Do You Love Teamwork?

What is your first thought about teamwork? For years, I had more than one negative thought when being grouped or made to work in a team. For starters, I was thinking that team mates would steal my ideas, slow me down or take credits for my work. Luckily, I found tools which make everything clear and no such situation is possible.

And yes, it is true that in a team you can hardly have control over everything. For me, it was kind of a snag until I learned that it can be a problem only for those who enjoy being in charge.

Of course, a point can be made here by saying “I really enjoy/prefer/like to be in charge” or “I concentrate better when working alone”. However, working in a team does not mean you necessarily have to sit with others in the same room and cooperate. What you need to do is communicate. This also can pose a problem for some people, but doing any job requires social contact and communication, which means that sooner or later you will have to be engaged in some kind of communication in order to get the job done.

Thirdly, contrary to my belief that working alone means easier time management, I came to a conclusion that if time management and organization skills are low, no independent work will be done effectively. Frankly speaking, working in a team got my drawbacks come to the surface more quickly. The good thing was that just by knowing what those drawbacks were, I could overcome them and my work, efficiency and motivation did not suffer.

What can working in a team mean to you and why you should love it?

1. Increased efficiency. From my experience, being a part of a team makes you see and feel that the tasks have a better flow and are finished faster when a group works on them. This is so due to the strengths of individuals. In my team, and I believe in any other team, we are all different, with different skills and preferences; we see things, carry out tasks and approach problems in different ways. Having different people working on a project where everyone is a master for a different field, what you get as an end product is quite expected: a job finished sooner than if one person was doing it. More info on how to improve it by using business collaboration platforms here.

2. Improved creativity. At some point of collaboration with my teammates, I became a witness of how new ideas are created and issues solved. Brainstorming in a team got a whole new dimension. How? By getting an insight into other people’s thought process; I could apply their strategies to my specific situation and come to a solution nobody would ever think of.

3. Enabled collaboration. Collaboration is pivotal for teamwork. Without it, the word team would not exist. What I especially like is that every member of the team is equally important to the group. When someone is not giving their best, it is easily seen. But, it is also hard not to notice someone’s effort and their contribution to the team. Once I saw this and once I understood my purpose, the roles of my co-workers and the goal of the project, I was on a path of efficient, creative and improved collaboration that lead to successful project implementation.

4. Learning about yourself. Believe it or not, teamwork showed me my place in a collaborative process. I always thought of myself as being quiet and shy, but teamwork actually opened my eyes showing me a picture of me as a leader. Once I was placed in a team setting where my work did not depend only on my responsibilities and tasks, I have learned about my strengths and weaknesses. In addition, I learned how to trust people. Firm trust is built on efficient communication; the better the communication, the firmer the trust, and the easier it becomes to reach the goals.

Rules to follow in order for teamwork to make sense and improve collaboration.

Prioritizing is an integral part of any work and crucial part for doing business. The essentiality of prioritizing within a teamwork became clear to me when I had to make a decision about the next step of the project and that step without question affected other team members and their tasks.

Set clear goals. I am always aware that each team member needs to know their tasks at every step of the project. They need to understand what the goal is, in order to strive to its accomplishment.

Enable autonomy. Everyone with a task must have a complete control over it and a feeling of being in charge. As a leader I must trust that my team will succeed and to be there for them if they “get stuck” and never deny them the feeling of being responsible for their work.

Have regular meetings. Having regular meetings allows everybody to be up-to-date and create an opportunity, as well as a safe setting, for asking questions. Meetings are also an invaluable chance for experience and advice exchange.

Give feedback. Team members must always have feedback, since it represents a kind of motivation and positive reinforcement. I realised that by giving regular feedbacks to those doing well, I have everyone feeling important, which inevitably improves team relations, collaboration and in the long run work results. Of course, some feedback is constructive; nevertheless the effect is positive when corrective actions are taken.

The question that follows is “How can this be achieved in a business setting?” Taking into account the fact that my team mates are sometimes not in the same country and time is never a luxury – I came to a very simple answer: this can be achieved by using a collaborative platform.

Collaborative platforms are there to make teamwork and collaboration in business as productive, efficient and collaborative as possible. Communication is enhanced, file sharing is accessible, safe and quick, and maybe most importantly, my team mates and I have access to the team and the projects from anywhere and at any time. Any computer, tablet or a phone connected to the internet can enable us to access the platform, download, upload, comment, move, copy or archive contents, while every action is recorded.

It is obvious that teamwork gets a whole new dimension when supported with a collaborative platform and now you have a reason to think twice before answering the question: “Do You Love Teamwork?”