Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unit 8 Pages 140-159
Unit 8 Pages 140-159
Teamwork in IT Industry
Introduction
You are going to read a passage about team work. You will learn about the benefits of good
teamwork and some tips on improving teamwork in working environment.
1.1 Find out the Chinese equivalent to each of the following technical terms. Then
read aloud the terms.
1.3 Complete the following sentences by using the words and expressions in the box.
1. A _________ is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge
of the subject matter.
2. So often people will step up and do things for others they won’t do for themselves. For many the
emotional pain of letting someone else down is far greater than being hard on themselves. To
_________ this problem, delegate part of the project to other people. Get them involved so your
own sense of obligation helps you meet deadlines and do higher quality work.
3. One of the _________ about viruses is that people think they can reinstall Windows on their PC
after a virus infection, only to copy their files from a backup drive and then re-infect themselves
all over again. You need to make sure that your documents and data have been scanned for and
are free from viruses, especially after an infection.
4. Doctors are concentrating on understanding the disease better, and on _________ the treatment.
5. Organizations with high _________ experience higher productivity and staff engagement, they
show lower employee turnover and absenteeism, and they have a happier workforce. What’s
156 高级职场英语(IT 行业适用)
more, they find it easier to attract and retain the best talent.
6. Team and teamwork must be encouraged at workplace as it strengthens the _________ among
the employees and the targets can be met at a faster pace. Workload is shared and individuals feel
motivated to perform better than his team members.
7. In the evolution of any _________ which cannot be resolved by the parties, a mechanism shall
be used to publish decisions or recommendations on how the matters in issue should be settled.
8. Cultivating _________ across the organization requires managers to take specific actions.
Employees need to clearly understand their role in the company and what they are responsible
for accomplishing. Managers need to define expectations up front and reinforce them
periodically within the context of the business and ensure their employees are empowered to do
what is expected.
Client communication involves the communication between the development team and the
client. Client availability is one of the problems:
Internal coordination is the process through which the team members coordinate their own
activities to reach a common goal. For example:
Client coordination involves a set of activities that allows the development team to coordinate
their effort with the client. For example:
During the experimental observations a catalogue of the issues was developed. At the same
time extensive research on them was done to try to look for patterns that had been addressed before,
regardless of the context that had been previously addressed. Therefore a list of ThinkLets was
created along with the practices that can be used to mitigate the recurrent problem. Analyzing our
results we saw to see that the majority of the problems were mitigated with the use of the ThinkLets.
Find out the Chinese equivalent to each of the following technical terms. Then
read aloud the terms.
C. Teamwork increases the accountability of every member of the team, especially when
working under people who command a lot of respect within the business.
D. Cooperating on a project is not an opportunity for new workers to learn from more
experienced employees.
2. How to prevent and resolve conflicts? (More than one correct answer)
A. Make sure each team member is shouldering an equal share of the work burden so no
one feels frustrated or resentful.
B. Have a clear set of rules and responsibilities team members need to follow.
C. Make sure the team leader resolves conflicts effectively.
D. If the team leader can’t resolve the dispute, bring in a management team leader or
consultant to act as a mediator.
3. Which one is not the importance of teamwork in organizations?
A. Work efficiency. B. Setting clear goals.
C. Improved employee relations. D. Increased accountability.
4. Which one is not true about setting clear goals?
A. A team without a goal is like a house without a frame—it will simply fall apart with the
slightest nudge.
B. Individual teams must understand what that goal is, and know their role—both
individually and as a group—in accomplishing it.
C. Teamwork increases the accountability of every member of the team, especially when
working under people who command a lot of respect within the business.
D. To accomplish your goal, the team must have the right tools.
5. Which one is not about learning opportunities?
A. Cooperating on a project is an opportunity for new workers to learn from more
experienced employees.
B. Teams often consist of members who differ from one another in terms of skills or
talents.
C. Working together is a great opportunity to acquire skills that an employee never had
beforehand.
D. Teamwork increases the accountability of every member of the team, especially when
working under people who command a lot of respect within the business.
6. Which one is not true about software engineering according to the article?
A. Software engineering is an important area within industry and academia.
B. Normally there is a high demand for well-trained software engineers.
C. Internal communication deals with the challenge of each team member to conduct
effective communication with his peers.
D. Although human factors have been proven to have an impact on the software
development process, they are still overlooked by researchers.
7. How does the author define the ThinkLet?
A. They define a Thinklet as an activity or process that produces predictable results to deal
160 高级职场英语(IT 行业适用)
4. What are the two simple rules to make proper personal space when you have small talk with
others?
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
5. Are you good at small talk? Do you have any other suggestions or good topics about small
talk in workplace? Please share them with your friends.
____________________________________________________________________________
T IT I 163
Ⅱ. Email writing
Emails are widely used on job. Sometimes they need to
be formal, and sometimes an informal one may be a better
choice. Emails on job are not quite the same as writing a
business letter but it’s definitely a huge step in that direction.
Clarity, conciseness and being correct are the keys! To write an
email on job, follow these guidelines.
Read your email and ask yourself if the content of the email sounds like the way you speak in
person. If so, then you’ve achieved a good tone for a friendly email. You can use contractions,
slangs and emoticons when appropriate.
Last but not the least, proofread your email before sending.
Proofread your message for content. Make sure you haven’t omitted any important details (or
repeated yourself). And also proofread your message for spelling and grammar. Sometimes a word
processor is of great help.
长句的翻译
T IT I 165
主
主
主
主
Task 1
Here are five questions related to the topic of this unit. You can scan the QR code to get the
article entitled with “Managing Multi cultural Team” and answer the questions based on what you
will get from the article.
1. What did the project manager do when they needed to produce a new product quickly?
A. They assembled a team of employees from India and the United States.
B. They generated frustrating management dilemmas.
C. They interviewed managers and members of multicultural teams from all over the world.
D. They may create more problems than they resolve by intervening.
2. According to the article, why did conflicts arise?
A. They arose from cultural differences.
B. Indian team didn’t finish their job on time.
C. American didn’t give Indian team enough time.
D. Indian team and American team didn’t work at the same time.
3. Which one is not true according to the article?
A. Multicultural teams often generate frustrating management dilemmas.
B. Cultural differences can create substantial obstacles to effective teamwork—but these
may be subtle and difficult to recognize until significant damage has already been done.
C. Cultural challenges are manageable if managers and team members choose the right
strategy and avoid imposing single-culture-based approaches on multicultural situations.
D. The differences between direct and indirect communication can’t cause serious damage
to relationships when team projects run into problems.
4. Which one is the challenge in managing multicultural teams effectively? (More than one
correct answer)
A. To recognize underlying cultural causes of conflict.
B. To intervene in ways that both get the team back on track and empower its members to
deal with future challenges themselves.
C. Communication in Western cultures is typically direct and explicit.
D. In many other cultures, meaning is embedded in the way the message is presented.
5. Which one is true about having trouble with accents and fluency?
A. Misunderstandings or deep frustration may occur because of nonnative speakers’ accents,
lack of fluency, or problems with translation or usage.
B. The meaning is on the surface, and a listener doesn’t have to know much about the
context or the speaker to interpret it.
C. People tend to assume that challenges on multicultural teams arise from differing styles
of communication
D. Communication challenges create barriers to effective teamwork by reducing information
sharing, creating interpersonal conflict, or both.
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Task 2
Read the following paragraphs excerpted from “The Essential Drucker” by Peter F. Drucker
and answer the questions.
1. How has the labor force in society and organizations changed from past to now?
2. Why do manual workers need efficiency while knowledge workers need to provide effectiveness?
For manual work, we need only efficiency, that is, the ability to do things right rather than the
ability to get the right things done. The manual worker can always be judged in terms of the
quantity and quality of a definable and discrete output, such as a pair of shoes. We have learned how
to measure efficiency and how to define quality in manual work during the last hundred years — to
the point where we have been able to multiply the output of the individual worker tremendously.
Today, however, the large knowledge organization is the central reality. Modern society is a
society of large organized institutions. In every one of them, including the armed services, the center
of gravity has shifted to the knowledge worker, the man who puts to work what he has between his
ears rather than the brawn of his muscle or the skill of his hands. Increasingly, the majority of
people who have been schooled to use knowledge, theory, and concept rather than physical force or
manual skill work in an organization and are effective insofar as they can make a contribution to the
organization.
Now effectiveness can no longer be taken for granted. Now it can no longer be neglected.
Knowledge workers cannot be supervised closely or in detail. They can only be helped. But
they must direct themselves, and they must do so toward performance and contribution, that is,
toward effectiveness.
One can indeed never be sure what the knowledge worker thinks — and yet thinking is his or
her specific work; it is the knowledge worker’s “doing”.
The motivation of the knowledge worker depends on his being effective, on being able to
achieve. If effectiveness is lacking in his work, his commitment to work and to contribution will
soon wither, and he will become a time-server going through the motions from nine to five.
The knowledge worker does not produce something that is effective by itself. He does not
produce a physical product — a ditch, a pair of shoes, a machine part. He produces knowledge,
ideas, information. By themselves these “products” are useless. Somebody else, another person of
knowledge, has to take them as his input and convert them into his output before they have any
reality. The greatest wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data. The knowledge
worker, therefore, must do something that a manual worker need not do. He must provide
effectiveness.
Excerpted from The Essential Drucker by Peter F. Drucker
The topic for hands-on practice in this unit is: What makes a good team leader? Please
summarize what you’ve learned on this topic and support your opinions with examples.
T IT I 169
Task 1: Summary
Write down the factors that can lead to a good team leader according to this unit and give
examples to support the factors. Here is an example:
Factor A good team leader can generate confidence between the team members.
A good team leader organizes team building activities which can improve
Example
an employee’s confidence in a team.
Factor 1
Example
Factor 2
Example
Factor 3
Example
Performance Review
Can you tell the Chinese equivalents of the following English expressions?
1. optimizing collaboration YES NO
2. accomplish a common goal YES NO
3. reduce workloads YES NO
170 高级职场英语(IT 行业适用)
Do you know
21. the etiquette for small talk? YES NO
22. how to write emails on job? YES NO
23. what the discourse differences between English and
YES NO
Chinese sentences are?
24. how to translate long and complicated English
YES NO
sentences?
25. how many methods there are when translating long
YES NO
sentences?
Can you
26. translate the sentences from the passages into proper
YES NO
Chinese?
27. start a small talk with your colleagues or boss? YES NO
28. write a complete and concise unit report on the
YES NO
given topic?