Topic 4 | Introducing Yourself to the Team and Agreeing to a Way of Thinking

There will be communication challenges between you and your clients. And this is normal, but you can minimize misunderstandings by keeping in mind a few tips.

It All Starts with How to Introduce Yourself

You only have one chance for a first impression. And in remote work, that is when you introduce yourself to the team.

First of all, check if the team is casual or formal. You cannot actually crack a joke when everyone is quite serious.

Next, include your job title with a brief description of what you do. A job title does not mean a lot unless you state what your role is and what makes you credible to contribute to the company. Your teammates will also roughly know what they can expect from you.

It may look something like this:

“Hi! I’m Eunice Punzalan. I’m a social media manager, and I’ve grown Facebook communities from zero to 15,000 members in around a year. I’m excited to work with you on this project.”

Lastly, let them ask questions just in case they have something in their minds.

Ecosystem

Next, you must embrace the ecosystem your client has. A company has an ecosystem where there is a balance between culture, way of doing things, and team interactions.

A healthy team ecosystem promotes diversity and interdependence between the members. It pushes people to perform better, grow in their careers, and have happiness in their job roles.

Contributing to the Ecosystem

As a new team member, it is best that you familiarize yourself with the current way of doing things. How do you receive tasks? What project management tools and filing systems do you use?

As to communication, how do your team members interact with each other? Are they all work, or do they have a “chill conversation chat room” for anything random?

Knowing this will create harmonious relationships with your colleagues and team workflow.

Finding Improvements

Like all proactive people, you will see things that can be improved in a team ecosystem. Ecosystems should be maintained but should be improved as well to continuously grow people.

As a normal team member, if you have suggestions or clarifications, you should communicate them to your supervisors or managers. In this way, you can help them have first-hand input for improving team dynamics.

If you are a manager, you should observe what needs to be done to create a more efficient workflow without sacrificing creative freedom and collaboration. Use your leadership and influence to create better environments. With that, we can foster agreeing to the team’s way of thinking in the long run.