Team Work – Why is it so important?

It is proven through hundreds of research projects, that if we collaborate and pull together our individual strengths we can deliver great product/service consistently and efficiently. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” –Michael Jordan. Each of us brings our special talents, technical/functional expertise and unique style of managing our task at our workplaces. Many of these different talents are in fact necessary to help us deliver best performance.  We all must have seen this happening in many fields such as arts, sports, military forces and other such organizations. However most business organizations are seen to be struggling on this front. Lack of good team-work is an oft quoted reason of failures /losses by many CEOs.

The differences in talents, working styles and mind-sets of team members in fact become the very reason of conflicts, heartburns, rivalry and failures in team-work situations. A team in which members are working against each other, ends up working for competitor! This is so because bad teamwork often results in shoddy work output, poor quality of customer service, wastage of resources and loss of opportunities. The natural beneficiaries of this situation are always your competitors. Hence lack of team-work needs to be taken more seriously by CEOs and employees who wish their organization to survive and prosper.

This also makes it imperative that importance of team-work is ingrained at the individual level and is also be practiced as an organizational value. The starting point of this awareness is to make each team member understand that –“You may not be able to do the things that I do well. I may not be able to do the things that you do well. But together we can do Great Things”. Working in teams and being a good team player not only helps organizations prosper but it also brings multifold benefits to a team player. Some of the most important ones are …

1. Working with team energizes you and gives opportunities to meet new people
2. In your team, you get your best buddies. Many become friends for life.
3. Your team and your buddies can become your support system at work.
4. Being in team provides you an opportunity to learn from each other.
5. Being in team provides you a safety net while you practice on new tasks/skills
6. Being a good team player brings to you opportunities to work on other critical projects with specialized teams. This boosts your professional growth.
7. Being in team reduces stress emerging from coping up with change, complexities and timelines pressures and provides sense of unity of purpose.
8. A good team player always learns the basics of leadership skills (planning, communicating, motivating, conflict management) while working in their teams. Having harnessed these skills such team players become potential leaders for respective organizations. Being an effective team player is the first step towards high performing leadership role.
9. Being a good team player helps you to develop your professional reputation in different work groups/task forces/project groups across organization and enriches your professional network.
10. Finally it is always fun to celebrate success with team than doing it alone!!! Don’t you agree? J

How to become a good team player and ensure better team-work?

1. Understand your team’s objectives clearly
2. Understand your team’s overall plan to meet those objectives completely.
3. Ask questions to understand your particular role in implementing this plan.
4. Ask questions to know the resources that you will get to complete your part of planned project/ assignment? Specific do’s and dont’s involved in our work if any.
5. Anticipate difficulties, dependencies on other teams if any get all queries resolved before you start working with your teammates. It always helps to get internal commitments and agreements with other members sorted out before you start working on your task responsibilities.
6. Ask questions to understand written/unwritten norms/rules/ team processes of your team.
7. Ensure your reliability by meeting your promises/work timelines/ quality standards consistently.
8. Be flexible, positive and accommodative in accepting changes in your work responsibilities / processes / schedule that may benefit the overall quality and efficiency of the team.
9. Motivate/Support others in the team by providing them constructive feedback, sharing information, ideas, expertise and/or simply by appreciating their work.
10. Resolve differences of opinion, relationship issues, and points of conflicts with teammates in a candid one to one discussion with respective members. Feel free to involve your seniors to guide and facilitate this process.

We at CerveauSys Strategic, develop and implement strategic initiatives in your organization to build a culture of team spirit and cohesiveness. We design and conduct special team building training workshops and other OD initiatives for your organization focusing on the unique needs and concerns of your business enterprise.

Let’s work together to build winning teams and high performance organization!