The Importance of The Business Etiquette and The Teamwork

Business etiquette is a set of expected behaviours from an individual that are used in a professional business environment in order to create a pleasant work environment. The business etiquette is only slightly different from the standard social setting, the main differences being that in social etiquette gender plays a role and it’s marked by courtesy but in business etiquette gender has no role and it’s marked by hierarchy and power. It is very important as there are many consequences for not following this etiquette. A good example of this would be when there is a business deal taking place and if one of the parties aren’t aware of their business etiquette they may offend the other party and that can lead to a bad business relationship as not following business etiquette shows that you don’t respect the other person and have no courtesy for people around you. Not many people will want to work with such a person. The main things to be aware of in a business etiquette are promptness, preparation, appearance, decorum, email formatting and communication appropriateness. Promptness exhibits professionalism by being consistent and punctual. Preparation is necessary to avoid looking sloppy and unprofessional. Appearance is a must in order for others to take you seriously. Decorum is all about keeping confidential things to yourself and avoiding to use profanities and offensive language. Email formatting covers being polite over the internet, using greetings and structuring the content so that it’s easy to understand. Lastly, communication appropriateness is very important as saying the right things goes a long way, therefore, a professional should keep the communication with others relevant and avoid telling inappropriate jokes, offend people.

Teamwork is a vital skill that is required everywhere in the business world. Working in a team requires good communication and collaboration skills in order for a group of people to achieve a goal. For a successful teamwork, the individuals need to set their differences aside and focus on the work, it’s important for everyone to provide constructive feedback to others work in order to improve it. Teamwork is a very important skill especially in the business world as working in a team is often much more efficient than working individually as it enables diverse people with various skill sets to do the tasks. The chance of getting stuck is minimised as if one person doesn't know the best approach someone else will be an expert in that area, meaning that by putting together a team will allow them to use a wider spectrum of skills and complete the task faster as there are more people working on it and the quality of the outcome will be better as more people will have input making sure that the outcome is the best result.

Teamwork also promotes flexibility as the team will be more responsive and have the ability to respond to change. Also, for larger organisations, teamwork promotes equality and can create a good competition between the team members, therefore, making the work more productive. In most realms, teamwork is referred to as the key to success but it is very important that there is someone that manages the teamwork in case the members aren’t highly experienced and know what each person need to do. The management aspect of a team can have just as big of an impact on the team as the teamwork itself.

I’m planning to work in a large organisation after I finish university and in order for me to fulfil that goal, it is important that I master the corporate business etiquette. The main principle that underpins all etiquettes that I have learned is that one should treat others as you would like to be treated. I have also used business etiquette in life before, for example, when I had an interview with my current employer I had to exhibit professionalism and be very polite throughout the interview. When we first met I showed a lot of respect and in a well-behaved manner, I introduced myself being aware of my body language and giving a firm handshake. I have dressed appropriately for the situation, was self-aware and used common sense in order to differentiate myself from others in a competitive job market as surprisingly there is a lot of people that don’t know how to behave in work environment. Good teamwork skill is highly required by most employers as it is very beneficial for the company to hire people that work well in teams. Even in the interview, I attended I was asked to give examples when I have been working in a team for them to make sure I’m actually able to work in a team not just say I can. As the example, I used one of the many projects I have worked on in the university where teamwork was necessary. The project was about creating a new product concept, making a survey about it and presenting our findings. The way we divided our team roles was that everyone talked about what are they good at and once it was clear who can do what we assigned the responsibilities. Even in a team like that, there was a professional business etiquette as we developed trust for each other and respected the decisions we make. The biggest issue that our team had back then was that we had issues splitting up the work and meeting individual deadlines for the work that we were doing and the result of this was that the whole project was delayed even though most of the team members worked hard. This shows that for a good teamwork there must be good team management within the team and the people have to have good communication skills. As in my example if the people that couldn’t do the work on time would have asked for help there wouldn’t have been any delay.

In conclusion business etiquette and the ability to work in a team are things you can learn and that will be very useful in life. They both compliment each other and work well together increasing the chance of reaching career goals.