11.3 Teamwork and Influencing/Negotiating

11.3 Teamwork and Influencing/Negotiating

Quick Summary: OPM defines Teamwork as encourages and facilitates cooperation, pride, trust, and group identity; fosters commitment and team spirit; works with others to achieve goals. It defines Influencing/Negotiating as persuades others; builds consensus through give and take; gains cooperation from others to obtain information and accomplish goals.

Teamwork is more active than it sounds

The everyday sense of "good at teamwork" is cooperative — someone who gets along and does their share. OPM's definition asks for more than that.

Three of the four clauses use active verbs pointed at other people: encourages, facilitates, fosters. Only the last describes ordinary participation.

That framing matters when reading items. A statement about helping colleagues who are struggling, or about bringing a quiet person into a discussion, is squarely within this competency even though neither is about your own share of the work.

Note also that trust appears here as something to be built within a group, and separately under Integrity/Honesty as personal trustworthiness. The two are related but distinct: one is about being reliable yourself, the other about creating conditions where a group can rely on one another.

In practice

• Sharing information that helps others do their work, without being asked.
• Helping a colleague under pressure when you have capacity.
• Drawing out contributions from people who have not spoken.
• Giving credit where it belongs.
• Prioritising the group's outcome over being individually right.
• Working constructively with people you did not choose to work with.

Influencing/Negotiating

This competency appears in job announcement competency lists for non-supervisory positions, so it is not confined to management roles. Its definition has three parts.

Give and take is the operative phrase

It would have been easy to define this competency as persuasion alone. OPM did not. Builds consensus through give and take makes reciprocity explicit — which means the competency includes conceding as well as convincing.

Someone who always prevails in discussions is not necessarily strong on this competency. Consensus built through give and take implies movement on both sides. A person who never adjusts their position is not building consensus; they are winning arguments, which is a different thing and often a less effective one.

Gaining cooperation without authority

The third clause is the most practically important for non-supervisory work: gains cooperation from others to obtain information and accomplish goals.

Most administrative work depends on people who do not report to you — a colleague in another unit who holds a record you need, a partner office whose sign-off is required, a team whose timing affects yours. Getting that cooperation without being able to direct it is exactly what this competency measures.

Note too that obtaining information is named specifically. A great deal of practical influencing is simply getting someone to tell you what you need to know, in time to be useful.

In practice

• Making a case with reasons the other person has grounds to accept.
• Understanding what the other party needs before proposing something.
• Conceding points that are not essential in order to secure the ones that are.
• Following up in a way that keeps a request alive without antagonising.
• Finding an arrangement that works for both units rather than escalating.
• Building relationships before you need something, rather than only when you do.

How the two connect

Both are about achieving results through other people, and they differ in setting.

Teamwork operates inside a group with shared goals. The task is building cooperation and commitment where a common purpose already exists.

Influencing/Negotiating operates where interests differ or where you have no authority. The task is bringing people toward a position, or securing cooperation, without a shared goal to appeal to.

A person can be strong in one and weaker in the other. Someone excellent within their own team may find negotiating across organisational boundaries difficult, and someone persuasive with external parties may contribute little to their own team's cohesion.

Answering accurately

The standing guidance applies: read thoroughly, be honest, do not overthink.

The useful preparation for these two competencies is recognising how broad they are. If you have been reading Teamwork as "does their share", the definition asks about encouraging, facilitating and fostering. If you have been reading Influencing/Negotiating as a management skill, the definition covers obtaining information and cooperation from colleagues — something almost every administrative role requires. Recognising the behaviour an item describes is what allows an accurate answer.