how to make an effective strategy to develop teamwork essay

The Psychology of Teamwork: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teams

These are the outcomes of working as a team, whether in business or on the sports field. Yet teamwork comes with its own set of challenges.

Would you like to know how to leverage the many benefits of teamwork?

Yet avoid its pitfalls, such as lack of communication, poor trust, and personality clashes among team members?

Then this article is for you, as we explore the psychology of teamwork and share actionable habits that can build highly effective teams.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Work & Career Coaching Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify opportunities for professional growth and create a more meaningful career.

This Article Contains:

The psychology of teamwork: what makes an effective team, 7 habits of highly effective teams, 2 real-life examples of effective teamwork, 10 barriers to teamwork, 10 team-building skills for successful teams, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Psychological theory, research, and models provide valuable insights and guidance into effective team building and maintenance in various workplace settings, including schools, hospitals, corporate offices, oil rigs, power plants, and the military (Salas et al., 2018).

Psychology has come a long way in understanding such complex groups—as recognized by a special issue on the “ Science of Teamwork ” in the American Psychological Association’s flagship journal American Psychologist in 2018.

Teams are vital and commonplace. Because of their prevalence and impact, “our safety, security, comfort, and innovation depend on good teamwork and collaboration” (Salas et al., 2018, p. 593).

Innovation is often the result of constant communication and side-by-side work and takes place “when collaboration translates each person’s creativity into group genius” and conflict is avoided (Sawyer, 2007, p. 13).

But then, what are teams exactly, and how do we define them?

Teamwork definition

We must begin by understanding what defines a “group.” Within an organization, a group is more than simply a collection of people. Members recognize themselves as a social entity that (Davenport, 2009):

• Interacts with each of its members
• Is psychologically aware of each of its members
• Perceives itself as a group

And yet, teams go further. They share a common goal. With the modern workplace demanding successful partnering across functional and geographical divides, fostering collaborative team working cultures becomes increasingly vital (Davenport, 2009).

Therefore, an effective team has the following attributes (Davenport, 2009):

• Clear understanding of the team’s objectives and goals
• Range of skills and know-how among team members to handle tasks effectively
• Variety of personality types and strengths among its team members
• High degree of respect and trust, both individually and for each other’s contributions to team performance
• An effective recognition and reward system

The points above are helpful because they enable us to distinguish between people working together in groups and those forming effective teams.

When considered together, it’s possible to arrive at the following teamwork definition: “Teamwork can be defined as the ability of team members to work together, communicate effectively, anticipate and meet each other’s demands, and inspire confidence, resulting in a coordinated collective action” (Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001, extract).

And a definition of team building might arise as follows:

“Team building is an ongoing process that helps a work group evolve into a cohesive unit. The team members not only share expectations for accomplishing group tasks, but trust and support one another and respect one another’s individual differences” (Team building: Introduction, n.d., para. 1).

Understanding the psychology of group dynamics

“We know what effective teams do, think, and feel. We know what influences team dynamics, and some interventions that help develop teamwork” (Salas et al., 2018, p. 593).

Psychological research has confirmed that the following elements are the minimum prerequisites for an effective team:

• Strong team leadership
• Role clarity
• Mutual trust
• Sound information exchange protocols
• A compelling reason to be a team

Team psychology in the workplace

Several psychological and organizational models and frameworks have grown out of the need to understand and explain how teams form, grow, develop, maintain, and change in the workplace.

The following three early models are valuable for our current understanding of how effective teams evolve (Davenport, 2009).

Bass and Ryterband’s model

Bass and Ryterband’s (1979) model of team development includes four stages and areas of focus:

• First stage: Building trust among team members
• Second stage: Open communication, problem-solving, and decision-making
• Third stage: Motivation and productivity of the team
• Fourth stage: Control and organization where members can work independently

Woodcock’s model

Woodcock’s (1979) model of team development also has four stages:

• The undeveloped team: Unclear objectives, established policies, and a lack of shared understanding prevail. Mistakes are used to blame others.
• The experimenting team: The team is willing to take risks and includes more active listening and short periods of group introspection.
• The consolidating team: The team adopts a systematic approach. Rules and procedures are agreed upon, and improved relationships and methods from the previous stage are maintained.
• The mature team: The team achieves high flexibility and appropriate leadership for different situations, and prioritizes development for continued success. Trust, openness, honesty, cooperation, confrontation, and reviewing results become the norm.

Tuckman’s model

Tuckman’s (1965) model of team development includes five stages:

• Forming During the initial stage, team members come together. They may be anxious and unsure, and there are few rules.
• Storming This is the stage of disagreement, including frustration and potential confrontation, where team members are more confident to express themselves and challenge each other.
• Norming This is when group identity, guidelines, and norms are established. Emotions are expressed constructively.
• Performing The team has created structure and cohesiveness to work effectively and can now concentrate on achieving its objectives.
• Adjourning In this final stage, the team reflects on their time together and may disband.

Sports psychology

As with individuals, team performance in sports can benefit from time spent building psychological capital , which comprises four key elements (Luthans et al., 2015):

• Self-efficacy

Furthermore, according to positive psychology consultant and performance coach John Yeager, sports teams collectively benefit from coaching focused on each element to build the psychological capital required to boost their combined performance.

Once achieved, they “maintain a healthy culture and find an effective balance between holding athletes accountable and supporting each other” (Yeager, 2021, p. 223).

Recommended read: Positive Psychology in the Workplace

Keith Sawyer (2007, p. 13), a psychologist at Washington University, says that his research shows “the secret to understanding what makes a collaboration successful lies inside the box, in moment-to-moment interactional dynamics.”

This understanding led him to rethink group innovation and creativity, identifying the following seven key characteristics (or habits) of effective, creative teams along with suggested actions for moving innovation forward (Sawyer, 2007):

• Innovation emerges over time. Successful innovation requires its members to combine the right ideas in an appropriate structure, bit by bit.

ACTION: Encourage team members to take time each day/week to brainstorm and share new ideas and establish a structure for combining and building on those ideas over time .

• Successful collaborative teams practice deep listening. Team members often spend too much time planning what they will say and how to respond in meetings and too little time listening to and observing others.

ACTION: Prioritize active listening and observation during team meetings and discussions. And provide opportunities for team members to practice deep listening skills .

• Team members build on their collaborators’ ideas. Through deep listening, team members take on and evolve each idea further.

ACTION: Recognize the potential of other team members’ ideas and accept the importance of collective ownership to drive forward problem-solving .

• Only afterward does the meaning of each idea become clear. While it’s tempting to attribute an idea to one person, its full importance results from being taken up, reinterpreted, and applied by the whole team. “Participants are willing to allow other people to give their action meaning by building on it later” (Sawyer, 2007, p. 15).

ACTION: Emphasize the importance of evolving and adapting ideas as a team, rather than attributing them to one individual .

• Surprising questions emerge. “The most transformative creativity results when a group either thinks of a new way to frame a problem or finds a new problem that no one has noticed before” (Sawyer, 2007, p. 16).

ACTION: Encourage team members to question assumptions and think outside the box by regularly posing surprising or unconventional questions during meetings and discussions .

• Innovation is inefficient. Improvised innovation will make more mistakes, but it can be phenomenal when the team gets a hit.

ACTION: Recognize that innovation can be inefficient and messy but emphasize the potential for breakthroughs .

• Innovation emerges from the bottom up. Teams start with the detail, improvise innovation, then work up to the big picture.

ACTION: Foster a bottom-up approach to innovation, starting with small details and building toward the bigger picture .

While all seven are characteristics of an effective team, they are also actionable tasks within the process where team members play off each other (Sawyer, 2007).

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The following are two high-profile examples of the immense potential of effective teamwork, especially when the stakes are high (Keup, 2022; Allen, 2022).

One giant leap for humankind

The Apollo 11 mission in 1969 is a prime example of teamwork at its finest.

While the world celebrated the achievement of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, the success of the mission resulted from the efforts of a much larger team.

The mission planners, scientists, engineers, and technicians, numbering around 400,000, worked tirelessly for years to make the moon landing a reality. The team’s cohesion was strengthened by the astronauts’ close collaboration with these groups, emphasizing the importance of human connection in any team.

Wikipedia is the epitome of teamwork in the digital age. It’s a collaborative engine of knowledge that is constantly evolving, thanks to the efforts of an army of volunteer writers and editors.

Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia is constantly updated and open to debate and challenge, making it a dynamic and accurate source of information.

While the scale of this teamwork is almost incomprehensible, the site runs smoothly, with errors quickly discovered and corrected. Everyone who has landed on the site is considered a part of the team, making Wikipedia a perfect example of how teamwork can achieve great things in the digital age.

5 Traits of high performing teams

Understanding what stops or limits individual and group performance can help us build and maintain motivated, resilient, and highly effective teams.

The following 10 barriers can present themselves in real-world team environments (Haas & Mortensen, 2016):

• Poor understanding of roles and responsibilities Team members may not fully understand their roles and responsibilities, leading to confusion and lack of accountability.
• Insufficiently defined goals and objectives Team members may not clearly identify what they are working toward, leading to uncertainty and lack of motivation.
• Poor decision-making processes Teams may lack effective decision-making techniques and strategies, leading to delays and suboptimal outcomes.
• Resistance to change Team members may resist change, leading to a lack of flexibility and stagnation.
• Lack of accountability and ownership Team members may not feel accountable for their work and the team’s success.
• Lack of resources or support Teams may not have the necessary resources and support from leadership to achieve their goals effectively.
• Inadequate leadership Teams may not have effective leadership, leading to a lack of direction and guidance.
• Groupthink Team members may be reluctant to challenge the opinions and ideas of others, leading to poor decision-making and an absence of creative thinking.
• Lack of trust and psychological safety among team members Team members may be hesitant to share their ideas and concerns due to a lack of trust in their colleagues or fear of being judged and rejected.
• Inadequate communication Team members may not be effectively communicating with each other, leading to misunderstandings and conflicting priorities.

• Clear communication Encourage team members to speak openly and honestly and actively listen to one another’s ideas and perspectives. Provide training and resources to help team members improve their communication skills.
• Trust and accountability Create an environment where team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable with one another. Hold team members accountable for their actions and decisions and provide them with the support and resources they need to succeed.
• Adaptability and flexibility Encourage team members to be open to new ideas and ways of working. Be willing to pivot and change course when necessary.
• Emotional intelligence Provide training and resources to help team members better understand and manage their own emotions and those of others.
• Active listening Encourage team members to fully engage, pay attention to what others are saying, and respond thoughtfully.
• Conflict resolution Teach team members how to navigate and resolve conflicts constructively and effectively.
• Goal alignment Ensure that individual goals align with the team’s overall objectives and that everyone works toward a common purpose.
• Delegation Teach team members how to assign tasks and responsibilities to one another effectively to maximize their strengths and capabilities.
• Problem-solving Teach team members how to identify problems and develop practical solutions.
• Empowerment and autonomy Give team members the freedom and support they need to take ownership of their work and make decisions. Provide regular feedback and coaching to help them improve their skills and advance in their careers.

We have many practical resources for you as a manager or leader supporting your team as they form, develop, and attempt to avoid some challenges of group dynamics.

Our free resources include the following:

• GROW model Use the power of the GROW model to define team goals and boost motivation and cohesion.
• Do the Hula In this novel and fun exercise , the group learns the value of team cooperation.
• Stepping Forward Use this activity to begin and end team building by clarifying expectations for the day.

Our Emotional Intelligence Masterclass© helps boost teamwork by teaching staff to handle emotions better. The training improves communication, relationships, decision-making, job satisfaction, motivation, and overall wellbeing. It also enhances the emotional intelligence of the coach, making them better equipped to lead teams.

The Positive Relationships Masterclass© strengthens teamwork using the “Six Pillars of Positive Relationships.” It offers practical techniques to enhance communication and maintain healthy relationships, leading to improved coaching skills and a thriving workplace.

You will learn the key aspects of positive relationships and explore science-based ways to categorize the different types of positive network members and grow social capital.

Not only that, but we also have specific articles that delve into team-building topics; for example:

• 15 Communication Exercises and Games for the Workplace
• Active Listening: The Art of Empathetic Conversation
• The Importance, Benefits, and Value of Goal Setting

And lastly, if you’re looking for more science-based ways to help your team develop their strengths, check out this collection of 17 strength-finding tools . Use them to help others better understand and harness their strengths in life-enhancing ways.

Research in the psychology of teamwork has shown that effective collaboration can lead to improved productivity, creativity, and job satisfaction among team members (Sawyer, 2007; Salas et al., 2018).

When teams experience a sense of belonging and purpose in their work, they are more likely to achieve their goals and be motivated to perform at their best. It can also lead to improved organizational outcomes, such as achieving goals, making better decisions, and providing higher levels of customer service.

Great teamwork relies on successful team building—the process of creating a cohesive, high-performing team capable of working together successfully. Effective team building can reduce conflicts, turnover, and absenteeism among its members by fostering a positive culture and improving overall morale.

As a manager, you can encourage the best out of your teams by creating a supportive and inclusive environment, encouraging clear communication, and promoting trust, accountability, and active listening.

Additionally, you can provide training and resources to help team members develop the skills they need to work well together, such as problem-solving, conflict resolution , and emotional intelligence. In our resources section, we provide a recommended selection of free and paid resources—all well worth it to build your own highly effective team.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Work & Career Coaching Exercises for free .

• Allen, V. (2022). Teams that changed the world . WorkStyle. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.workstyle.io/top-performing-team-case-studies.
• Bass, B. M., & Ryterband, E. C. (1979). Organizational psychology (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
• Boogaard, K. (2022). 7 essential teamwork skills . Work Life by Atlassian. Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/teamwork-skills-accelerate-career/amp
• Davenport, H. (2009). Groups and teams. In I. Brooks (Ed.), Organisational behaviour: Individuals, groups and organisation (pp. 111–155). Essay, Pearson.
• Haas, M., & Mortensen, M. (2016). The secrets of great teamwork . Harvard Business Review. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/06/the-secrets-of-great-teamwork.
• Keup, M. (2022). 9 inspirational teamwork examples . ProjectManager. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/teamwork-examples.
• Luthans, F., Youssef, C. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2015). Psychological capital and beyond . Oxford University Press.
• Sawyer, K. (2007). Group genius . Basic Books.
• Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (2001). Teamwork and team training. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 15487–15492). Elsevier.
• Salas, E., Reyes, D. L., & McDaniel, S. H. (2018). The science of teamwork: Progress, reflections, and the road ahead. American Psychologist , 73 (4), 593–600.
• Steps to building an effective team. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/interaction/team-building/steps.
• Team building: Introduction. (n.d.). Retrieved January 24, 2023, from https://hr.berkeley.edu/hr-network/central-guide-managing-hr/managing-hr/interaction/team-building/introduction.
• Tuckman, B. W. (1965.) Development sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin , 63, 384–399.
• Woodcock, M. (1979). Team development manual . Gower.
• Yeager, J. (2021). The coaching zone: Next level leadership in sports . Yeager Leadership Press.

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interesting and well organized food for thought

Some practical examples of effective teams- Love the 7 habits links

Nice article, thank you! Well, I think a strong team consists of strong individuals that are aware of their impact on the company.

Very helpful with the work I do dealing with grief counseling.

Going to use with my sporting team as a new coach

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10 Tips to Help You Boost Team Performance

• 26 Mar 2020

The ability to bring out the best in yourself and others is essential to being a leader who cultivates high-performing teams. According to a study by consulting firm Deloitte , organizations have increasingly shifted from hierarchical to team-based structures to be more agile and efficient. Among those undergoing such transitions, 53 percent have reported a significant increase in performance.

In keeping with this trend, there’s a growing need for leaders and managers who can foster cross-functional collaboration within their organizations and guide colleagues through complex business challenges.

If you want to enable your employees to unleash their potential and help your organization succeed, here are 10 ways to boost your team’s performance.

Access your free e-book today.

How to Improve Team Performance

1. delegate.

To cultivate an effective team, you should know how to delegate . By entrusting team members with key projects and responsibilities, you can make them feel more engaged and valued.

When delegating, play to your employees’ strengths and ensure they have the knowledge and resources to complete their assigned tasks. Be willing to let them fail, too. Coming up short on a project or initiative could serve as a valuable learning experience that spurs continued growth and development.

2. Make Decisions Together

Inviting team members to participate in the decision-making process can lead to innovative solutions you may not have devised yourself.

According to the online course Management Essentials , one of team decision-making’s primary benefits is that it invites “constructive conflict,” in which individuals bring different viewpoints to the group and challenge preconceived notions.

By encouraging debate and considering diverse perspectives, you can stimulate more creative problem-solving , help your team make better decisions, and ensure you’re all striving toward a common goal.

Related: 8 Steps in the Decision-Making Process

3. Don’t Micromanage

One of the top mistakes new and experienced managers make is focusing too much on minute details and micromanaging employees.

Research shows micromanagement is one of the main reasons employees resign, and it can fuel:

• High turnover
• Decreased productivity

To avoid micromanaging , let go of perfectionism and empower your employees to experiment with approaches to completing tasks. By doing so, you can carve out more time to focus on larger organizational objectives and instill a deep sense of trust among your team members.

4. Communicate Effectively

Communication is paramount to team performance. According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit , poor communication can lead to a range of negative outcomes, such as:

• A delay or failure to complete projects
• Greater stress levels

When communicating with your employees, be empathetic and actively listen to their thoughts and concerns. This approach to team communication won’t just create a more open, collaborative dynamic but sharpen your emotional intelligence skills .

Related: 8 Essential Leadership Communication Skills

5. Give and Solicit Feedback

Knowing how to deliver feedback effectively is vital when it comes to team leadership. Make it a point to regularly give informal, constructive comments to your employees—rather than waiting for annual review periods—so you can build more robust working relationships with them.

Treat informal evaluations as conversations, and avoid defaulting to blanket statements like “nice job”—your comments should be specific and actionable.

Don’t forget to ask for feedback, too. Your team members’ observations can help identify areas for growth that you can integrate into your leadership development plan .

6. Have a Purpose

Harnessing the power of purpose is a high priority for many businesses—and for good reason. According to a report by EY and the Harvard Business Review , 89 percent of executives believe a sense of shared purpose drives employee satisfaction, and 81 percent think purpose-driven firms deliver higher-quality products and services.

Imbue your team members with a sense of purpose by providing concrete examples of how their individual efforts further your organization’s mission and tie into objectives that make a positive impact on society.

7. Be Authentic

Authenticity is an immensely valuable leadership trait. A study published in the Leadership and Organization Development Journal found that employees' perception of authentic leadership is the top predictor of job satisfaction and can improve work-related attitudes and happiness.

Among authentic leaders' key characteristics is the ability to inspire faith in others. Whether overseeing an organizational change initiative or leading a critical meeting , be honest and transparent with your employees, and leverage your company’s purpose to boost their motivation and achieve alignment.

8. Pursue Clear, Attainable Goals

Setting realistic goals is crucial to your personal and professional growth. It’s also an important step in management processes, such as strategy implementation .

Research by Google shows that one of the hallmarks of a good manager is having a clear vision and strategy for their team. When setting your team’s goals, establish well-defined objectives to work toward. Then, create a roadmap of smaller, actionable tasks that must be done to achieve them.

By breaking the process down into a set of deliverables, you can help your employees feel more motivated and equipped to succeed.

9. Support Professional Development

Encouraging your employees to continue their education and bolster their skills can be a boon to your organization and drive workplace productivity. A report by LinkedIn found that 69 percent of talent development professionals leverage managers and leaders to promote learning initiatives, and 75 percent of employees would take a course suggested by their manager.

As an alternative to programs held in a traditional classroom setting, online courses —such as those offered by Harvard Business School Online —enable employees to broaden their knowledge while juggling the demands of their full-time jobs .

Focus on your own development, too. Taking a management training course can equip you with the know-how and experience to take your career to the next level.

10. Set an Example

Research by consulting firm Gallup shows managers account for 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement scores, underscoring the integral role you can play in influencing your team’s tone and culture.

When facing business challenges, be a role model by staying calm under pressure . Examine history’s most courageous leaders for strategies you can apply to navigate through hardship, such as polar explorer Ernest Shackleton , environmental activist Rachel Carson, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

By showing courage and setting an example for your employees, you can forge resilience within yourself and among your team.

Motivating Your Team Toward Success

Strong leadership is vital to team performance. By cultivating a dynamic centered on trust, advocating for your employees, and setting an example in the workplace, you can hone the skills to manage others effectively and enable them to consistently perform and deliver.

Do you want to develop the skills to bring out the best in your team? Download our free e-book on how to become a more effective leader, and explore our online leadership and management courses . Access our flowchart to discover which course is best for you.

This post was updated on February 3, 2023. It was originally published on March 26, 2020.

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15 practical ways to build teamwork in the workplace

Want your people to work better together? Discover 15 ways to build teamwork at your organization.

Table of Contents

Bees: They’re nature’s model of productivity. Their collective efforts are the reason we get to put honey in our tea or on our biscuits. And if there’s anything we can learn from them, it’s their knack for working together. 

In a colony of honey bees, each bee knows what its role is. The queen and drones repopulate the colony while the worker bees collect nectar, care for the hive, and produce honey. 

All this collaboration pays off. While a single bee can produce about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey across its entire life, a productive hive can produce more than 60 pounds of honey in a season.* 

Similarly, when your employees work well together, you’ll see impressive results—the kind that one person alone couldn’t produce. Truly collaborative teams aren’t just primed to hit their departmental KPIs–they’re also more innovative and resilient. 

That’s why teamwork matters: It’s not just about “getting along,” but rather trusting in each other to be creative and take strategic risks as you go after company goals. Here are 15 ways to bake collaboration into your company culture and help you foster effective teamwork in your organization.

Want your team to work together? Give them a place to do just that.   Switchboard fosters team collaboration through intuitive, visual meeting and project rooms, helping you build a more connected team.  Learn more

* The British Beekeepers Association  

15 ways to build and improve teamwork in the workplace

Bees are naturally collaborative creatures. On the flipside, while people can do great things together, it’s not always apparent to employees how they can best work together as a team. So here are 15 things you can do to build team unity and get your employees collaborating effectively. 

Get organized and aligned

Organization is what helps bees protect their hive and produce such impressive amounts of honey. Worker bees don’t try to do the queen’s job, and drones aren’t out there collecting pollen. 

Similarly, on a team with effective collaboration, everyone knows their role and works towards a common goal. Use these five strategies for getting your employees organized, aligned, and clear on goals. 

1. Establish a shared vision and goals

For bees, the goal is making honey. So what is your team working towards? Establish a vision to organize your team around, setting collective goals that motivate your employees. When everyone understands how they play a critical role in your company’s success, they’ll be much more eager to work towards that shared objective. 

According to Tarah Keech , founder of Tarah Keech Coaching , these goals should be grounded in your company’s values. “Make sure you’re putting your values and priorities first,” says Tarah. “Be clear about how you want to reach your goals and why they matter for your team.” 

2. Track progress using OKRs

Setting a goal is important, but if you want to reach it, you need to track your progress. The OKR framework is a great way to measure how your team is advancing towards your goals and where they might need extra support. 

In this approach to goal setting, you create a big picture “Objective” that your team should work towards. Then, set smaller, more approachable “Key Results” to track progress and give employees smaller milestones to focus on. This helps your team work together by clarifying where they can support their coworkers when working towards a common goal. 

3. Manage projects in a shared online workspace

If you want your team to work together, you need to give them a place to do so. That’s where a digital workspace can help. Switchboard, for example, lets you visually organize everything your team uses into meeting and project rooms–and makes everything instantly multiplayer. 

Employees can work together in coworking sessions, meetings, and in between meetings on a wide range of documents and apps inside a persistent virtual room. Because of this, it helps you foster team connection, collaboration, and productivity.

4. Give everyone the resources they need to succeed

In addition to a digital workspace, your people need other resources that help them work together. The key here is to ask your team what they need, rather than make assumptions about the tools that could help them collaborate. 

Send out a survey, and listen to your people. Do they want a better team messaging app? Are they dissatisfied with your current virtual meeting platform? Once you take the pulse on your employees’ preferences, give them the tools they need to collaborate effectively. 

5. Provide opportunities for different people to work together

When we talk about teamwork, we mean across your entire organization. To prevent your employees from working in silos, create cross-functional teams. What exactly does that mean? That decision-making and ideation can happen across departments. 

Give different teams the opportunity to work together and share ideas. For example, set up a weekly cross-departmental meeting for your marketing and sales departments, or create a persistent project room in Switchboard where your design and engineering teams can go to swap ideas. 

Upskill and develop your team

A strong team that works together well doesn’t just happen: It’s built. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to develop your team so they know how to best collaborate and communicate. Here are five strategies for improving  teamwork skills across your organization. 

6. Create a culture of great communication

Communication is the number one skill for teamwork, meaning your team needs to understand the principles of active listening, feedback, and clarity. “The biggest thing that can help solidify communication skills is being clear about your own intentional outcome,” adds Tarah. So, be sure to set an example of honesty and transparency from the top. 

You can also check your team’s understanding and encourage a culture where being curious and asking questions is celebrated. In fact, you can even create a digital space for it. With Switchboard, for example, employees can communicate in real time or async with video, audio, chat, polls, and emoji reactions–whatever best suits them. ‍

7. Set up knowledge-sharing sessions 

As mentioned above, if you want teamwork to thrive, it’s essential to create opportunities for different people to work together. That means organizing team meetings or knowledge-sharing sessions, whether they’re related to a specific project or bigger picture ideas, where your employees can share their expertise, ask questions, and learn from each other. 

These brainstorming sessions can also be an opportunity for you to practice effective communication and active listening with your employees, learning from their unique skills sets and knowledge. “To build teamwork, listen to what your team has to say,” says Tarah. “Give yourself enough time to ask important questions and receive responses.”

8. Foster a culture of continuous learning and development

Ongoing learning and development is essential to building a successful team, so support your employees to continuously upskill and progress in their careers. Not only will this have a positive impact on team performance, but will also help you improve teamwork, as you can train employees on communication and collaboration skills. 

Providing ongoing feedback and coaching is a key element here. Tell your employees what they’re doing well and where they can improve, and give them the guidance and support they need to fulfill their potential. 

9. Demonstrate ownership and accountability

To motivate as a team leader , you need to start by setting a good example. That means demonstrating ownership and accountability over your actions, decisions, and policies. In other words, lead by example.

So if you require your entire team to participate in a training session on collaboration, you should be there as well. Or if one of your company values is transparency and honesty, keep your team consistently in the know, even when the news isn’t as positive as you’d like. 

10. Give team members the chance to take initiative and lead

While your role as a leader is essential to fostering good teamwork, you also need to give your people a chance to lead. Allow your employees to take initiatives that play to their individual strengths and help them feel like an essential member of the team. 

For example, rotate the responsibility of leading team meetings, letting each employee have some autonomy over the meeting structure and agenda. Or encourage each employee to lead workshops and training sessions in their own areas of expertise. 

Focus on team culture 

Bee hive culture centers on collaboration and shared goals. On the same note, if you want to build more teamwork in the workplace, you need to create an open, inclusive culture that makes your people want to work together. We have five tips for how to do that. 

11. Build a positive and respectful work environment

Teamwork can’t happen without trust, which is why creating a culture centered on respect is at the center of creating a collaborative organization. To build a positive work environment, create policies and guidelines that build trust and mutual respect. 

For example, develop strong, ongoing diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives to ensure everyone feels comfortable and welcome in your workplace. Additionally, provide employees the opportunity to share honest anonymous feedback so you can consistently make the changes your people want to see.  

12. Celebrate successes and milestones

Feedback is a big part of effective communication, but constructive criticism is only one part of that. To boost employee engagement and make everyone feel appreciated, celebrate your team–both their individual successes as well as company-wide milestones. 

For example, create a #wins channel in Slack where you share team member shout outs and celebrate company successes. Or create a dedicated section in your company newsletter where you recognize milestones for employees and highlight overall team success. 

13. Provide opportunities for team-building activities

Though your team may work together on their projects every day, it’s important they get to know each other on a more personal level in order to better understand and empathize with each other. That’s why you should organize team-building exercises that help your employees connect in a more relaxed setting. 

But remember–no one likes forced fun. So send your employees a survey on what type of team building activities they’d like to participate in, as well as the format (in-person vs. online). Some ideas include escape rooms or coffee chats, both of which are fit for either in-person or remote teams.

14. Encourage camaraderie and team spirit

Anyone who’s been part of a team knows how powerful camaraderie and a sense of belonging can be. While you don’t want to create a cutthroat environment, you can encourage team spirit and healthy competition on your team. 

For example, host an “innovation challenge” that encourages employees to propose creative solutions to challenges your company faces, and offer rewards, like extra PTO, to whoever has the best idea. Or run a “personal development” contest to motivate your employees to complete trainings and courses. 

15. Embed work-life balance into the company culture

No matter how much they enjoy their role, your employees’ job satisfaction hinges on how well it meshes with their personal life. When they’re happier in their role, your people will be more motivated to collaborate with each other, which is why work-life balance should be a pillar of your company’s culture. 

Encourage employees to take time off, allowing them to fully disconnect. This is another place where managers can lead by example. That means no emails or messages after working hours or on weekends. Additionally, when you’re on vacation, turn on that OOO email reply, close Slack, and trust your people to do their jobs. 

Put team building at the center of your organization

Without effective teamwork, bees wouldn’t be able to produce the honey that keeps them alive (and gives us a deliciously sweet ingredient). Their efforts reach far beyond their hives, as they support the growth of trees, plants, and flowers through pollination. 

Similarly, when your employees come together and work as a team, the results reach far beyond getting better results and hitting KPIs: You’ll see improved team productivity, more employee engagement, and greater innovation and resilience. 

To spark truly great teamwork in your employees, you need to foster the trust necessary for taking risks and going after big goals. You also need to give your people the right resources and collaboration tools for working together effectively. 

With Switchboard, your people have a centralized place to organize their projects and stay in constant communication, whether it’s a spontaneous brainstorming session or a weekly ideation meeting. By giving them a digital workspace, you make teamwork effortless for your employees. 

Frequently asked questions about building teamwork in the workplace

How can i improve my teamwork skills.

In order to improve your teamwork skills, you’ll want to focus on other related skills like communication, active listening, conflict resolution, problem-solving, and collaboration. Additionally, you need to be clear on your team’s goal, as well as your individual responsibilities. Be sure to clarify how your role plays a part in reaching this greater goal and what knowledge and experience you can bring to the table. 

How can I nurture team spirit?

There are a number of ways you can nurture team spirit in your organization. First off, ensure your team is organized and aligned on goals and responsibilities. Secondly, upskill and develop your team so they have everything they need to work together effectively. Finally, build a team culture that prioritizes and encourages collaboration and open communication.

Keep reading

Musings on remote work and the future of collaboration

6 tips for how to give creative feedback

5 best design feedback tools for highly collaborative teams

Stop, collaborate, and listen.

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How High-Performing Teams Build Trust

• Ron Friedman

A survey of 1,000 workers identified five behaviors.

It’s no surprise that trust is at the core of high-performing teams. But conversations about cultivating trust at work often focus on the relationship between managers and employees. As important — if not more so — is establishing trust between teammates. To understand how the best teams build trust among themselves, researchers interviewed 1,000 U.S.-based office workers and identified five key behaviors that set these teams apart: 1) They don’t leave collaboration to chance; 2) They keep colleagues in the loop; 3) They share credit; 4) They believe disagreements make them better; and 5) They proactively address tension.

If you’re like most seasoned leaders, you’ve heard a lot in recent years about the value of trust.

• RF Ron Friedman , PhD, is an award-winning psychologist and the founder of ignite80 , a learning and development company that teaches leaders science-based strategies for building high-performing teams. His books include The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace , and more recently,   Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success . To receive an email when he posts a new article, click here .

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15 Ways to Radically Improve Teamwork in the Workplace

While everyone knows teamwork in the workplace is important, the hard part can often be getting everyone to work together. Whether someone runs a Fortune 500 company or a local coffee shop, there are common pitfalls to watch out for. From role uncertainty to unclear team goals, these problems can quickly get in the way of successful collaboration.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

If you want to get people working together, you need to give them clear, understandable goals. Your team has to know what they need to do in order to actually do it. In addition, you need to clarify roles, so your team members know who is taking care of which task.

A good leader understands the different talents and skills represented by the team. This helps the leader determine who gets a certain task. Each task assignment should be based on the individual’s specific abilities and skill level.

Teamwork is also based around trust. As a group, everyone must complete tasks together, make decisions as a team, and rely on each other’s work. Because of the importance of trust in teams, many team building tasks focus extensively on this skill.

Lack of participation and disengagement are also fairly common problems. A team needs direction and a clear goal for everyone to stay motivated. If the team members can’t understand the larger picture, they find it difficult to get engaged or want to participate.

What Is Teamwork in the Workplace?

Teamwork is an essential part of any company’s success. It involves multiple people at the company working together to achieve a larger goal. The team leader communicates the team’s goal, and then everyone works together to accomplish it.

Learning how to implement teamwork is the hardest part. Part of the leader’s job is to make everyone feel included and accepted by the team. This may mean offering diversity training or creating inclusiveness policies.

At the very least, the team leader should work to engage team members who seem shy or uncomfortable taking part in the team. Everyone has great ideas, but some team members may be uncomfortable expressing them with the pressure of a group listening in. Learning how to recognize communication styles , deal with team conflict, and move on are simply additional aspects to getting along as a group.

Why Is Teamwork in the Workplace Important?

Many managers are unaware of how teamwork benefits the workplace, so they avoid using teams. In other cases, managers avoid teams because they are afraid groups will be ineffective or even lead to conflict. But the reality is that teamwork in the workplace is extremely useful if leaders learn how to help their teams do it properly.

With a team, workplaces can improve employee retention and morale. It allows employees to learn from each other, gain feedback, and collaborate to build new ideas. Plus, peer pressure helps to increase accountability for everyone involved in the project.

So once you’ve determined why it’s important, the real question is how can teamwork be improved in the workplace? Managers can encourage new ideas, drive innovation, and find success by using any of the following 15 ideas.

1. Set Clear Roles

If you want to improve teamwork in the workplace, start by setting clear roles. Otherwise, multiple team members may end up doing the same tasks, or no one will do them at all. Plus, if people feel the roles are unclear, they may begin to think the workload is being unfairly delegated and become resentful.

For everyone to work together, they need to know their specific role. Ultimately, this will prevent hard feelings and possible confusion for everyone involved.

2. Encourage Teammates to Visit Socially

When everyone has a close relationship with each other, it is easier for them to get the job done. Rather than force relationships through team building, try to encourage team members to organically build these relationships outside of work. Managers can help the process along by budgeting for activities like social meetups or lunchtime potlucks.

3. Ask for Help

Sometimes, team members and team leaders forget a team exists to make the entire project easier. To become better at teamwork, everyone has to reach out for help when they need it. Whether the individual needs expertise or moral support, the rest of the team is always there to lend a hand.

4. Communication Is Key

Nothing is worse than finishing a task only to realize someone else has already done it. When working as a team, it is important to communicate continuously about the workflow, upcoming tasks, and team roles. Otherwise, some of the tasks won’t be finished and others will be finished twice.

Luckily, tools like Toggl Plan make communicating among team members easier than ever before. The platform allows you to have a visual overview of what everyone is doing, so you can easily delegate and review tasks.

5. Ask Everyone for Feedback

Good ideas can come from anyone in a team. If you want your company to be successful, ask everyone for their ideas and always listen to their feedback.

Try holding brainstorming sessions among team members. For shy team members, a one-on-one meeting with the team leader might be a more comfortable environment for speaking up.

6. Make the Right Choice in Team Members

You could try to train everyone to be a good team member, but it will always be easier to start with a talented, team-oriented group of employees instead. If you are involved in hiring, work to choose people who will be able to take part in a team. At the very least, try to recruit team members who have the skills and personality type to do well in a team environment.

7. Create a Shared Vision

If you want everyone to do their best work, they have to know the bigger picture and where you want the company or department to go. Rally your team members around a common goal, mission, or vision. Set milestones along the way, so team members can easily tell if they are measuring up.

8. Develop a Review Process

Sometimes, team members fail because they don’t realize what they are doing wrong. Without constructive feedback, individuals don’t have an opportunity to improve. Try creating review meetings for everyone on the team.

These review meetings can help bring the team’s goals into focus. It allows team members to become better at their jobs and helps the team catch problems they may have missed otherwise.

9. Celebrate as a Team

Team members have to fix problems and work together to reach shared goals. They should also take time to celebrate achievements as well. From thanking each other for putting in extra work to celebrating milestones together, there are many ways team members can congratulate each other on their successes.

10. Share the Workload

High-achieving employees have a tendency to take on more and more tasks. Meanwhile, low performers may be more than happy to give up a task to someone else, which can lead to resentment. For a team to do its best, everyone needs to learn how to share the workload.

If you want to help your team members, delegate tasks fairly and accomplish major goals using a program like Toggl Plan. This software makes it easy to track what each person on the team is doing and to delegate upcoming tasks.

11. Stop Micromanaging

This tip goes hand in hand with the last one. While a team leader may need to delegate different tasks, they should never micromanage them . Employees are adults and should always be treated as such.

People tend to resent micromanagers, and micromanaging tends to discourage people from taking the initiative. If you want your team to succeed, give team members the deadlines, tools, and goals they need to get started. Afterward, step back and let the team handle everything else.  

12. Set Ground Rules

With so many different people trying to work together, there is always the potential for conflicts along the way. Set some ground rules before working together for the first time or any time someone new is added to the team. This will help everyone know how to act as a group and what to do if there is a problem later on.

13. Be Willing to Steer the Conversation

Brainstorming sessions are a great way for team members to contribute new ideas and find better solutions. Sometimes, these team meetings can end up going off on a tangent. When this happens, try to steer the conversation back to the main topic, so you don’t end up wasting precious time.

14. Improve Transparency

Sometimes, managers try to jealously guard information because they intuitively feel like knowledge is power. When it comes to a team, information is truly made to be shared. Without the right information and a clear, shared goal, the team will be unable to make any headway.

Toggl Plan’s project management software can help you boost transparency among your team members. You can constantly keep all your team members informed of who is assigned to which role and how much each person has accomplished.

15. Never Assume Problems Will Go Away

When a small problem develops, people have a tendency to ignore it and hope it goes away. But most small problems spiral into major issues over time. When you see a problem developing on your team, take action and fix it before this has the chance to happen.

Ready to Help Your Team Work Better Together?

The importance of teamwork is often underrated. By encouraging teamwork in the workplace, managers can inspire innovative ideas and different approaches to common problems. As people develop teamwork skills and relationships with one another, they become more committed to both the group and the company.

To achieve a team-oriented environment, it only takes a few simple changes. From choosing the right team management programs to encouraging feedback, managers can help team members achieve their goals.

Get your company, team, or department on the right track with Toggl Plan’s project management software. Sign up today to start your free trial and see what it can do for you!

Logan Derrick is a full-time business writer and content marketing strategist. For years, he has worked closely with several project management professionals, learning from them and increasing his own knowledge of the industry. Having held multiple management positions in fields ranging from customer service to marketing, Logan has found a passion for helping others learn about project management, marketing, and the powerful tools available to professionals today.

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Teamwork, Decision-Making, and Strategy Essay

Introduction, decision making approaches and impact on strategy, team working approaches and impact on strategy, effectiveness of the team.

Teamwork is a very important and relevant contributor to the success of any business around the world and this is why top business executives are paid a lot of money to utilize the skills of teams and make important business decisions that are critical to business performance (Brayden, Teppo & Whetten 2010, 1-20).

The success of an organization does not only depend on how good a team leader is but also how good the various teams that consist of employees are able to come together and integrate their skills and talent for the benefit of their organization.

The success or failure of a business usually depends on how good employees who are part of a team are able to come together develop ideas play their part and additionally how good managers or organizational leaders are able to make quick and relevant decisions resulting from the input of the team to increase positive outcome (Taylor, 2010).

Today’s business environment is very volatile and therefore it is imperative that both leadership and employees work together hand in hand in order to ensure that organization can successfully peruse their mission and vision while at the same time compete with other competing companies.

Thus, by acknowledging and building consensus that business environment is highly dynamic and volatile, it demands organizational leaders to come up with mechanisms that allow the company to quickly embrace change and this is attained by dividing the staff into teams and assigning them duties that will ensure that decision making capability of leaders is maximized (Shah 2008).

New trends emerge in the business world and may either present themselves as either problems or opportunities depending on how personnel within the organization respond.

From that rationale, the creation of value and satisfaction, which consumers demand end up pushing companies to develop strategies that govern their marketing mix and overall business strategy and go a step further to create general corporate strategies that will preside over their whole business processes to make sure they succeed in today’s fickle business ambiance (Campbell, Stonehouse & Huston 2002, 177-184).

Trends should not be seen as not threats but rather frontiers of new business possibilities and it is the duty of organizational leaders and their staff to work together as a team to make decision making for managers more certain and free of risk.

It is with the same intent that the manager intended to use the help of his team to launch a new division that manufactures liquid soap brands for the market by using the potential of the entire team and the rational decision making process to make critical marketing business decision. The liquid soap division will consist of brands that will cater to the needs of consumers who require liquid soap for both the kitchen and bathroom.

A participatory approach was used and the entire the team was required to fully participate by being part of the problem solving process but the last decision was left to the team leader/manager to carry out (Jones 2010, 44).

Such a technique of team work and decision making is known as consensus building whereby subordinates who are part of a team come up with multiple ideas and discuss their viability together with the team leader but leave the last decision to the team leader.

The way in which groups interact whether informal or formal will obviously impinge on the way a business functions and the way strategic choices are made in both the short and long-run. Successful companies like Google and Apple focus their development efforts by encouraging groups and teams to brainstorm and develop ideas that form a basis for the decisions which are made by top management (Koontz & Weihrich 2009, 58).

Following this premise, the companies have adopted quite aggressive business models because managers are able to make quick decisions simply because the groups usually supply them with all relevant knowledge and information that allows the managers to quickly evaluate the pros and cons of each strategic choice to choose the best action.

It is as a consequence true to assert that the way groups and managers interact and the different approaches of making decisions within organizations can ultimately affect the future of an organization.

Marketing companies, for example are required to be quite flexible due to the volatile nature of consumers and competitors and thus, this is why many marketing companies have their staff working in groups simply because the conception of ideas and the need for quick decision making is quite critical for the success of a company in the market.

According to Kotler and Keller (2011, 144), the most important aspect of teamwork and decision making in a marketing environment is simply to ensure that all decisions and team work efforts are made with the consumer on mind. Additionally, it is important that there is a very clear channel of communication between the team members to ensure that each member is up to speed and is armed with relevant information.

The consumers are the pivot of all decisions and ideas that a business comes up with in the course of doing business. Keeping this aspect in mind, the team leader ensured that the team clearly knew that the customer is the goal and the main criteria of measuring how effective the teams efforts and decision making process was (Jones 2010, 135).

This is whereby the team leader empowers his team to use their knowledge, skills and talent to in order to gather factual options that will assist in the decision making process.

When employees explain all their options and contingent plans, the team leader him/herself is then expected to use his managerial skills to choose the best option that emanates from the output of his/her team.

Considering that the company division is a newly born venture it is necessary for the team leader to be vigilant and aggressive to ensure that the whole team’s shares one vision and that the expectations of the entire team are in tandem with that of the team leader and the organizations corporate, business and functional goals.

The advantages associated with participatory type of teamwork approach is that the organization and the manager can collect many ideas and develop many strategic options that are likely to increase positive outcome within the organization. Additionally the process of decision making is made simpler by the fact that consensus building takes place prior to the final decision being made.

A participatory approach was used and the entire the team was required to fully participate by being part of the problem solving process, According to Buchanan and Huczynski (2010, 131), it is vital that a team leader ensures that the vision of the entire organization is clearly known by the entire team/staff from the initial stage because any ambiguity may become a future source of conflict and discomfort amongst the team members in the future and may henceforth compromise the chances of success for the new division and affect the decision making process.

Consumers are driven by needs, wants and desires and hence their consuming behavior can be attributed to these. Companies that define consumer needs and motives with a high degree of accuracy usually end up being the market leaders and enjoy a huge market share and revenue streams (Michael, Yasemin & Joseph 2009, 123).

Managers are often aware of how important consumer motives are and therefore ensure that their brightest minds who make up the team come together and create ideas that will further the performance of the company.

Being the team leader, communication was made clear that all other team members collectively come together so that the process of problem identification and problem solving can start using the rational decision making process.

The rational decision making process is a problem solving technique that allows managers and the respective teams to carefully and sequentially make decisions based on facts that present themselves as a result of the problem solving process (Koontz & Weihrich 2009 69).

Business executives in working with the leading companies are usually trained to use logic and facts in the process of making decisions by identifying problems and opportunities and creating multiple solutions/strategies to tackle the problem. Managers/ team leaders thereby use the rational decision model to reduce the number of risks and uncertainty because this process is highly factual and logical in nature.

Figure 1: The Steps involved in the Rational Decision making process.

By bringing together the skills and talents of all individuals of the team, the team leader expected that it would be possible for the team to create a good marketing strategy that would allow the new company to effectively price, place, and promote its products to compete with other existing companies (David, Cindy & Masco 2008, 5).

As a result, the five members of the team were each assigned to deal with each facet of marketing and gather relevant intelligence on pricing, product, and promotion and distribution trends of related liquid sap product within the industry. The data that would result from this process would prove crucial in the rational decision making process.

The launch of a new product is not easy at all and for new products/ new divisions to succeed in selling products as soon as they enter the market it is important for the managers and their teams to ensure that all relevant data is gathered. Knowing this the team was to gather competitive intelligence that would be used to finalize the marketing mix of the new liquid soap.

With the task of each and every team member already clarified the group was given a time frame of one week to bring back their feedback. Every suggestion of product design, price, placing and promotion strategy was to be backed by tangible evidence of pros and cons to justify why team members so it as the best alternative.

This will therefore require every team member to identify problems and opportunities that present themselves, gather all the relevant data pertaining to either the problem or opportunity, critically analyze the volume of information that was gathered and then using the information to develop options that are most suitable.

According to Kotler and Keller (2006, 415), it is important for business executives to create numerous options so that management can make more informed choices. After the numerous options are made the rational decision making process requires that the numerous options that were developed are analyzed and that actions which are weak or unsuitable are filtered and eliminated.

It is at this process the managers/team leader to become an effective decision maker and use his/her skills to choose the best decision.

