by DPTS on January 19, 2012
One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts, but team work dynamites. – Jin Kwon
Businesses of today are largely concerned about their profits. They are taking every possible step to increase their turnover. The most important aspect that has a very substantial and positive impact on any business is
teamwork. Effective teamwork is very significant for a company to use employee potential to the fullest. Teamwork is not only used in the corporate world to achieve targets on time, but also in the world of sports. If a team works towards a goal collectively, no one can stop it from reaching its goal. Due to the importance of teamwork in business, employers prefer to hire employees who are good team players.
Requirements for Being a Good Team Member
For becoming a good and effective team player in your company, you are required to have a particular set of skills and capabilities. You most importantly should have a good listening skill. This surely proves to be useful in listening to ideas, views, suggestions and conceptions of other employees or subordinates. You should be able to discuss the ideas and strategies suggested by your colleagues.
You should encourage the participation of every member in the team for a collective effort to achieve a goal. You also need to be able to share knowledge and understanding among the team members. A not to be missed skill is to give respect to others. If you want to be a good team player, you should learn to respect people and their ideas. These are just a few essentials that are required for becoming a good team member. Now let us understand why is teamwork important.
Why is Teamwork Important in Business?
Achieving Goals
It is a widely understood concept, that united we stand and divided we fall. Same is the case of a team in a business. Collective team activities are very important if the company or a process wants to reach its goal. There are some tasks that cannot be done individually, but can be easily accomplished by working in a team.
Increasing Individual Learning
In simple terms, a team is a group of people who have come together for achieving a common objective. Therefore, in a group of people, there are many intelligent minds and brains working. When team members work together as a team, they can learn the skills and capabilities of each other and advance their knowledge. This certainly can be beneficial in your professional as well as personal life.
Resolving Conflicts
There are many types of conflicts that may arise in the company, which may in turn have an adverse effect on the collective output. In order to resolve business conflicts; the knowledge, understanding and expertise can be used efficiently for determining solutions to the problems. This significantly helps the business to grow.
Good Communication
Communication is an inevitably important factor in teamwork. When employees work in a team, they are able to pass on their ideas clearly. This rules out the possibilities of miscommunication due to complex hierarchy in the company. And due to ideas and concepts passed clearly, there is no scope for misunderstanding.
Generating New Business Improvement Ideas
If a manager encourages team members to participate in collective decision making, he will be able to reach a good strategy by considering views and suggestions from all members. The business can also think of incorporating ideas suggested by the team members. Employee participation in the management is a very effective tool in meliorating business strategies.
I hope this explanation might have been helpful for people wondering, why is teamwork important. Those in the team leadership should conduct
team building activities for letting employees know each other better, and work in a team effectively.
by DPTS on December 27, 2011
Teamwork is often misunderstood as the coming together of a group of people working under a particular department. We aren’t wrong, but here we just look at the smaller picture. All the employees in an organization are one single team. Of course, this one team is made up of smaller teams put together but we need to focus more on the bigger picture, right?! Teamwork is essential because it gives you better results and these are achieved faster due to planned and effective working. The importance of teamwork must be explained to all the employees during the training itself. Teamwork if planned properly, can give the best possible results. The employees must be trained to work as a team and not as an individual. For some simple ways to improve teamwork in an organization, let’s read the tips mentioned below.
Ways to Improve Teamwork
Enhance Communication
Communication is what bridges gaps between people in different teams and is one of the key factors to improve teamwork. Most problems arise at a workplace due to lack of good communication skills. It helps to build inter-personal relationships among the team members. Good understanding among team members yields better results for the company. No team can be called a team if there isn’t proper flow of thought and ideas amongst its members.
Team Discussions
If you want to know how to improve teamwork, the easiest way is this. You need to fix a time every week where everyone would get together and discuss what happened in the days that passed. Here people can talk about the good that happened and the bad too and how it can be improved. Suggestions can be taken to make the team function more properly and more effectively. Like it is said, there is always room for improvement and this room can be filled little by little every meeting.
Set Combined Goals
The goals need to be set keeping in mind the bigger picture. The goal should be looked at as a combined goal and not that of self. Growth of the organization should be given top priority for the sole reason that in the progress of the team, lies the progress of the employees. There should be one goal or target for the entire team every one month and this should be divided further into the respective teams. Symbiotic living is necessary if symbiotic processes are needed for output.
Team Building Activities
One of the best ways to improve teamwork is to hold team building activities. There are professionals who specialize in conducting these activities and these can be called during office hours to counsel the employees. The employees get a break from the everyday routine and also get to learn something new. Seminars are another option where team building games can help improve teamwork in the workplace.
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech is very important if you are looking at improving the teamwork in your organization. Every employee has the right to say what he/she thinks is right or wrong and why. There should be regular voting for certain decisions where everyone gets a say and equality is maintained. The freedom of sharing thoughts and views gives the teams a sort of confidence as well. With freedom of speech also comes unity in the form of support of common views.
Now that you know these simple ways to improve teamwork, you can start applying these in your organization soon. These won’t only get you good results, you’ll get them faster too. Teamwork is achieved with continuous effort and now that you know the easy ways to improving teamwork, we hope you implement these as soon as possible in your organization and witness some positive change.
By Neha Joshi, as seen on Buzzle.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube