Teamwork and its importance
Teamwork is the process of working collaboratively with a group of people in order to achieve a goal. Teamwork means that people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback, despite any personal conflict between individuals. Team has a common goal or purpose where team members can develop effective, mutual relationships to achieve team goals. Teamwork relies upon individuals working together in a cooperative environment to achieve common team goals through sharing knowledge and skills.
Attributes of successful teamwork
Commitment to team success
Team members should share common goals, values, beliefs, as well as commitment and motivation to succeed; for example, each team member has to strive for perfection which means that if developers have superb performance, designers have to keep up and vice versa.
Interdependence
There is no success for an individual if other members of the team fail; for example, it doesn’t matter that the design is sparkling if the website crashes with every click, everyone loses.
Interpersonal skills
Respect, support and realistic mutual expectations among team members are a must; for example, a team cannot expect an inexperienced junior web developer to pull the same weight as a senior one.
Open communication
Giving and accepting feedback as well as cultivating team spirit of constructive criticism is paramount; for example, if a young designer willingly accepts more experienced colleagues advice, he may improve his overall performance which will benefit the team.
Appropriate team composition
Specific tasks are handled by specific roles, and specific roles require specific talents and skill sets; for example, a team that is made up solely of developers will create a functional app. Design, however, will probably be way below par.
Commitment to team leadership and accountability
Since team members expect certain freedom when it comes to decision-making, they are more likely to accept individual accountability and personal responsibility for their actions; for example, while team leader delegates tasks and keeps track of progress, it is up to designers and developers to use their skills and deliver the final product. They will often make high-risk/high-reward moves, and be more than willing to accept scolding if their “leap of faith” fails.
Importance of Teamwork
Teamwork motivates unity in the workplace
A teamwork environment promotes an atmosphere that fosters friendship and loyalty. These close-knit relationships motivate employees in parallel and align them to work harder, cooperate and be supportive of one another. Individuals possess diverse talents, weaknesses, communication skills, strengths, and habits. Therefore, when a teamwork environment is not encouraged this can pose many challenges towards achieving the overall goals and objectives. This creates an environment where employees become focused on promoting their own achievements and competing against their fellow colleagues. Ultimately, this can lead to an unhealthy and inefficient working environment. When teamwork is working the whole team would be motivated and working toward the same goal in harmony.
Teamwork offers differing perspectives and feedback
Good teamwork structures provide your organization with a diversity of thought, creativity, perspectives, opportunities, and problem-solving approaches. A proper team environment allows individuals to brainstorm collectively, which in turn increases their success to problem solve and arrive at solutions more efficiently and effectively.
Effective teams also allow the initiative to innovate, in turn creating a competitive edge to accomplish goals and objectives. Sharing differing opinions and experiences strengthens accountability and can help make effective decisions faster, than when done alone.
Team effort increases output by having quick feedback and multiple sets of skills come into play to support your work. You can do the stages of designing, planning, and implementation much more efficiently when a team is functioning well.
Teamwork provides improved efficiency and productivity
When incorporating teamwork strategies, you become more efficient and productive. This is because it allows the workload to be shared, reducing the pressure on individuals, and ensure tasks are completed within a set time frame. It also allows goals to be more attainable, enhances the optimization of performance, improves job satisfaction and increases work pace.
Ultimately, when a group of individuals works together, compared to one person working alone, they promote a more efficient work output and are able to complete tasks faster due to many minds intertwined on the same goals and objectives of the business.
Teamwork provides great learning opportunities
Working in a team enables us to learn from one another’s mistakes. You are able to avoid future errors, gain insight from differing perspectives, and learn new concepts from more experienced colleagues.
In addition, individuals can expand their skill sets, discover fresh ideas from newer colleagues and therefore ascertain more effective approaches and solutions towards the tasks at hand. This active engagement generates the future articulation, encouragement and innovative capacity to problem solve and generate ideas more effectively and efficiently.
Teamwork promotes workplace synergy
Mutual support shared goals, cooperation and encouragement provide workplace synergy. With this, team members are able to feel a greater sense of accomplishment, are collectively responsible for outcomes achieved and feed individuals with the incentive to perform at higher levels.
When team members are aware of their own responsibilities and roles, as well as the significance of their output being relied upon by the rest of their team, team members will be driven to share the same vision, values, and goals. The result creates a workplace environment based on fellowship, trust, support, respect, and cooperation.
Without the ability to effectively work in a team environment, you could delay the success of developing, formulating and implementing new and innovative ideas. The ability to problem solve is reduced, as well as the attainment of meeting goals and objectives, in turn, limiting the efficiency and effectiveness of growing a successful company is hindered.
Benefits of Teamwork
Since teamwork provides mutual moral support and a greater sense of accomplishment, it is obvious that it very beneficial.
However, the real question is: what does your company get out of it? Why should you even bother?
Increased efficiency
Sometimes, you will handle projects that have unrealistic and non-negotiable deadlines. At those moments it isn’t enough to issue “all hands on deck” order but to delegate properly. When members use their experience, specialization and skill sets, targets will be achieved and tasks will be accomplished on time, with minimum errors.
Complement each other’s strengths positively
On the one hand, your company has a top-notch designer whose work will allow you to attract any client. However, he is irresponsible and always breaking deadlines. On the other hand, you have a mediocre designer but he always delivers on time. By teaming them up, you will get the perfect combination: the former will contribute with excellent ideas, while the latter will make sure that work is done properly and on time. This is also known as the “buddy system”.
Innovation through constructive conflict
Need an immediate solution to the problem that everyone has been stuck with? Introduce a “wildcard” to the team. Clash of characters can cause constructive conflict and produce solutions that “group think” others haven’t even considered. Be wary however of long-term consequences: constructive conflict can easily transform to destructive, so the introduction of the “wildcard” should be considered only as a short-term solution.
Workforce flexibility
Instead of leading the everlasting recruitment campaign, you can cross train your employees for roles outside their current responsibilities. For example, if your web designer gains basic web development skills, he will be able to pull some of the web developing colleague’s weight and avoid a bottleneck in case of his absence.