The team was required to sit together and analyze the various options but this process was slowed down due to the fact that one team member left the tem before she had a chance to finish carrying out her research on pricing. Being an effective team leader the team leader quickly decided to split the remaining task of gathering pricing data from the market.

As soon as all the relevant data was gathered, each group member was required to analyze data clearly explain the implications of the data which was collected. According to Buchanan and Huczynski (2010, 122), it is the duty of the team to bring to the table all alternate options and ensure that there is full disclosure of facts so that the team leader can make the relevant decisions.

The team, therefore went ahead and shared information and data which they gathered and presented to the team leader all the relevant data necessary for creating marketing mix for the brands falling under the liquid soap division.

The entire problem solving process took the team one whole week and the team presented multiple solutions to the team leader and consensus building took place but the final decision making process was left to the manager.

The team’s effectiveness is highly commendable because each and every member of the team was in tandem with the vision of the division at the beginning of the practice. With the vision of the division in mind, the team operated with utmost openness and trust that was enabled by clear lines of communication (Lancaster & Withey 2006, 94).

Decision making at the lower level was left to the team members themselves thus saving time, the ability to meet regularly in the one week during afternoons made it possible to analyze the data gathered by the team members.

It is at these sessions that all team members communicated and exchanged notes making every team member fully aware of the facts and relevant information in respect to the whole project and with every team member well informed it was easier to brief the manager (Koontz & Weihrich 2009, 73).

The level of skill and talent together with operation of the team is also commendable because the competitor intelligence which they gathered made it quite simple to compare currently existing liquid soap brands overall industry trends and thus use it in the final marketing mix of the brands that were to be developed by our new division.

In summary the company’s brands will be better designed and packaged, priced, promoted and distributed to compete with the current market leader.

The only shortcoming of the team is that the level of competition and hostility between the members trying to outshine each other got on the way of achieving the mission but after the leader made it clear that such behavior is injurious to the group and not appropriate the team members apologized to each other.

Team work is a very important aspect in organization for the reason that organizational output depends on talent, skills and knowledge of the staff. The output of teams usually contributes to the quality of decisions that managers make. If a team is ineffective in operation then most probably a manager will have fewer facts to support the kind of decisions that he/she makes.

When poor decisions are made then this may affect future revenue streams, market share, costs and efficiency of the organization.

“A team-leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative team that will work over the long term.” – Robert B. Reich American Politician and Writer The above statement suggest the synergy that managers can create by using more collaborative and participatory approaches that are rational to work together with teams to guide their decision making process.

Brayden, K. G., Teppo, F. & Whetten D. A., 2010. “Perspective—Finding the Organization in Organizational Theory: A Meta-Theory of the Organization as a Social Actor.” Journal of organization science volume 21 issue 1, 1-20.

Buchanan, D. A. & Huczynski, A. A., 2010. Organizational Behavior 7 th ed. New York: Trans-Atlantic Publications.

Campbell, D., Stonehouse, G. & Huston, B., 2002. Business Strategy an Introduction 2 nd edn. Linacre House, Banbury Rd: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Charles, W. et al., 2002. Essentials of Marketing . Natorp Boulevard: South Western Cengage Learning.

David, A. J., Cindy F. R., & Masco, C. J., 2008. “Personality predictors of teamwork behaviors and decision-making style.” Review of Business Research, 1-5.

Jones, G., 2010. Organizational theory, design, and change . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Koontz, H. & Weihrich, H., 2009. Essence of Management an International Perspective . New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.

Kotler, P. & Keller, K., 2011. Marketing Management 13 th edn. New York: Prentice Hall.

Lancaster, G. & Withey, F., 2006. Marketing Fundamentals . London: Butterworth-Heimann.

Michael P. L., Yasemin K.Y. & Joseph M. T., 2009. “A theory of change in turbulent environments: the sequencing of dynamic capabilities following industry deregulation.” International Journal of Strategic Management, Volume 1, Number 3, 186-211.

Shah. K., 2008. “Decision Making.” Submityourarticle.com. Web.

Taylor, J.T., 2010. “Making effective decisions.” Team building USA. Retireved from http://www.teambuildingusa.com/articles/making-effective-decisions/

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• Chicago (A-D)
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The Power of Teamwork: Unlocking Success Together

• August 15, 2023
• Teamwork & Collaboration

Teamwork, a catalyst for achieving success, stands as a significant force in various domains. This article examines the power of teamwork by drawing insights from renowned teams, such as the 1980 U.S. hockey team and the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Through these examples, it becomes evident that individual talent alone is insufficient in attaining goals; a cohesive team is indispensable. This introduction provides an overview of the forthcoming discussion on the impact of teamwork on success, the strengths of individuals within a team, team development, and the crucial role of leaders.

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

• Teamwork is crucial for achieving success.
• Developing a great team should be a top priority for leaders.
• A great team enhances individual performance.
• Focusing on team development leads to personal and professional growth.

The Impact of Teamwork on Success

The impact of teamwork on success is demonstrated by the 1980 U.S. hockey team and the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, both of which exemplify the power of collaboration and the achievement of shared goals. In the workplace, teamwork offers numerous benefits. It allows individuals to pool their skills, knowledge, and resources to tackle complex tasks and solve problems more effectively. The power of collaboration lies in the ability to leverage diverse perspectives and expertise, leading to innovative solutions and improved decision-making. Furthermore, teamwork fosters a sense of camaraderie and trust among team members, which enhances motivation and productivity. By working together towards a common goal, teams can achieve outcomes that may be unattainable by individuals working alone. Overall, the benefits of teamwork in the workplace and the power of collaboration in achieving goals are undeniable.

Lessons From Legendary Teams

Lessons can be learned from legendary teams that have achieved remarkable success through effective collaboration and shared goals. These teams have provided unforgettable teamwork moments that can serve as valuable lessons for individuals and organizations. By studying the achievements of sports teams, several key lessons can be identified:

Clear Communication: Successful teams prioritize open and effective communication. They establish clear channels of communication to ensure that all members are on the same page and working towards the same objectives.

Trust and Accountability: Legendary teams rely on trust and accountability among their members. They create an environment where individuals feel safe to take risks, make mistakes, and hold themselves and others accountable for their actions.

Shared Vision and Goals: Teams that have achieved greatness share a common vision and goals. They align their efforts towards a shared purpose, which creates a sense of unity and motivates individuals to work together towards a common objective.

Continuous Improvement: Legendary teams understand the importance of continuous improvement. They constantly seek ways to enhance their performance, learn from their mistakes, and adapt their strategies to overcome challenges.

Harnessing the Strengths of Individuals

Harnessing the strengths of individuals requires a strategic approach that maximizes the unique abilities and talents each team member brings to the table. Leveraging diversity within a team is crucial for maximizing collective potential. Diversity encompasses not only differences in race, gender, and background, but also variations in skills, experiences, and perspectives. By recognizing and valuing these differences, leaders can create a dynamic team that benefits from a wide range of ideas and approaches. Maximizing collective potential involves creating an environment that encourages collaboration, open communication, and mutual respect. It requires leaders to identify and assign tasks that align with each team member’s strengths and expertise. Additionally, leaders must provide the necessary support and resources to enable individuals to thrive and contribute to the team’s overall success. By harnessing the strengths of individuals and leveraging diversity, teams can achieve higher levels of performance and accomplish their goals more effectively.

Building a Winning Team

Maximizing the potential of a team involves strategically building a cohesive group that leverages the unique strengths and abilities of each individual member. This can be achieved by fostering collaboration and building team chemistry.

Establishing clear goals and roles: Creating a shared vision and defining individual roles within the team fosters a sense of purpose and direction.

Encouraging open communication: Effective communication is crucial for building trust and understanding among team members. It allows for the exchange of ideas, feedback, and constructive criticism, leading to improved collaboration.

Promoting diversity and inclusion: Embracing diversity in terms of skills, backgrounds, and perspectives enhances creativity and problem-solving within the team. It encourages a culture of respect and inclusivity.

Building strong relationships: Encouraging team members to build strong relationships based on trust and mutual respect strengthens team cohesion. This can be achieved through team-building activities, social events, and regular check-ins.

The Role of Leaders in Team Development

One crucial aspect in team development is the role of leaders. Leadership development plays a significant role in shaping team dynamics. Effective leaders are able to create a positive and cohesive team environment, where members are motivated, engaged, and work collaboratively towards a common goal. They provide guidance, set clear expectations, and foster open communication within the team. Leaders also play a crucial role in identifying and developing the strengths of team members, assigning tasks based on individual capabilities, and promoting a sense of ownership and accountability. Additionally, they facilitate conflict resolution and promote a culture of trust and respect within the team. By understanding the importance of leadership development and its impact on team dynamics, organizations can ensure the formation of high-performing teams that are capable of achieving success.

Amplifying Performance With a Great Team

Amplifying performance can be achieved through the effective collaboration and synergy of a highly skilled and cohesive team. This can be accomplished by maximizing the potential of each team member and harnessing their collective strengths.

To amplify performance with a great team, the following steps can be taken:

Clearly define roles and responsibilities: By assigning specific tasks to each team member based on their expertise, their potential for contributing to the team’s success is maximized.

Foster open communication: Encouraging open and honest communication within the team allows for the sharing of ideas, feedback, and constructive criticism. This enables the team to identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to enhance performance.

Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing: By promoting a collaborative environment where team members actively share their knowledge and expertise, the team can tap into a wider range of skills and perspectives. This leads to innovative problem-solving and better decision-making.

Provide opportunities for growth and development: Supporting the professional growth of each team member through training, mentoring, and challenging assignments helps maximize their potential. As individuals continue to develop their skills and knowledge, the overall performance of the team improves.

Empowering Others to Reach Their Potential

The previous subtopic discussed the importance of building a great team and the benefits it brings to personal and professional growth. Now, the focus shifts to the role of empowering leadership in fostering growth within the team. Empowering leadership refers to leaders who provide support, encouragement, and opportunities for team members to develop and reach their full potential. This type of leadership style creates an environment where individuals feel motivated and confident to take on new challenges and grow both personally and professionally. By empowering team members, leaders enable them to enhance their skills, expand their knowledge, and contribute to the overall success of the team. This approach not only fosters individual growth but also strengthens the team dynamics, leading to improved collaboration, innovation, and ultimately, achieving shared goals. By nurturing an empowering leadership style, leaders can unlock the full potential of their team and drive continuous growth and success.

The Art of Delegation in Leadership

Delegation is a critical skill for leaders to effectively distribute tasks and responsibilities within a team. To empower team members and ensure successful delegation, leaders can employ the following effective strategies:

Clearly define tasks and expectations: Leaders must provide thorough instructions and clarify desired outcomes to ensure team members understand their roles and responsibilities.

Match tasks to team members’ strengths: By assigning tasks that align with individual skills and capabilities, leaders can optimize team performance and enhance motivation and engagement.

Provide necessary resources and support: Leaders should ensure that team members have access to the tools, information, and support needed to complete their delegated tasks successfully.

Establish open communication channels: Encouraging regular updates and creating a supportive environment for team members to ask questions and seek guidance can foster effective collaboration and problem-solving.

Personal Growth Through Teamwork

The previous subtopic discussed the importance of delegation in leadership and how it contributes to effective teamwork. Now, the focus shifts to the personal growth that can be achieved through teamwork. Maximizing strengths is a key aspect of personal growth, as individuals can leverage their unique talents and abilities for the collective growth of the team. By working together, team members can complement each other’s strengths and overcome weaknesses. Team support plays a crucial role in addressing personal limitations and helping individuals develop in areas where they may be lacking. Through teamwork, individuals have the opportunity to learn from one another, gain new perspectives, and enhance their skills. This collective effort not only benefits the team as a whole but also fosters personal growth and development.

Professional Growth Through Team Collaboration

Collaborative efforts among team members contribute to the professional growth of individuals. Building trust and fostering collaboration within a team environment can lead to several benefits.

Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills: Team members can pool their diverse perspectives and expertise to solve complex problems more effectively. This collaborative approach encourages critical thinking and creativity, allowing individuals to expand their problem-solving abilities.

Skill Development: Working alongside other team members provides opportunities for individuals to learn from each other. Through collaboration, individuals can develop new skills and improve existing ones, leading to their professional growth and increased competence.

Increased Knowledge Sharing: Collaboration fosters an environment where knowledge and information are freely shared among team members. This exchange of ideas and expertise enables individuals to expand their knowledge base and stay updated with industry trends, contributing to their professional growth.

Networking Opportunities: Collaborating with team members allows individuals to build meaningful relationships and expand their professional network. These connections can open doors to new opportunities, such as mentorship or career advancement, further contributing to their professional growth.

The Inner Circle: Key to Success

To achieve success, leaders must recognize the significance of their inner circle in promoting personal and professional growth. Developing strong bonds and nurturing relationships within this inner circle is crucial for leaders to unlock their full potential. Research has shown that leaders who prioritize building a strong team and investing in their inner circle experience significant benefits. These benefits include enhanced individual performance, multiplied value as a leader, and the ability to focus on strengths while delegating responsibilities to the team. Additionally, having a great team provides emotional and social benefits such as companionship, friendships, and the fulfillment of desires in unexpected ways. The inner circle acts as a support system, compounding the leader’s vision and effort, and ultimately leading to personal and professional growth. Therefore, leaders should prioritize developing strong bonds and nurturing relationships within their inner circle to maximize their chances of success.

The Emotional Bonds of a Great Team

Developing emotional bonds within a great team fosters a sense of companionship and facilitates the fulfillment of desires in unexpected ways. This is achieved through fostering camaraderie and emotional support. The emotional bonds formed within a team can have a profound impact on the team members’ overall well-being and satisfaction.

Increased sense of belonging: When team members feel emotionally connected to one another, they develop a strong sense of belonging and acceptance. This fosters a positive team culture where individuals feel valued and supported.

Enhanced collaboration: Emotional bonds within a team promote open communication and trust. Team members are more likely to share ideas, collaborate effectively, and work towards common goals. This leads to increased productivity and better outcomes.

Mutual encouragement: Emotional support from team members encourages individual growth and resilience. When facing challenges, team members can rely on each other for encouragement, motivation, and reassurance.

Improved problem-solving: Emotional bonds facilitate a safe and supportive environment where team members can openly discuss problems and find solutions together. This collaborative problem-solving approach leads to more effective and innovative outcomes.

Achieving More Together

By fostering strong emotional bonds within a team, members can achieve higher levels of productivity and innovation. Maximizing synergy and collaborative problem solving are key components of achieving more together. When team members establish strong emotional connections, they develop trust and a sense of shared purpose, which leads to increased productivity. By working collaboratively to solve problems, team members can leverage their diverse perspectives and skills, resulting in more innovative solutions. Collaborative problem solving allows for a thorough exploration of different ideas and approaches, leading to better decision-making and outcomes. Additionally, when team members feel emotionally connected, they are more likely to be motivated and engaged, further enhancing their productivity and ability to achieve goals. Overall, fostering strong emotional bonds within a team is essential for maximizing synergy and achieving more together through collaborative problem solving.

Teamwork: The Foundation of Effective Leadership

Collaboration and effective communication within a team are fundamental aspects of leadership effectiveness. Teamwork plays a crucial role in leadership development, offering various benefits and requiring specific strategies to foster efficiency within a team.

Benefits of Teamwork in Leadership Development:

• Teamwork enhances individual performance by leveraging diverse skills and expertise.
• A strong team multiplies a leader’s value, enabling them to focus on their strengths.
• Delegating responsibilities to the team frees up time for leaders to prioritize critical tasks.
• A great team allows leaders to help others reach their full potential, fostering personal and professional growth.

Strategies for Fostering Effective Teamwork:

• Establish clear goals, roles, and responsibilities to ensure everyone understands their contributions within the team.
• Encourage open communication and active listening to facilitate idea-sharing and problem-solving.
• Foster a culture of trust and collaboration, where team members feel safe to express their opinions and challenge ideas.
• Provide opportunities for team-building activities to promote camaraderie and mutual understanding among team members.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can leaders effectively harness the strengths of individual team members.

To effectively harness the strengths of individual team members, leaders must identify and understand their unique capabilities. By creating an environment that encourages open communication and collaboration, leaders can leverage these strengths to achieve collective goals and promote effective leadership.

What Are Some Strategies for Building a Winning Team?

Strategies for building a winning team include building trust among team members, fostering effective communication, and promoting collaboration. These strategies are essential for creating a cohesive and high-performing team.

How Can Leaders Empower Others to Reach Their Full Potential Within a Team?

Leaders can empower others to reach their full potential within a team by fostering motivation and encouraging innovation. By creating an environment that supports growth and provides opportunities for development, leaders can inspire team members to excel and contribute to the team’s overall success.

What Are Some Key Principles of Effective Delegation in Leadership?

Effective delegation in leadership involves clear and concise communication, establishing trust and accountability among team members. Leaders must effectively assign tasks, provide necessary resources, and empower individuals to take ownership of their responsibilities to achieve collective success.

How Does Personal Growth Occur Through Teamwork and Collaboration?

Personal growth occurs through teamwork and collaboration by allowing individuals to develop their skills, learn from others, and reach their full potential. Collective growth is achieved as team members complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses, fostering a supportive and empowering environment.

Teamwork Strategies: What Makes A Successful Team?

From school, to work, to family life, most people collaborate with others on a regular basis. Learning what makes a successful team, (and how to avoid common teamwork missteps), may improve your productivity, creativity, and mental health. 

What is teamwork? 

Teamwork is a process in which a group of people collaborate to reach a common goal. Great teams value the diverse perspectives of each member, which can help them solve problems efficiently and effectively. Oftentimes, teams can accomplish much more than each member could achieve on their own, hence the phrase, “teamwork makes the dream work.”

Common barriers to effective teamwork 

Although collaboration can be highly successful, there are some common barriers that can interfere with the effectiveness of teamwork. These include: 

• Lack of leadership: Without effective team leaders to provide guidelines and encourage collaboration, teams often find themselves experiencing a lack of motivation, purpose, or connection with their teammates.
• Mismatched personalities: When employers assign people to teams, they often focus solely on each member’s skills and background. However, teamwork researcher, Jeff LePine, Ph.D., suggests that employers should evaluate personalities, too. For example, a team may experience “ equity issues ” if the team leader is highly conscientious while one team member scores low in conscientiousness. 
• Not being nice: Surveys have found that the group’s average emotional intelligence is predictive of its effectiveness . Without mutual respect, harmful behaviors, such as name-calling or bullying, may develop. These behaviors can lead to toxic team dynamics, and lead to worker dissatisfaction, heightened stress, or resignation.
• Poor communication: A lack of clear communication is one of the most common problems that arise in team settings. Oftentimes, it leads to confusion, frustration, misunderstanding, resentment, or passive aggression.
• Lack of trust: Without some degree of mutual respect and camaraderie, group members may not reach their full creative potential. 
• Teams are too large: Smaller groups tend to collaborate better than larger groups. A small group allows more opportunities for trust building, and many people find that responsibilities are shared more equitably in small groups. Additionally, large groups can lead to a phenomenon called “groupthink,” which can lead to conflict avoidance and norm-oriented decision making. 
• Different goals: Shared goals are at the heart of teamwork. Without shared objectives, the team may experience confusion and frustration, or group members may feel pulled in different directions. 
• Roles, expectations, and accountability weren’t established: Without assigning roles, deadlines, and expectations, groups may experience equity issues, where some people do not contribute to the work and others do too much work. This may lead to things like resentment, resignation, or passive aggression. 

The barriers listed above commonly lead to feelings like resignation, avoidance, stress, and impatience. When people do not trust or feel comfortable within their team, it can lead to low productivity and a lack of creativity, making individual work seem like a more appealing alternative. 

Building a more effective team

With careful planning and communication, many teams can avoid the common collaboration challenges and reach their goals. The following strategies can help ensure your team’s success: 

Team building activities may seem silly to some, but they can help team members build trust and camaraderie. Consider starting an office book club, asking ice-breaker questions, or establishing a fantasy football league for the whole team. These team building exercises are sometimes reserved for in-person groups, but they are often valuable for virtual teams, too. 

Assign roles and responsibilities

These roles may include things like team leader, editor, minute-keeper, organizer, or facilitator. Ideally, these roles should be established early in the collaborative process.  

Establish communication guidelines

For serious discussions, teams may want to opt for in-person meetings, video calls, or phone calls to avoid potential miscommunication. For less important matters, team members may opt for emails or a messaging app. However your team meets to discuss tasks and objectives, be sure to set some rules and guidelines to ensure communication is effective and productive. 

Set boundaries

Effective teams often establish guidelines for what days of the week and times they are available for non-urgent communication. Other boundaries might include how coworkers interact, a separation of personal and professional life, and what kinds of tasks may be assigned to each person. 

Encourage sharing

Many successful teams allow each member to speak without interruption or immediate judgment. Team members may choose to use sticky notes, white boards, or other temporary mediums to encourage informal brainstorming. Or they may use a “talking stick” or similar objects to give each teammate time to talk without interruption. 

Discuss goals

Sometimes, teams overlook the value of setting clear goals. However, setting goals together can limit the degree of competing interests that team members experience. 

Understand each other

Team members may benefit from identifying and sharing their hard and soft skills. By learning more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, responsibilities can be assigned more effectively. Teams may choose to use a simple template to define their strengths at the beginning of a meeting, such as this one from Harvard Business Review:

• I am at my best when ___.
• I am at my worst when ___. 
• You can count on me to ___.
• What I need from you is ___. 

After sharing, people should be given time to ask further questions or have a more in-depth conversation. 

Ask for clarification

Different cultural, religious, experiences, and language backgrounds can sometimes lead to different interpretations. It’s often a good idea for team members to ask for clarification or try summarizing what each team member says to ensure statements are not misinterpreted. 

Most people aren’t taught communication and collaboration skills in school. By holding training events, companies can help their employees’ become experts in creating successful team environments. 

Employer training

By supporting each employee, employers can positively affect whole teams, as happier employees often feel more supported, connected to their colleagues , and satisfied with their work environment.

Could therapy help?

People experiencing periods of low mental health, or mental disorders like depression, often experience symptoms such as avoidance, irritability, mood swings, lack of motivation, poor sleep quality, and low self-esteem. Some studies even show that having poor communication skills can harm mental health and the ability to collaborate with team members, leading many people to call for workplace communications training . Improving one person's mental health can cause a ripple effect that benefits the entire team. 

Certain types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), can help people learn healthy communication and coping skills, which can improve mental health and the ability to collaborate. However, many people do not have health insurance or cannot pay out-of-pocket costs for therapy. Online CBT can be a more accessible option, and a review of 373 peer-reviewed articles found that online CBT is often effective for mental disorders such as depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder . 

Online platforms, like BetterHelp , offer online therapy from licensed therapists, many of whom specialize in addressing work-related conflict and communication challenges. People who are working full-time jobs, or who otherwise don’t have the time or energy to commute to therapy sessions, may find that online therapy is a better option.  

The benefits of a good team

Strong teams delegate roles effectively, inspire action, and harness diverse strengths. When done well, teams can often accomplish much more than they could on their own. Other benefits of teamwork include: 

• Heightened creativity: Team members who encourage each other can create an environment where everyone is willing to share ideas without the fear of failure. High performing businesses that value innovation often work to create an environment where failure is encouraged. According to Forbes contributor, Jacob Morgan, “ failure is the best competitive advantage .”
• Opportunities for learning: When working as a group, teammates can learn new skills from each other. This may improve self-confidence, engagement, and workplace satisfaction. 
• Better mental health outcomes: Positive team experiences often lead to reduced stress and increased job satisfaction , compared with individuals who have negative experiences with their teammates.  
• Reduced risk of burnout: With individual work, each assignment and deadline depends on a single person, but teamwork enables greater flexibility. For example, if a member of the group is experiencing a stressful event in their personal life, other members of the group can provide emotional support or temporarily help with some of their workload. 

