Teams are formed to take advantage of individuals' expertise at particular aspects of solving a common problem, whether it is an internal or external (client-facing) project.
The skills of the individuals are highly valued in a Task Culture, and unskilled or incompetent team members are not well tolerated. Most medium and large professional services, accounting, law and consulting firms (like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Bain, etc.) are Task Cultures requiring you to develop and expand a set of skills and bring them to multiple projects. Independence, innovation and critical thinking are necessary, as well as the ability to work with lots of different people on (frequently) demanding projects with tight deadlines. Because individual skills are so important, the best firms in this area spend a lot of time and money on employee education. In management consulting and accounting firms particularly, you'll be offered (and required to take) courses to extend your expertise. Even if you can't stand other aspects of the environment (particularly the workload), spending a couple of years getting a paid education can pay off in the long run.
Firms with Task Cultures may have highly detailed workflow documentation like Role Cultures. However, in a Task Culture considerable amounts of interpretation and judgment are required to adapt the methodologies to specific client situations.
If you have a problem-solving mentality, can work in unstructured environments with evolving objectives, and can manage criticism you will find Task Cultures challenging and fun.
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