The Essentials of Great Teamwork.

The Essentials of Great Teamwork.

Like most other things Teamwork is a huge subject. There are whole books published on it and various theories and opinions. In this article I will attempt to provide some of the basics. A team differs from a group of people in that it has a clearly defined common purpose and goals with everyone working together to achieve them. Good teamwork can help your self-improvement. Here are some of the reasons we form people into teams:

• They achieve better results than people working alone.

• They get more done in less time than people working alone.

• They work to the strengths of individuals, while compensating for the weaknesses of others.

• They split the work up among members of the team and make the task seem less daunting.

Teams are made up of people and people have certain needs when working together in teams. These have been called The Keys To Effective Teamwork. They include:

1. Communication. This is the essence of effective Teamwork. Effective communication provides understanding, interpretation and action. Ineffective communication leads to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and either inaction or inappropriate action.

2. Active listening. There are two responsibilities here: That of the sender and that of the receiver. The sender must ensure that the message is clear and understood and the receiver must ensure that if the message is not clear that they ask for clarification.

3. Resolving conflict. People are different and inevitably clashes of personality or other conflicts may arise. The conflict must be resolved and people should use an effective, consistent approach to resolve it.

4. Team diversity. People come from different backgrounds and this can present challenges and opportunities. People have to recognise and understand their own uniqueness and that of others and make allowances.

5. Team motivation. Motivation inspires commitment, innovation and teamwork. Team leaders and members need to be aware of the factors affecting motivation and techniques they can use to enhance and maintain motivation levels.

“With teamwork we can build towards excellence”. Stew Leonard.

A team is a feeling of togetherness, involvement and commitment. Like an orchestra everyone has to be playing the same tune even if roles and tasks are different everyone must be working for the same outcome. The more you can do to make people feel good about themselves the better they will perform. So if you work in a team don’t just work to your own self-improvement but help others to work towards their self-improvement as well and soon everyone will be:

“If you take good care of your people they will take good care of your customers. If my people are happy my customers will be happy”. Stew Leonard.