Are you part of a team? If yes, do your group members know how to reach the common goal? While it seems easy to take teamwork for granted, any good organization knows that it’s among the secrets to the company’s success. Teamwork involves group communication among individual team members, from the chief and senior executives down to the team members. However, there are several teamwork factors to consider in building an effective team. Are you ready to discover which factors can lead you to team success?
Management triumphs are results of teamwork in the workplace. Teamwork adds value and worth to each worker, whether they are leaders or members. Rather than working alone, teamwork in fact is vital to your workplace to yield better results. You may wonder, how can you improve teamwork? Do you need to step up and reach out to each other? What factors make an effective team? Here’s what you need to know.
Importance of Teamwork in the Workplace
As noted above, teamwork is a contributing factor in the success of a company. Working together with a common goal helps employees see purpose in what they do. Indeed, teamwork is important in a workplace for several reasons.
Efficiency
Teamwork results to work efficiency. When tasks are delegated to the right person, output becomes better. Plus, when members work as a team with the same goal, they flourish in their respective tasks. A human body, although having different parts that perform various functions, works as one. Likewise, teamwork entails working with diverse tasks to achieve a common goal. This promotes collaboration, which helps them work better and succeed in a shorter timeframe.
Motivation
When employees are motivated, they work better. One way to instill motivation is through teamwork. Knowing that you aren’t working alone gives comfort and motivation, especially nowadays that most employees work remotely. Being part of a team that supports you with your work goes a long way. This could boost your morale and productivity.
Work-Life Balance
When you’re part of a department with a successful teamwork strategy, work gets easier because you have people who work with you. This helps each team member avoid getting overwhelmed having to do everything. Further, you don’t feel guilty when you’re going on a vacation because you know there’s an entire team who’s got your back. With the pressure and responsibilities spread out, you could thus enjoy work-life balance.
How to Build a Better Team?
Knowing the importance of teamwork induces the will to build a team that works as one rather than separately. This calls for team leaders to promote effective collaboration. Building a strong culture of teamwork helps an organization attain its goals. However, there are a lot of factors both leaders and members need to consider to have a successful team.
Clarity
The goals of the team should be clear to all members for them to be on the same page. Plus, this helps them know where to focus and the reason behind their task. Having a clear goal pushes individual team members to be committed to their work. All tasks should be aligned to the common goal set and agreed upon by the members of the team.
Inclusivity
Let’s face it: We are all different, and being part of a team could be challenging, especially if inclusivity is an issue. An effective team welcomes diversity and uses it as a weapon to flourish. Knowing the skills of the team members and maximizing the differences in delegating tasks could lead to team success. Not to mention, diversity has a positive impact on key aspects of team performance such as increased employee satisfaction, improved decision-making, and enhanced company image, among others.
Accountability
An effective leader knows how to delegate tasks. It’s one way to show that you trust your members. Remember, trust is important in team building. When you’re asked to take charge of tasks given to you, there’s this sense of ownership that encourages you to do a better job. If you want to build a better team, you need members who pursue the same goal.
Empowerment
Empowering and encouraging the members of the team is vital to achieve success. Being part of a team with a common goal is empowering regardless if you’re introvert or extrovert. This is when your skills are used to your advantage and of the team.
To cite an example: On dealing with introverted people, respect their space and allow them to work on processes that highlight their skills such as market research, writing proposals, and the like. On the other hand, assign tasks to extroverts that involve dealing with people. These include presenting proposals to clients, marketing products and services, and more. Doing so empowers them to work at their optimal level. Empowering employees fuels them to be better with what they do.
Five Important Factors for Teamwork
Shared Goals
Better and effective teams should set specific goals to reach, including desired results and timeframe of each project. Thus, the entire team, not only the leader, should discuss and decide on how to achieve successful teamwork. Setting your team goals allows each of your members to lead and guide each other. Having the same goals with your colleagues leads to a stronger bond within the team.
Communication
Exchange of ideas and open banter are important teamwork skills you must learn to improve team relationships. Without these, problems occur and create a gap among members. Teamwork happens when members have open lines that encourage them to talk and listen. Each member pays attention to the group, which eventually plays an integral role in decision making.