Though it can be difficult to build a strong team, the effort is often worth it. 

When designed and supported well, teamwork can be an asset to individuals and companies. However, common teamwork pitfalls can make them more harmful than helpful. Simple strategies, such as making teams small, incorporating team building exercises, and clearly defining roles and expectations, can help ensure the success of a group.

People who’ve experienced regular difficulties working in a group may find that individual or group therapy can help them develop the communication skills needed for positive teamwork. Online therapy can be an effective and accessible solution for improving mental health and worker satisfaction. 

• What Is Teamwork? Definition And Practical Tips For Your Next Collaboration Medically reviewed by Andrea Brant , LMHC
• 55 Teamwork Quotes To Inspire Collaboration Medically reviewed by Melissa Guarnaccia , LCSW
• Relationships and Relations

Teamwork Essay: Examples, Tips, & Ideas

These days, leadership and ability to work in a team are the skills that everybody should possess. It is impossible to cope with a large educational or work project alone. However, it can also be challenging to collaborate in a team. You might want to elaborate on importance and difficulties of such collaboration in your teamwork essay.

In the article, you’ll learn:

• Pros and cons of working in a team;
• Teamwork college essay prompts;
• Tips for writing your paper’s introduction, body, and conclusion;
• Ideas for writing about teamwork;
• Short teamwork essay examples for students.

Have you already decided on the main idea and an excellent way to complete your essay? If not yet, then do not waste your time and check several suggestions from our writers .

• ☝️ Pros and Cons
• 🏆 Its Importance
• 🤔 What Makes a Team?

📝 Teamwork Essay Examples

• 🔥 Essay Topics

🔗 References

☝️ writing about teamwork: pros & cons.

Considering the benefits and drawbacks of working in a group is essential for writing any paper on the topic. You have to understand what makes the issue multifaceted. In particular, if you’re going to compose the advantages and disadvantages of a teamwork essay, research on the subject is crucial.

📋 Teamwork Essay Outline

A well-crafted essay outline makes it easier to organize thoughts and stay focused while writing your essay. It also ensures that your text has a logical structure.

Keep reading to learn about different essay parts and their components.

Teamwork Essay Introduction

One effective way to engage the reader is to start your introduction with a hook . A hook is a captivating opening line or statement that can be an interesting fact , a thought-provoking question , or a powerful quote . You should also provide some background information on teamwork to give the reader context.

Here are some ideas on what to include in your teamwork essay introduction:

Thesis Statement about Teamwork

A thesis statement in an essay is a concise, arguable claim or central point that sets the tone for the entire paper. A good thesis statement is debatable , specific , and provides a clear focus for the essay. Remember that it should also be supported by evidence relevant to the topic.

Have a look at these ideas for a thesis statement about teamwork:

Teamwork Essay: Main Body

Here’s how to structure your essay’s main body:

• Each body paragraph typically begins with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea or argument of the paragraph.
• This is followed by evidence , such as quotes, statistics, or examples, which support the topic sentence.
• After presenting the evidence, you should provide an analysis by explaining how the evidence supports the thesis statement.
• A paragraph should end with a sentence that summarizes it and transitions to the next paragraph.

For more information about writing the main body, check out our 5-paragraph essay guide and the essay length guide .

Teamwork Essay Conclusion

At the conclusion of an essay, you should restate your thesis statement and summarize the essay’s ideas. It’s also essential to leave the reader with a lasting impression by offering a thought-provoking insight, a call to action, or a suggestion to explore the topic further.

Consider these ideas for a teamwork essay conclusion:

🖊️ Teamwork College Essay: How to Write

If you’ve been assigned to write an essay on teamwork, there are some of the most common approaches you can use. So, when thinking about essay topics, take a look at these. In the following sections, we will break them down separately.

Besides, you can see some points explored in detail in teamwork essay examples.

🏆 The Importance of Teamwork

You may have to elaborate on teamwork in a college essay, though it may concern its different types. Dealing with tasks in groups can be an option both in educational institutions and workplaces. We’ll look at them separately in the following sections.

See how to write an essay about the importance of teamwork here.

Teamwork in School and College

You can introduce various points while explaining the importance of teamwork in an essay when it concerns educational institutions.

• It helps learn essential social skills. Working in a team can teach you necessary social skills, such as listening and speaking. You’ll have to act cohesively to get anything done. Additionally, teamwork experience will make you learn how to communicate information to others effectively.
• It enhances self-confidence . Teamwork in school and college teaches individuals that their voices are heard and valued. That helps people improve their self-esteem and enhance the working process.
• It diminishes bullying . Improved self-confidence will help a student to rise above the bully. Moreover, team members are more willing to support each other than other classmates. Discussing it in a student teamwork essay can be quite profound.
• It establishes the ground for student’s success in the future. Effective teamwork may contribute to breakthroughs outside the classroom. An early introduction to such experiences creates more opportunities for people to be productive and satisfied as a part of the group. When looking between teamwork and individual work experience, hiring companies value the former more.

Teamwork in the Workplace

You may be assigned to write an essay on teamwork in the workplace and its importance. In that case, you should consider the following arguments:

• Teamwork is crucial for the project’s success. The ability to work within a group increases your chance of getting and keeping the job. Moreover, the capacity to cooperate with colleagues can help you achieve better results. That’s the reason why companies have team-building activities. They can help improve the teamwork in the workplace and thus improve effectiveness.
• Teamwork is critical for personal growth. Working with different people in one group can enhance the personal strengths of each person. For instance, the team’s cultural diversity can help you learn how to communicate with people from different backgrounds. You can see this argument explored in various teamwork essay examples .

🤔 Writing about Teamwork: What Makes a Good Team?

For some reason, you need to compose a paper on creating or managing a team. Describe the whole process in your essay about teamwork. The main question you should answer is, “What makes a good team?”

To do that, discuss the following points in your paper:

• primary goals and purposes of your team;
• members of the team and duties of each member;
• a leader of your team;
• ways of achieving good relations and agreement between all members of the group.

The overall success of a team depends on each particular member. So, what a team member should be like? It is another good question to answer in essays about teamwork.

You may consider the following characteristics of a team member:

• an ability to meet the deadlines;
• an ability to adapt to changes quickly;
• good communication and diplomatic skills;
• optimism and a positive attitude, etc.

Explain the importance of each trait in your essay on teamwork. Add other personal features that you believe are significant.

Looking for some teamwork essay examples? Find a collection of links below! You are welcome to use these samples for inspiration. We ho hope that you will write an A+ paper!

• Mattel’s Workforce Strategy: Fostering of Teamwork
• Cultural Diversity in Teamwork: Research Process
• Teamworking Skills in Healthcare
• Teamwork During Product Design and Launch Process
• Diversity in the Workplace, Teamwork and Leadership
• Teamwork Organization and Experiences
• Team Communication’s Importance for Successful Teamwork
• Trader Joe’s Stores’ Teamwork and Motivation
• Apple Company’s Teamwork Benefits
• Management: Effective Teamwork Role for Organizations Performance

Short Essay on Teamwork: Example

For your inspiration, we have prepared a short example of a teamwork essay. Check it out to gain ideas on how to effectively structure your paper.

Teamwork essay introduction

Over the last few decades, effective teamwork has become a key factor in business success. Companies hire diverse employees with unique skills to work together toward a common goal. The synergy created by such teamwork can lead to amazing achievements.

Thesis statement about teamwork

Effective teamwork helps achieve organizational goals by fostering collaboration and enhancing productivity.

Teamwork’s first advantage is improved collaboration among team members. When people with different perspectives work together, they can use their collective knowledge to address challenges, make better decisions, and come up with innovative ideas. For example, research and development teams have scientists and engineers collaborate and develop new technologies. Important inventions and breakthroughs can only be possible with their combined efforts.

Teamwork also enhances productivity by combining the team members’ strengths. Teams can optimize their performance and achieve better results when they assign tasks based on each member’s skills. For instance, in a marketing team, one member may excel in creative design while another is skilled in data analysis. The team can combine their skills to create memorable campaigns that resonate with their audience.

Teamwork essay conclusion

Teamwork is crucial for organizational success because it promotes collaboration and enhances productivity. Only by working together can companies overcome challenges and achieve their strategic goals.

🔥 Teamwork Essay Topics

• Importance of teamwork for medical social workers.
• Describe the cooperation challenges of teamwork.  
• Examine the relation between the effectiveness of the teams and the performance of the organization.  
• Analyze what challenges the leader of a change team meets.  
• Essential role of interprofessional team development in healthcare. 
• Explain who are leaders from behind and how they affect the teamwork.
• Describe the key elements of positive teamwork .
• Is teamwork more productive than individual work?
• How to achieve successful collaboration and teamwork within a unit.
• The advantages of military mindset for business team.
• Discuss how different leadership styles affect teams.  
• Describe your experience of group work .
• The importance of successful managing of team members’ capabilities.
• Why it is essential to learn the teamwork from the childhood.
• Lessons of the Marshmallow Challenge as a model of teamwork .
• Explain why collaboration is the essence of teamwork .
• How to avoid social loafing in teamwork.
• Analyze the methods of managing the team resources.
• Discuss the pros and cons of team-based approach .
• The crucial role of emotional intelligence in successful teamwork.
• Appraisal system and its impact on team performance.  
• What are the stages of team development ?
• Is it difficult to build trust between team members?
• How to create an effective team.
• Describe the most effective strategies for virtual team communication.
• The role of strategy in team development.
• The main aspects of effective teamwork .
• Explain the difference between a work group and a team .
• The essential role of cultural literacy for managing a global team.
• Analyze how proper motivation affects the team performance.
• Is psychology important for formation of a sports team?
• Discuss the principal elements of group management.
• Transitional leadership and its importance for teamwork.
• Describe the ways to improve teamwork within an organization.
• Examine the mutual impact of team members on each other.
• How properly managed conflict can help a team develop and improve.
• Discuss whether team building is important in nursing.
• Teamwork and successful collaboration in healthcare .
• Explain what personal qualities will make working in a team comfortable.
• What tools and strategies can help managing a remote team?
• Analyze the advantage of diverse teams for a company.
• Can building of an effective team improve quality of healthcare?
• The difficulties of working in a virtual team.
• Role of a nurse team in caring for patients with breast cancer. 
• The challenges of decision making in project teams. 
• The crucial role of good leadership for team performance.  
• Effective interprofessional communication and its importance for a healthcare team.
• Analyze the effect diversity has on global sales team.
• Explain the meaning of a performance-driven team.
• Describe advantages and disadvantages of team decision making .

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• 4 Reasons Teamwork is Important in the Workplace: Career Training, YTI Career Institute
• Teamwork, Mastering Soft Skills for Workplace Succes: Skills to Pay the Bills, U.S. Department of Labor
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The agile guide to winning at team development

The forming-storming-norming-performing cycle repeats more often than you might think. Here’s how to navigate each stage with grit and grace.

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5-Second summary

• American psychological researcher Bruce Tuckman developed the theory of Tuckman’s stages of group development in 1965.
• The theory includes four distinct phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing.
• The Atlassian Playbook contains exercises to help teams work through each phase to promote more harmonious teamwork.

Pop quiz. There are three teams: one is forming for the first time, another just added a new team member, and the third is re-aligning around priorities after the company announced a strategic pivot. Which team just entered a different stage of development? The answer is all three. Even subtle changes cause us to adjust the way we work. Team development is happening all the time – the question is whether you’re being intentional about it.

