Essays: team work or independent work

TOPIC 78: Is it more important to be able to work with a group of people on a team or to work independently? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.

Essay 1

In a modern society, employers always face the dilemma of whether to choose a person to work with a group of people or to work independently. This problem is a much-debated one in that it affects everybody in his or her daily lives. While both of the ways may have their advantages and disadvantages, they can be applied under different circumstances. Afterwards, I will explain my opinion about it.

To work independently has the obvious advantage that it can prove the ability of a employee. One can use his own knowledge and way to solve the difficulties met during the work. But there lies intrinsic harmful characteristic in this method. Some people warn that a person choosing to work independently may lack the ability of communicating with other people. Furthermore, a person's knowledge and ability are limited. We need others' help or assistance to solve the problems. By means of it, we can improve the efficiency so that a company can make good use of human resources.

On the other hand, choosing to work with a group of people also has advantages to some extent. From most advertisements, we can notice that nowadays more and more companies concentrate on communication skills and team-cooperated abilities. The reason is that they believe two heads are always better than one's. With the combination of all people's knowledge, we can solve the problem or bring out a better solution as soon as possible. In addition, to work with team also can save the time and make more money for companies. As we know, it is a strong competitive society. Time can means a lot to a company. To work with a team can reduce the time to the lowest extend so that the company can increase their competition. Although to work with a team does have its profound advantages, at the mean time there lies some drawbacks in it such as an individual may rely on the others in a team.

But if all these factors are contemplated, the advantages of working with a group of people carry more weight than those of working independently because the first one fits most companies better in two ways: In the first place, we cannot live in a society independently and we need to communicate with each other, so the communication skill is very important to us. Through teamwork, we can enhance this ability. Secondly, through teamwork, we can try each one's best to give a better idea to save time and make more profit for companies. Therefore from what we have discussed, we may safely come to the conclusion that choosing to work with a group of people is a rather wise decision.

(Essay ID: 167 )

Essay 2

Some people like to work independently, while others would prefer to work in a team. Is it more important to be able to work with a group of people on a team or to work independently?
Depending on different personal traits and working environments, people will have different answer to this question. I think being able to work in a team is more important for me.

First, modern society and industry is a complicated system which requires team work,
communication and cooperation between companies and individuals. Take a computer system for example, it comprises of hardware, operating system and software, which are manufactured separately by different companies. Not one single company can accomplish a computer system without using products and technologies from other companies. Similarly, in a company, communication and teamwork is more and more important because I can not do my work properly without interacting with my supervisor and my colleagues.

Second, there are many advantages of working in a group than working alone. Teamwork provides me with a cooperative, friendly and enjoyable work environment. The team can also be helpful with my questions and problems, therefore increase the efficiency of my work. Teamwork can challenge my abilities and I can learn valuable experiences from it. From teamwork, I can also made valuable contacts with other professionals, which is quite helpful to my future career.

Third, the ability of working independently does not contradict with the ability to work in a team. For example, in a team environment, I enjoyed being a major contributor to my team. The fact that others depended on my work made me feel like I was doing worthwhile things. For example, I was in charge of the front end for the GUI for the new test manager. This was very valuable, because I know how important working on a team is.

Inclusion, I think the most important quality for me in my work environment is the ability to work with others in a team.

(Essay ID: 166 )