Teamwork – Divides the work and multiplies the success

Teamwork is an essential key of organizational success. For many people their office/workplace is where they spend most of their time and therefore it is important to get along and work with other colleagues properly.

In order to be effective in teams, team members must successfully perform both taskwork and teamwork; Taskwork includes the performance of specific tasks that team members need to accomplish in order to reach their goals. In contrast, teamwork focuses more on the shared behaviors, attitudes and cognitions that are necessary to teams to accomplish their tasks. Teamwork is really important, since a team, despite of a vast knowledge of their members, will fail if the members cannot share their knowledge and communicate with each other. Especially, in consultancy it might often happen that the colleagues should work with each other on a given project. It is important for employees to understand each other, their goal/s, responsibilities, be open to the ideas of others as well as trust and respect each other in order to accomplish their work in the best way possible. Here are some guidelines to build and improve an effective teamwork:

  • Define your duties, roles, goals, values and expectations
  • Encourage trust and cooperation among employees
  • Facilitate communication
  • Consider and respect the ideas of others
  • Try to share information with each other
  • Give and accept feedback
  • Accept differences

When individuals work in a team, they can bring more diverse ideas and can better solve the problems, since every one can bring his or her own knowledge, experience and new information. Specifically, since consultancy deals with solving problems, in most cases it is better to work in a team in order to have creative ideas for solving problems. Working in a team can also prevent employees from doing something in opposite directions, wasting time and therefore can enhance the work-flow speed. Another benefit of working in team is that team members can learn from each other. On the on hand, junior staff can learn from the knowledge and experience of senior employees and on the other hand, senior employees can also learn from the creative and new way of thinking. Working together in a team can also help employees to learn how to face and solve conflicts, since individuals come from different backgrounds and have various opinions, it can lead to conflict. Teamwork can also help employees to give and receive criticism, learn assertiveness and negotiating skills, share the workload and reduce stress at work (for further information, please refer to the blog “Stress in Consultant’s life”).

In conclusion, teamwork allows employees to have a healthy relationship with their colleagues and increase innovation, productivity, motivation and mutual support within their organizations. So if you want to see your business prosper and turn your workplace productive, it is time to encourage collaboration amongst your teams.

References:

Picture: „Close up top view of young business people putting their hands together. Stack of hands. Unity and teamwork concept.“ from scyther5

Salas, E., Shuffler, M. L., Thaye, A. L., Bedwell, W.L., & Lazzara, E. H. (2015). Understanding and improving  teamwork in organizations: a scientifically based practical guide. Human Resource Management. 54(4), 599–622.

Tarricone, P., & Luca, J. (2002). Successful teamwork: A case study.

Savage, R. (2009). The secrets to successful teamwork: Trust and accountability. Business management.

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