In the past, we would look to HR or our boss’ boss for guidance. While those people are still available when we need them, we usually don’t. Most teams today work according to the principles of the agile movement. Even if you’re not “Agile” (with a capital A), you self-organize around tasks. You don’t wait to be told how to do your job – you determine the best way to meet your objectives and get on with it. 

Navigating the stages of team development in our agile world is no different. It should be self-organized and self-sustaining. Anyone can champion the cause: a manager, a scrum master, a program manager, or a team member keen to take on an informal leadership role. 

Sounds great in theory, but putting it into practice can feel daunting. No worries. You got this. With a structured approach, you can improve your team’s performance at each stage of development. 

What are the stages of team development?

The forming → storming → norming → performing model of group development was first proposed by psychological researcher Bruce Tuckman in 1965. His theory, known as “ Tuckman’s stages of group development ” stated that all of these phases are necessary and inevitable in order for a team to grow, face up to challenges, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results. 

Notice how I’ve represented Tuckman’s model as a circle? That’s because team development is cyclical, not linear. Maybe your team is humming along in the “performing” stage, then a new person joins. Boom. You’ve got some “forming” to do. Likewise, a strategic pivot for the company sends your team back to the “storming” phase. 

The team development cycle starts over more often than you might think. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong or that you’ve failed. It just means that when change happens, humans need time to adapt. Thankfully, we are highly adaptable creatures. 

Navigating the “forming” stage

In this stage, your team is starting from scratch in one way or another. You’re coming together as a brand new team, or a new team member joins. In an agile context, the “forming” phase is a key part of the transition away from more traditional ways of working. You may not be reporting to a new manager, but you’re now part of a cross-functional project or product team. (In companies where agile is already the established way of working, pulling a cross-functional project team together is just business as usual.)  

Better together: 8 essential teamwork skills to master

Feels like…

Everyone is excited. Curious. Maybe a bit nervous. There’s a new initiative to run at and you’re keen to get started. But there’s also confusion. You’re not sure who is doing what, or how to break this epic project into smaller components. 

Job to be done

The team needs clarity and connection more than anything else at this stage. Don’t dive into execution mode too quickly. Take the time to call out assumptions about the work and (more importantly) how you’ll work together . Solving problems face-to-face instead of over email or chat is a good investment right now because you’ll get a richer sense of who your teammates are as people.

Tips and tactics

Pose lots of questions to your team, even if you think you know the answer. Take a cue from the Atlassian Team Playbook and make time for these three activities. Click the name of each activity below to get step-by-step instructions and other helpful resources like templates and videos. 

• Icebreakers (5-15 min) – If you have a few minutes while people trickle into a meeting, then you’ve got time to start making the personal connections that help us do our best work together. Toss out just-for-fun questions like “What car did you learn to drive on?” Or, more purposeful questions like “What will the title of your autobiography be?” help teammates get to know each other and prime the brain for creative thinking. #TwoBirdsOneStone 
• Elevator Pitch (30 min) – This exercise answers the “What exactly are we doing, and why?” question. Creating an elevator pitch together sets your team up with a consistent and simple explanation of your work and the unique value it delivers. It’s like MadLibs™ for the office. 
• Goals, Signals, and Measures (90 min) – One of the best investments you can make at this stage is clarifying what you’re trying to achieve and how you’ll know you’re successful. This workshop involves brainstorming, discussion, and decision-making. It can be tough at times – I won’t lie – but the shared understanding you’ll build is worth powering through.

Navigating the “storming” stage

Recently, several teams in our engineering department undertook a massive, ludicrously complex, business-critical infrastructure project. The number of risks and dependencies sent these established and cohesive dev teams into a flurry of (ultimately, unproductive and/or counter-productive) activity. If your team has ever thrashed about like this, then you know what “storming” is. 

Storming kind of stinks, to be honest. There’s a lot of confusion and frustration. Everything seems to be twice as hard as you’d expect. 

The key to moving through this stage is to make things as simple as possible. Hopefully, your team’s purpose or desired outcome is understood by this point. Now it’s time to make sure everyone understands the incremental milestones on the way to your goal, and what their role is in helping the team get there. Clarity as to what success looks like at each milestone will give your team a much-needed confidence boost. 

Focus on building a shared understanding across your team and with stakeholders. Here are three techniques I like to use. 

• DACI (30-90 min) – The DACI framework helps you make group decisions efficiently and effectively. The secret is to clarify each person’s role. (Who is the decider? Who is contributing recommendations? Etc.) Create a default DACI that can apply to most decisions, then adjust as needed or create a custom DACI when the stakes are high or the situation is complicated.
• Roles and Responsibilities (60 min) – The name says it all. You’ll clarify each person’s role, what they’re responsible for, and any other expectations team members have of each other. Chances are, you’ll uncover some false assumptions as well – especially if your team had been cruising along in the “norming” or “performing” stage until recently. 
• End-to-end Demo (30 min) – A visual representation of the final product or experience makes it easy for stakeholders to provide early feedback. Your “demo” might start as a diagram on a napkin. That’s fine. As you repeat this exercise over time, it’ll become higher fidelity and help your team see they’re making progress. 

Navigating the “norming” stage

When you start to sense that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, you’ve made it into the “norming” stage. The challenge now is to move a bit faster while keeping the quality of your work high. 

Whereas storming is chaotic, norming feels reassuring. Your team is gaining momentum. An esprit de corps is emerging, and – dare I say? – a sense of pride. 

The main thing is to keep that momentum high. Remove obstacles by coordinating tightly with adjacent and upstream teams. Validate your assumptions about what your customers need, then proactively decide what you’re not doing right now so you don’t get distracted. Backlog grooming for the win.

This is a time to recognize and improve your weak areas. Managers and project leads need to keep their eyes open, but be mostly hands-off so the team can build muscle around working independently. 

• Trade-offs (30 min) – In this exercise, you’ll agree on what you should optimize for and where you can be flexible, so you can make those small, every-day decisions about your work autonomously. The trade-offs will be obvious. Cheap, perfect, and on time? Nope. You can have two of those, but not all three. 
• Sparring (30-60 min) – Sparring is a way to get structured, constructive feedback from peers and stakeholders. Show them a work-in-progress, then ask them to critique it, challenge it, and suggest ways to make the next iteration better. Remember: to spar doesn’t mean to fight. It means to practice. 
• Project Poster (three 60-min sessions) – Your poster is a living document that communicates the problem you’re tackling, why it’s worth solving, the research you’ve done, possible solutions, and any risks or assumptions. It’s a great way to keep the team and your stakeholders on the same page. I recommend building it out in three phases as you define the problem space, validate your assumptions, and get ready to execute. 

Navigating the “performing” stage

At last! You’ve arrived! You and your teammates trust each other enough to get a little creative and innovative, while still delivering top-notch work on time. You’re kicking butt and taking names. 

Awesomesauce.

Double down on building personal connections among teammates. When it’s time to celebrate meeting a milestone, consider indulging in a team dinner or day out doing something fun together. And, now that you’ve figured out established practices that help you collaborate effectively, share those with other teams. 

You’ve got a good thing going now. Here are two ways to protect and augment it. 

• Retrospective (30-60 min) – This classic agile technique works for any type of team in any industry. Gather up at the end of each iteration cycle (or, monthly) to reflect on what’s going well vs. what’s not, and agree on adjustments to make. 
• Disruptive Brainstorming (60-90 min) – Oddly enough, introducing constraints when brainstorming leads to more creative ideas because your brain is forced out of its rut as you think your way around them. This technique is fast-paced and can be a lot of fun. 

Which stage is your team in?

After reading everything above, you have a pretty good idea where your team is at – but does the rest of the team agree? We all perceive things in our own unique way based on past experience and what we know now. The stages of team development are no different.

None of us have perfect information, but we can get closer by sharing what we know and what we see. I like to play a game I call “Pin the Tail on the Tuckman” to uncover those differences in perception and align on where a team is at. 

Draw a simple four-stage diagram and ask each person to place a dot or sticky note next to the stage they think the team is at. Then discuss and agree on next steps. Do you need to clarify roles and responsibilities? Work out a stakeholder communications plan ? It’s a 10-minute investment that pays massive dividends. 

Be intentional about teaming and you’ll go farther, faster. You’ve got permission. You’ve got the knowledge. The only thing you don’t have is an excuse.

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Teamwork College Essays

Teamwork is a crucial aspect of success in various fields, including sports, business, and academics. When it comes to writing an essay on teamwork, it requires a deep understanding of its importance and how it applies to different areas of life. It is a popular topic in college and an opportunity for students to reflect on their experiences and share their perspectives on the topic.

Sample essays on teamwork typically discuss the importance of teamwork in achieving common goals and objectives, as well as the benefits of working together. To write a compelling essay on teamwork, it is essential to showcase how it has impacted your life positively. You can start by outlining how teamwork has helped you achieve your goals or overcome obstacles. Additionally, highlight how working in a team has improved your communication, problem-solving, and leadership skills.

A great teamwork college essay example could be a personal experience where you worked collaboratively with others to achieve a common goal. It could also be an analysis of a successful team’s dynamics and how they work together to achieve success. Alternatively, an essay on teamwork could explore the challenges of working in a team and how they were overcome.

If you’re struggling to find a suitable topic for your essay, consider exploring how teamwork affects employee productivity, how to build effective teams, or the role of teamwork in sports. These topics can provide a fresh perspective on the subject and make your essay stand out.

In conclusion, teamwork is a critical aspect of achieving success in various areas of life, and writing an essay on it can be an insightful and meaningful experience. By using teamwork essay example and analysing various essay topics, you can develop a comprehensive understanding of the concept and write an excellent essay. Check out WritingBros for inspiration and guidance on writing your essay on teamwork.

The Importance of Teamwork in an Organization

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The Essential Role Of Teamwork Versus Individual Work

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The Effective Implementation Of Teamwork Rather Than Individual Work

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Promoting Improvement - A Key to Teamwork Excellence Article Analysis

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The Wolves Performance Review: A Mastery of Teamwork

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Analysis of Organizational Behavior in the Film "The Devil Wears Prada"

Most movies with the industrial-organizational behavior backgrounds provide a birds-eye view of the inner workings of organizations which are considered complex and fascinating entities which may consist of a group of people or employees, working together professionally. So by examining how these characters, working either...

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Coworking Spaces: Culture, Communication, and ICT for Development

The first journal that we chose to review is Coworking Spaces: Culture, Communication, and ICT for Development: A Caribbean Study, written by Deborah Dysart-Gale, Kristina Pitula, and Thiruvengadam Radhakrishnan. It was published in Journal of Transactions on Professional Communication, volume 54, issue number 1 in...

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Best topics on Teamwork

1. The Importance of Teamwork in an Organization

2. Overview of the Qualities of a Good and Effective Team Member

3. My Experience Working in a Group: a Reflection

4. The Essential Role Of Teamwork Versus Individual Work

5. The Effective Implementation Of Teamwork Rather Than Individual Work

6. Building Strong Teamwork From Individual Work

7. The Role of Leadership and Effective Listening in the Efficiency of a Team

8. The Primary Model of the United Nations

9. How to Handle Gossip in the Workplace

10. Promoting Improvement – A Key to Teamwork Excellence Article Analysis

11. The Wolves Performance Review: A Mastery of Teamwork

12. Analysis of Organizational Behavior in the Film “The Devil Wears Prada”

13. Coworking Spaces: Culture, Communication, and ICT for Development

14. Communication Collaboration and Teamwork in the Critical Analysis

15. Collaboration in a Team: The Importance to Compromise

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Teamwork — The Importance of Teamwork: A Path to Success

The Importance of Teamwork: a Path to Success

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Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 675 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Communication: the foundation of teamwork, collaboration: harnessing collective strength, trust: the bedrock of team dynamics, respect: fostering a positive team culture, accountability: delivering on commitments.

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