Teamwork – and its close cousin leadership – are highly prized by graduate programs and universities. But if you haven’t worked in a team on any regular basis, don’t worry! You’ve probably got a number of examples of teamwork in your back pocket that you didn’t even realize were there. Consider the following four ideas when you are writing an essay about teamwork.
1. Teams come in many flavors and sizes.
Unless you’ve been living like a hermit for the past several years, you have undoubtedly participated in various groups. Maybe you were a member of a sports team; a dance, music, or theater troupe; or a youth group through your church, synagogue, or community center. You might have been a member of a committee, either as a volunteer or at work. Perhaps you helped organize an event, tutored, been part of a Scout group, or volunteered to be a Big Brother or Big Sister.
In any of these cases, you likely worked with other people. Even if your interaction was with only one other person, you have material you can discuss in a teamwork personal statement. Yes, working with just one other person, as a mentor or guide, counts!
2. Show that you were an active listener.
Teamwork and collaboration require effective listening. Discuss a time when you stopped to listen – really listen – to others, patiently and skillfully. Unfortunately, and perhaps unfairly, many young people today have gained a reputation for not being willing to listen to others and for quickly becoming agitated by differing views. Demonstrate to the adcom that this isn’t who you are. Show that your ability to listen to others, to take in other points of view, and to express your understanding of those views helped eased tensions and increased collaboration. This can be an impressive example of your teamwork skills.
3. Discuss morale boosting and conflict resolution.
Have you ever been involved in a project when enthusiasm was flagging, but you found a way to inject renewed excitement into it? Have you brainstormed an idea to strengthen a group, club, or assignment? These are also examples of teamwork. Perhaps you found a way to make peace between two warring members of a group who couldn’t agree on the direction your project or plan should go. If you mediated this conflict and got the two individuals to start working together, that was surely teamwork (and worthy of a peace prize!).
Any time you proactively got involved with other people (especially when they were being difficult), discovered a better way to get things done, found a middle ground, or thought of a creative new idea, that was teamwork.
4. Consider experiences in your personal life for material.
A client once wrote about her efforts to heal a serious rift in her family after her father passed away. Siblings were fighting for control of the successful family business, and an ugly succession fight ensued. The client patiently coaxed cooperation, even in this personal and emotionally charged environment. She used both shuttle diplomacy and active listening among battling family members, leading to everyone’s agreement to use a mediator to reach a final resolution.
Another client wrote about having organized a trip with a few friends and how he dealt with a dispute between two of them. Their bickering had threatened to ruin the long-planned trip. His effective listening and creativity in figuring out an activity that neither of the “combatants” would be able to resist helped defuse the situation and saved the trip from becoming an outright disaster for everyone. In both these situations, the “teams” were small, but the stakes for those involved were high.
We hope you now see that you’ve been working in teams more often than you thought! No doubt you’ll have strong options to choose from when writing a teamwork personal essay.
Watch: Linda Abraham discusses two main ways you can show the adcom that you are a leader.
Our expert admissions advisors can help you identify your teamwork experiences and guide you as you write about them, or assist you with any other component of your application. Schedule a free consultation today!
By Judy Gruen, former Accepted admissions consultant. Judy holds a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. She is also the co-author of Accepted’s first full-length book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools. Want an admissions expert to help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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