a Second year or Entry level. Consequently, we were all there to support each other for an overall effective audit.
However, there was one audit where the Manager felt he did not have to be around for the audit. He was never available to answer any raised questions that the rest of the team could not answer, or give us some kind of feedback on the progress of the audit. So the rest of the team finished the audit based on prior experience and input from other teams.
A few days before the deadline of the draft of the financial statement, the Manager/Supervisor resurfaced, and reviewing the work the team had done realized that some tests weren't done, some were incorrect and others needed additional testing. The team had to redo the audit at our company's expense.
We all learned that a team is not just each member doing his/her part, but each of us working together for a desired end result.
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