Whether you choose an academic or private sector career, you’ll need to know how to work constructively with members of a group. To help build a collaborative team environment, you’ll have to develop and practice the following:

1. Trust: Be honest; work to eliminate conflicts of interest; avoid talking behind each other’s back; trust teammates (you must trust them before they will trust you); give team members the benefit of the doubt.

2. Clarify Roles: Review team member roles frequently; clarify responsibilities when action planning; relate team member expectations to team’s overall purpose; figure out ways to help each other.

3. Communicate Openly & Effectively: Work to clear up misunderstandings quickly and accurately; seek to understand all perspectives; err on the side of over communicating; reinforce and recognize team member efforts. Learn to listen well.

4. Appreciate Diversity of Ideas: Evaluate a new idea based on its merits; remember that reasonable people can and do differ with one another; avoid remarks that draw negative attention to a person’s unique characteristics; don’t ignore the differences among team members; try to learn as much as you can from others.

5. Balance the Team’s Focus: Regularly review and evaluate the effectiveness of team meetings; design individual performance goals that emphasize both results and teamwork; praise individual effort; assign specific team members to monitor task needs and others to monitor relationship needs; hold team celebrations for achieving results.