Trust
Members should believe that each would perform their specific tasks and duties well. However, without trust, they will just work without caring for their colleagues. Do you want your team to learn what it means to work as a team? Try the rope-challenge course, a game developed by team-building experts to influence teams to solve problems by working together.
Progress
Sometimes, poor group dynamics can affect the team’s efforts to achieve the goal. Thus, you must review the team’s progress from time to time. This allows you more time to correct weak methods and solve sudden problems that may occur. Remember: The team’s success involves checking each member’s progress, and not just a single person.
Cooperation
Effective teams encourage collaboration among their members, rather than a contest that features rivalry just to get ahead at another person’s expense. Hence, when members won’t cooperate with the executive team, team goals are more likely to fail and teamwork remains an unused idea.
Communication Improves Teamwork
Communication is vital in improving teamwork. When a team communicates, everyone will be on the same page. This is needed in order for the members to know what they have to do. Communication helps members to connect better with the others especially when asked to work together. Additionally, employees have psychological safety, which according to a study makes a perfect team.
Communication has been more important than ever because most transactions have transitioned online. This means most meetings are now done using online platforms. Thus, we have to ensure that we communicate in the best possible way. More so, we have to put emphasis on the importance of communication. However, we have to make sure that we don’t overcommunicate. This is because instead of having a productive day, it could lead to distractions. Too much Zoom or Skype calls could blur important details and tasks. They could also distract team members from actually accomplishing something.
Why These Key Teamwork Elements Matter
“What is the benefit of teamwork,” you might ask. Will it help you succeed? Yes, it definitely will! Looking for proof? To add to the list of factors affecting teamwork, let’s refer to the research by Carol Dweck, a psychologist from Stanford University. In her years of study, she found out that one’s attitude could affect their success more than their IQ.
But how does attitude determine your success? Based on the same research, you must determine whether you have a fixed mindset or growth mindset. To which do you think you belong?
In a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. For example, a team leader wants to look smart, yet avoids challenges, gives up at once, sees efforts as futile, and ignores negative feedback. However, if you have a growth mindset, you believe in improving with effort. You embrace challenges, persist through them, welcome criticisms, and see efforts as ways to improve.
The key difference between the two is failure. How do you deal with it? If you’re willing to learn from your mistakes, you’re on your way to the top. So where does successful teamwork come in? Part of your attitude includes the way you view teamwork. Your attitude plays a crucial part in dealing with a team. Are you willing to work with people? Will you accept inputs from others to achieve your goal?
How to Highlight Teamwork as Skills in a Resume?
Teamwork isn’t just a philosophy; it’s a set of skill employers want from employees. Thus, it’s your advantage to include teamwork skills such as communication, conflict management, reliability, and respectfulness on your profile. Regardless if you prosper when working alone or with a group, teamwork is essential because whether you like it or not, we work with different people. Hence, stressing that you’re a team player helps you land a job. Here are some tips on how you can highlight your teamwork skills in your resume.
Focus your skills to the job description
Before writing a resume, check first the qualifications your potential employer is looking for. Once you know the skills needed for the job, highlight all your skills that are related to your target job. Write these skills in the summary and dedicated skill sections of your resume. It’ll be great if you also include these on your cover letter.
Be specific
Be specific with your qualifications. Include your previous role and experience. Plus, make sure to quantify all the skills you’ve mentioned. Give specific instances where you displayed that you’re a team player and what the outcome was. This gives hiring managers the idea how effective you are when working in teams.
Use the right keywords
Incorporate the phrases related to teamwork skills. Don’t just say you’re a team player, instead use keywords that would highlight you’re best for the job. Some examples of these phrases are “I thrive when working in a team” and “I am a committed team player.” Doing this helps your profile pass the ATS (applicant tracking system).
In your pursuit of a better career, you have to be on the front line to take full advantage in the job search game. One way to secure a job is to make sure that your resume is well written. This is possible when you know how to highlight your teamwork skills. However, this could be tasky because you need to take into consideration a lot of things.
Additionally, you would need to have a targeted resume if you want to showcase your skills to match different job postings. Don’t lose heart, there are many resume writing service providers who could help you land your dream job. These service providers have professional resume writers equipped in writing tailored resume to meet your career goals.
