Chalk2Cheese, a Personality Development and enhancing soft skills Academy is more like a Grooming school. It helps you to become the best version of yourself.
TEAMWORK
Many of us are more capable than some of us, but none of us is as capable as all of us.
Being a master of one or jack of all trades in today’s world, does not bring about success if you are unable to work as part of a team.
The importance of teamwork cannot be stressed enough. However, it is hard to get a group of individuals to collaborate together smoothly. A leader that cannot work with a team is a failure. Leaders that develop great teams around them have two things that they do well; they have a lot of emotional intelligence and are able to provide a clear vision for the team.
The team members themselves also need to possess high emotional intelligence, so that they interact with each other with the least amount of friction.
The importance of teamwork is essential in today’s multidisciplinary world. In the past, during the industrial era, when most jobs were represented by people, on a manufacturing line doing one thing all day, teamwork was not as important as it is today.
In today’s knowledge economy, most of our jobs involve interacting with others that are not even in the same line of profession. The need for effective teamwork is critical for any business. The ability to simultaneously perform as an individual and together with your colleagues or employees in effective teamwork is key to attaining growth and success.
In every aspect of business, the diverse skills of teams are needed for reaching success. Make use of every opportunity you have to engage in teamwork so you develop effective communication skills. From ice breaker question to deeper talks, getting to know your team will help you reach your goals. Steve jobs changed the whole pattern of living with his innovative and creative mind. However, without his team of hard working professionals and their abilities, his innovations would not have reached hands of so many people around the world.
In effect, teamwork is important and essential in order to accomplish the overall objectives and goals of an organization. Teamwork is the force behind every successful business. Only when employees come together, share a common vision of the goal, put together their strengths, complement their weaknesses and help each other in times of need, can an organization grow to its greatest heights. Teamwork leads to a multitude of benefits like increased productivity, brainstorming ideas, faster problem solving and faster execution of ideas.
However, building a work culture where people not only cooperate with each other but also love to help each other and achieve goals can be a bit of a challenge. Often time’s teams are made just for the sake of it while employees work in silos. This usually leads to a lack of motivation, productivity and efficiency. Employees quickly lose sight of the company’s mission which eventually affects the bottom line big time. Majority of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project.
An organizations best product is its employees. It is your job to keep those employees motivated, inspired and encourage them to get work done together.
BENEFITS 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, co-operate and be supportive of one another.
Individuals possess diverse talents, weaknesses, communications 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 towards the same goal in harmony.
Teamwork offers different perspective 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 solving and arrive at solutions more efficiently and effectively.
Effective teams also allow the initiative to accomplish goals and objectives. Sharing different 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 ensuring tasks are completed within a set time frame.
Teamwork allows goals to be more attainable, enhances the optimization of performance, improves job satisfaction and increases work pace. Ultimately, when a group of individuals work 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 different 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 future articulation; encouragement and innovative capacity to problem solve and generate ideas more effectively and efficiently.
Teamwork promotes workplace synergy. Mutual support shared goals, co-operation and encouragement provides workplace synergy. 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, they will be driven to share the same vision, values and goals. The result creates a work place environment based on fellowship, trust, support, respect and co-operation.
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. Limiting the efficiency and effectiveness of growing a successful company is hindered.
Teamwork skills are the skills that enable you to work well with others. Candidates with strong teamwork skills are sought out by employers for many reasons. They demonstrate leadership, collaboration and good communication. Employers expect employees to be team players.
Teamwork is required for almost every industry, ranging from business solutions to information technology to food services. This is true even if it seems like your job is best suited for an independent worker.
You may perform the bulk of your job duties alone, but you should be able to think, of your work in the context of the company’s broader goals and communicate your accomplishments, to other people within the organization.
Teamwork skills involve your ability to work co-operatively with others. Regardless of your role, your need to be able to work well with others and convey your teamwork skills to hiring managers, recruiters and prospective employers. Scan any job listing and you will see that even advertisements that seek self-starters also inevitably use the phrase team player.
Those who have teamwork skills like communication, collaboration, leadership and a positive attitude can help a team be more productive.
All sorts of tasks become easier and faster through teamwork. More than speed or ease, big or complex projects require teamwork. It is not a choice. Working together enables us to tackle big projects and goals that just would not be possible done.
Effective teamwork empowers us to reach our goals and have far more impact. Teamwork stretches far beyond making the best snow fort or carrying the heaviest objects. But, not everyone sees the value and benefits that a group of people working together can accomplish.
Teamwork happens when people work together towards a common goal. That goal could be professional or personal. You can work as a team to move a couch up a flight of stairs, launch a work project or play soccer. Defining team work is simple, but understanding how to work well as a team can be complicated.
