Reflection & Skills

Across roles in hotel sales, my own venture, and The Dialogue, my contribution to teamwork has been to turn moving parts into organised delivery. In hotels, I worked as the connector across the hotel sales team, banquets, F&B and front office, translating client needs into clear tasks across departments, and surfacing risks before they reached the guest. That experience taught me that teams perform when expectations are clearly written down, ownership is visible, and small issues are named early. When I skipped any one of those, coordination frayed and avoidable rework showed up  At The Dialogue, with multiple stakeholders and tight timelines, but the same habits help. Simple check-ins, a single ‘standard operating procedures (SOP)’ document, and a clear definition of done. In my entrepreneurial venture, I carried P&L accountability and built frontline teams, which forced me to make standards explicit and create space for people to raise problems without fear.

Looking across these settings, the habit that moves the needle most is making it safe to speak up and then turning that input into simple action. Meta-analytic evidence links psychological safety with learning and performance because people raise concerns earlier and try minor improvements sooner (Frazier, Fainshmidt, Klinger, Pezeshkan, & Vracheva, 2017), which is precisely what my short debriefs and written norms are designed to achieve. When I delayed naming risks to keep harmony, issues resurfaced later at higher cost, which is the exact failure I’m trying to prevent. My self-assessment helps explain both the strengths and the risks. I’m comfortable initiating contact and keeping tone constructive, but high agreeableness can make me slow to confront repeated misses. To counter that, I use short written recaps of decisions, so gaps are visible.

How I handle conflict has also matured. Research distinguishes between task conflict, which can sharpen decision-making, and relationship conflict, which drags down performance and satisfaction (de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012). In hotels, my practice was to anchor debates in the event plan and criteria (budget, guest experience, risk), rotate turns so each team had airtime, and end with a summary of what we chose and why in our events briefing. In my venture, where I was working with my partner, I learned to reset tense moments by asking, “What evidence would change your view?” when making decisions together, then documenting the decision and next step. Our team at The Dialogue creates a shared issue list with clear owners for each question. Skipping this wastes time on poor coordination, but doing it improves effectiveness and efficiency.

Diversity has been an edge when I use it properly. Cross-functional and experience diversity pay off when teams elaborate on one another’s task-relevant information rather than trading positions (van Dijk, van Engen, & van Knippenberg, 2012). The practical translation is three moves with sequence speakers, so people don’t talk over one another, anchor discussion in a shared document, and close with an integrative summary that keeps the best ideas and owners. Under stress, I sometimes skip these steps, often leading to revisiting decisions or altering them later. Writing it down once prevents that loop.

Hybrid work has reinforced why I rely on shared documents, short, planned check-ins, and clear owners. Studies show that remote work can improve retention without hurting performance, which is why many teams formalised simple routines rather than treating hybrid work as a temporary fix (Bloom, Han, & Liang, 2024). For me, the takeaway is straightforward. Distance raises the cost of ambiguity, so clarity must be reinforced on a schedule, not left to chance.

When reflecting on my professional self, the growth areas seem clear. First, stop over-functioning and picking up others’ pieces when they miss deadlines. My rule now is one written reminder, then a direct conversation within 24 hours to ask what is blocking and agree on a reset, instead of silently taking the task, a point that was even raised during class discussions. Second, protect tone under pressure with a brief pause and a checklist before high-stakes meetings. Must delegate earlier by separating ‘must-do myself’ tasks from teachable tasks. Fourth, keep learning continuously with a five-minute ‘keep/stop/start’ after milestones, so improvements don’t depend on memory.

Overall, I add the most value when I create clarity early, invite frank input, keep debate on ideas rather than identities, and make decisions and owners visible. By naming tensions sooner, sharing the load instead of rescuing, and locking choices in simple documents, I can raise team reliability professional settings where teamwork forms the backbone. Those adjustments make my strengths scale without burning me out, which is the practical outcome I’m aiming for myself in the future.

References:

Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 630, 774–779.

de Wit, F. R. C., Greer, L. L., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 360–390.

Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113–165.

van Dijk, H., van Engen, M. L., & van Knippenberg, D. (2012). Defying conventional wisdom: A meta-analytical examination of differences between demographic and job-related diversity relationships with performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119(1), 38–53.