It takes two to make a team.
Being asked to write a piece on our value of ‘Teamwork’ got me thinking about its importance and its origin within Hawk. Each one of our values has evolved over time and been reshaped to form a meaningful acronym – FLITE, more in line with Hawk!
Starting at the beginning, our company name ‘Hawk’ was chosen by our founder Terry Barnett. With unparalleled experience in both education and industry, Terry sought to address the gap between education and ‘real world’ knowledge and skills and set out to create a company committed to achieving excellence in its field. As Terry walked on the farmland which provided Hawk with its first seed money over 30 years ago, he spotted a Hawk flying above. As the Hawk hovered in the sky, it had spotted its prey, focused its aim and went for it, successfully of course!
From that point, Hawk was built on teamwork – a family, all with different skills and talents, working together as one to build an environment in which everyone could learn, grow and go on to apply those skills in real life, to thrive. Teamwork is at the heart of Hawk and reflects the value we place on our relationships with our internal and external colleagues and partners. We invest in those relationships believing that we will always do better together.
I love being part of a team and feel very privileged to lead teams. Teamwork makes me tick, gets me through the down days – it brings meaning, quite simply because it involves other people. Its not the same high-fiving yourself, it means so much more when you can share the experience with another, with others – good or bad. Teamwork provides a great source of motivation, for trying harder, for sticking with things and most of all, learning, not just about each other but about ourselves.
The look and feel of teams has changed since COVID with the ground levelled between field and office based teams with everyone working from home and ‘being in the same boat!’. Dialling straight into the home has enabled us to see more of each other and given precious insights into the lives of our colleagues, removing barriers and strengthening relationships where we get to know more about our team mates and their lives outside of work as they cross over.
You might be part of a small team of 2 or 3, or perhaps lead a large team. Regardless of the size of your team, it's important to be yourself, authentic and contribute to the team. Whether it’s suggesting a better way to do something, or simply showing your support for a team mate. Now more than ever, we need to pull together and support each other. I am consistently blown away by the dedication of the teams that make up the Hawk family, caring about one another and supporting each other but it’s not always plane sailing…
You don’t always have to agree with another colleague, but respect is essential. It’s through disagreements that I have learned the most about the value of teamwork and truly appreciated the diversity it brings. Giving yourself time to reflect after a disagreement and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes can give you insight into their way of thinking and help develop and even change your own thoughts and behaviours. I have learned the most from others and more often than not, learned more from the people within my teams that have a different perspective or experience to me.
There are many phrases about teamwork: “Teamwork makes the dreamwork” and… “There’s no I in team”. Teamwork is people centric – you can’t achieve it alone and that’s the beauty of it. I would argue that there is teamwork in every aspect of our work, and we can help to strengthen that further by recognising the work of our team more frequently than we already do!
For more information about Hawk Training and our core values as an organisation, please get in touch, email hello@hawktraining,com or call 020 8891 0992.