Gaining An Advantage With Teamwork

Many business experts believe that teamwork is critical to their organization’s productivity and profitability. When people work together in an atmosphere of trust and accountability toward a common goal, they put aside turf issues and focus on the tasks to be done. It is widely accepted that teamwork leads to greater efficiency, higher levels of idea sharing, innovative thinking, and a more engaged and motivated workforce.

 Structured correctly, teamwork can be a win-win endeavor for both companies and employees. When leadership communicates clear expectations for the team’s performance and provides expected outcomes, favorable results are obtained. Teams understand why working in a group environment helps the organization attain the communicated business goals. Additionally, team members perceive their service is valuable to the organization as well as to their own careers.

 Teamwork Contributes to the Bottom Line

 As companies are forced to take a hard look at their bottom line, many find it necessary to reduce the size of their workforce. Doing more with less is an answer that draws on all resources to get the job done. Creating teamwork among employees leads to shared performance goals, joint work efforts, mutual accountability—all resulting in increased productivity.

1. Improved performance: Teamwork structured correctly can have a measureable impact on the performance of an organization. Arming teams with a purpose, a direction and a goal, results in a unified effort where work will be finished more quickly with a quality outcome.

2. Two heads are better than one: When a team is able to work well together they accomplish more than individuals can do alone. They bring more and varied resources to the project which leads to better business outcomes. The company saves money while being more competitive in their marketplace.

3. Providing better customer service: In any successful organization a strong team spirit comes across in interactions with its customers. When there is a sense of positive cooperation, every individual in the company will have a confident attitude and a strong sense of advocacy in favor of the company, which will make them want to represent the company in an enthusiastic way. Customers generally gravitate towards businesses that are filled with happy people and that seem to demonstrate a strong work ethic and team spirit.

4. Teamwork lets management focus on the big picture:An organization can’t have success if its leaders are forced to spend hours every day dealing with inconsequential administrative or operational matters. Having a solid team to handle these tasks allows a manager to guide the overall course of the organization without getting lost in the details. Consequently, employees feel part of something larger than themselves and they see the bigger picture, which is driving their actions.

5. Improved Morale: Teamwork allows employees to take greater responsibility for decision-making and also lets them control more of the work process. This can lead to improved morale as employees gain more authority and ownership over the projects they are working on. The extra responsibility can provide a more rewarding work environment and lower turnover. Working on a team also gives employees a greater sense of belonging and of recognition, which helps them take more pride in their work.

 The Benefits of Working Together

People enjoy working together–it helps them grow as they learn from each other. It helps develop skills required of being a teammate and provides a sense of purpose. They’re motivated by peer pressure, they work hard to get their jobs done right the first time and they pull out all the stops to meet deadlines.

1. Heightened communication: Employees who work well together and consider themselves part of a team tend to communicate better.  After awhile teams think of teambuilding as something they do every single day. Enhanced communication between team members can have a profound effect on the team’s overall performance.

2. Teamwork increases efficiency: By having a healthy and productive team, teamwork can allow each person to focus on what they do best. Every individual has specialties, and collaboration allows each person to focus on what he or she does best. Although teams often need time to establish their working relationships before they reap the benefits, any group that perseveres through the early stages and finds a healthy team rhythm will achieve increased efficiency and productivity.

3. Teamwork improves performance: 
When employees are able to focus on what they do best and don’t have to deal with tasks that are beyond their skills or capabilities, they produce higher-quality work. Performance goes hand in hand with efficiency.  When employees are able to focus on something that they love and work best at, they will produce a greater product.  If they don’t have to deal with extraneous tasks or distractions, they can focus on the certain skills that they excel at and use those to produce some amazing results.

4. Teamwork builds competency: 
Although working together enables team members to focus on their core competencies, it can also be broadly instructive. Employees inevitably learn more about what their team members do, and gain a broader understanding of the system of which they’re a part.

5. Teamwork builds trust: 
Every strong team needs a solid foundation of trust, otherwise morale can suffer. A strong team cultivates trust from top to bottom, maintains open lines of communication between all team members, and operates with transparency. Trust is developed through communication, working on projects, and actively engaging one another to meet goals.

6. Teamwork reduces stress: 
 Most employees can endure some pressure over short periods of time, but it’s nice to have teammates who can take some of the load off when things get too intense. It’s good to have some pressure sometimes, but having teammates who can work to make tasks easier will ease a heavy load.  Teamwork will ultimately reduce stress down the line and prevent burnout so teammates can transition properly onto their next tasks.

7. Teamwork leads to innovation: 
We like to think that innovative ideas come in flashes of brilliance, but more often innovation comes from years of hard effort by a group of people rather than an individual. Usually the greatest ideas come when teammates are brainstorming together.  With more than one set of thinkers, there are people to help development, fine tune, and execute a project in the most innovative way possible.