Becoming an effective high performing team takes practice and guidance.
What teamwork means to you might be different for your teammates.
What teamwork looks like also depends a lot on the nature of your work and what types of challenges you face.
Not every type of work needs or benefits from teamwork. A key to a successful team is when individuals realize that working together on a project is more effective than working alone.
Teams are effective, when they are not just dividing up tasks and working independently to get them done faster. Great teamwork is about working together and collaborating to come up with better approaches. You know that you have the right teamwork for the job when your team delivers better outcomes than any one person could on their own.
Achieving a goal is often easier when tasks are done co-operatively rather than relying on each individual’s singular effort. An entire team operates best when each team member works collaboratively but still brings their own perspective and experience.
Let us say a team goal is developing a great new poster that advertises the company’s product. One group of people could be responsible for the graphics, while others could write the slogans. A third person might determine where to display the poster. The goal is shared, but the tasks are individual.
It does not matter whether you are just starting in your new work environment or if you are the team leader or manager.
Everyone gains when effective teams are in place. As team members start to work together, they will see how it boosts productivity. Teams may meet milestones with greater ease than individuals. Seeing success can motivate others to stick with their goals, even if they encounter challenges.
With effective teamwork comes more open communication. It is not about smooth conflict resolution so much as working with friction in respectful, productive ways. To complete shared goals, team members have to bring together diverse view points and build on them. They have to challenge each other’s assumptions. Sometimes they have to compromise.
Problem solving is ongoing. Teams develop strong conflict management skills to avoid lingering issues and tension. Working as a team allows people to get to know each other’s skills, personalities and areas of expertise.
Developing these connections leads to a stronger, more developed team. Professional relationships may flourish and people may discover opportunities for mentoring. Effective teamwork proves that a team can do great things and with that comes an expansion of their goals.
A successful team will not stay stagnant for long. Managers will be motivated to set new team goal. Employees of all levels will want to challenge themselves and expand their own skill sets.
Teamwork is important in every workplace. In person, virtual or hybrid environments and in person all thrive on teamwork. Working collaboratively is the only way to achieve a team’s shared goals. A great team is always getting better.
A good team can do the same work over and over like a well-oiled machine. A great team never gets to be efficient because they get tapped by leadership to take on all of the new interesting challenges. A great team is always learning and evolving its practices. Think about a disorganized team, out of touch with their responsibilities and refusing to work together. Reaching goals would be impossible.
The importance of teamwork stretches beyond productivity too. When you are a part of an effective team, you feel valued for your contributions and your employee experience is better. You get to do meaningful work that has an impact. Not only do you feel appreciated, but work that has meaning also boosts your commitment and well being.
Some teams do not see the value in teamwork right away. Perhaps they have been sticking to one routine for a long time and are not interested in changing. But as an entry level employee, an experienced or established employee, or even a team leader, you can turn that around. Everyone can help build an environment that appreciates and uses teamwork as best they can.
Ways you can promote teamwork in your job.
Celebrate people’s wins and recognize milestone and contributions in a positive, encouraging way. Be inclusive and make sure that everyone can bring their full talents to the work to be done. Develop strong communication skills for self managed teams. Learn what team members are good at and play to their skill sets.
Ask others “what does team work mean to you?” and build a system that fosters the type of teamwork that matters for your company.
Hearing different viewpoints and using other peoples skills can help us do our jobs better.But what teamwork isn’t about is competing against each other. Instead, you should appreciate what everyone offers. It takes effort to develop a team into one that values teamwork. Along the way, it can help to have support as you encourage others to adopt a more collaborated working style.
There are many advantages to teamwork, even though at times it can feel a little stressful.
True teamwork can take time to get going as working with fellow humans with different personalities is not always easy. But there is a reason that the common phrase “two heads are better than one” has been around for ages. Some of the best things simply cannot be done alone. Think of great scientific discoveries, brave expeditions or the latest technology trends. They have all required some pretty amazing teamwork.
We live in cities which are evidence of teamwork. We build companies which are evidence of teamwork. We watch sports which are evidence of teamwork. In our search for self made billionaires and tech icons to fawn over. I think we have really forgotten that almost everything we do is actually in teams. There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.
We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages. In the right environment, with the right leader setting the tone, I think teamwork undoubtedly fosters ideas and creativity.
Believe in the concept of compounding strengths, where if everyone on the team plays to their strengths, those strengths compound at a higher rate of return.
Research shows that listening and participating in a two person conversation is actually less mentally taxing for the brain than giving or listening to a monologue. Other studies show children learn better by interacting with others rather than observing.
Teamwork means never having to take all the blame yourself.
Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.
Comments